Wet season in northern Australia: roads, depots and 4WD camper hire from November to April

The northern wet season: November to April

The wet season is the monsoon in the tropical north: the Kimberley, the Top End, the Gulf country and Cape York. Most of the year's rain falls between December and March, it is cyclone season, and nights stay around 25 degrees. Unsealed roads close, several camper depots close with them, and we do not recommend a 4WD camper trip through the north in these months. This page says what happens when, which depots and campers it affects, and where a camper trip works instead.

What the weather does

Darwin gets about 1,700 millimeters of rain a year, nearly all of it from December to March. Days reach 32 to 33 degrees with humidity above 80 percent, and the nights hardly cool down. Thunderstorms build most afternoons in the build-up and the early wet; later the monsoon brings days of steady rain. The Bureau of Meteorology's cyclone season runs from November to April along the whole northern coast.

There are fine mornings and sunny spells, but the humidity does not lift. Mosquitoes and sandflies are at their worst. In a camper that matters at night: most have a 12-volt fan at best and no cooling while parked, and children sleep badly.

Roads and parks

Every unsealed road in the Kimberley and the Top End closes. Main Roads WA closes the Gibb River Road from about December to April and reopens it stretch by stretch once the water drops and the surface is repaired; in some years that is late May. The same goes for the track into Purnululu, the Mitchell Plateau, Jim Jim Road and the other 4WD tracks in Kakadu, the Bloomfield Track and the Peninsula Developmental Road to Cape York.

Sealed highways flood too. The Stuart Highway at Katherine and the Victoria Highway near the border close whenever those rivers rise, and Highway 1 between Broome and Derby has been cut for a week at a time. A tight itinerary does not survive that.

Western AustraliaMain Roads WA's Travel Map shows every closure and the Gibb's current status.
Northern TerritoryThe NT Road Report, and Kakadu's access and alerts page for the tracks inside the park.
QueenslandQLDTraffic for the Peninsula Developmental Road and the Bloomfield Track.

Depots and campers in the wet

Many campers can't be collected or returned in Broome, Darwin or Alice Springs from 1 December to 31 March, including the Apollo, Britz and Mighty 4WDs and some Hilux campers. In the same months the Apollo, Britz and Mighty 4WDs are collected in Sydney and Melbourne instead.

Some campers stay available from Darwin and Broome through the wet. Whoever collects one agrees the itinerary with the depot manager at handover, who can rule out roads and regions on the day's conditions, and a closed road stays closed whatever the booking says. The locations page shows which depots open when, and each camper's page shows its own dates.

Swimming

Box jellyfish and Irukandji are in the sea from about November to May along the whole northern coast, from Exmouth round to Bundaberg. Broome's beaches, including Cable Beach, carry stinger warnings for those months. Saltwater crocodiles live in every tidal river and many freshwater ones all year, and move further in the wet; the park signs and closures are the rule, not advice.

Where a camper trip works instead

The south of Western Australia has its summer from December to March: Perth around 30 degrees, dry, with the unsealed roads of the south-west, the Stirling Range and the coast to Esperance open. Kalbarri and the Coral Coast are hot but fine; Exmouth is at the edge of the cyclone belt. Coastal campsites are booked out from Christmas to late January and fire bans are common, so the trip needs reservations and a plan for hot days.

From Sydney and Melbourne the summer-only 4WDs reach the Victorian high country, the New South Wales coast and South Australia's outback tracks before the heat. Tasmania's season is the same months. The Red Centre is above 40 degrees in January and February and is not an alternative.