Customer Reviews

Moon Handbooks : Outback Australia (2nd Ed)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For our trip to Australia we bought both the Lonely Planet and the Moon Handbook for Outback Australia.
I didn't know any of the Moon Handbooks until I bought this one, but I'd read good reviews about Moon handbooks for other destinations. When I started reading this one it was disappointing. I am sure that it is quit satisfactory when you travel to the most visited highlights of Outback Australia. But our destinations were mainly Cape York and the Tanami Road. Cape York isn't mentioned at all in this book because they leave out this part of Queensland (which sure is Outback) and the Tanami Track was only mentioned in 3 sentences. Compare this to the 6 very detailed pages in LP about this road. The same thing goes for the Gibb River Road which will be our next destination in Australia.
I also missed enthusiasm for the country but that is a also a minor in all the LP books I've bought so far. Later I read the Rough Guide about Outback Australia (in which the author has a very refreshing view on the country) and I wished I had bought that one instead of the Moon and that would have been a perfect combination with the LP.
My conclusion is that if you just stick to the most visited highlights and have a more or less organized trip this book will be fine. But if you're off the beaten track in a 4x4 this book is worthless. We hardly used it. In that case the LP guide for Outback Australia is much better.

It is one of the few guides which actually covers the North Coast and the Kimberley of Australia, the extreme northwestern area of the continent. The coverage is limited to about 20 pages of approximately 400, but at least it recognizes the area.