Australia is a BIG country

[VK4ADC]

Whilst it is "normal" to travel long distances in Oz I think the downside of doing so is you miss the details that you might otherwise find if you took your time.
...
I would dearly like to stop and explore some of the places along the way but there's little time for that (besides safety breaks) because it bites into time spent at the destination. 

It's nice to take the time to "smell the flowers" but sometimes that is not possible. We try to do that one-way and low-fly the return (or vice versa).  But if you need to get somewhere - not a very close somewhere at that - then it becomes amazing how far you can drive in one day and there is usually a lot more distance beyond that to further destinations.

Towing a caravan alters the perspective a bit too. Not the speed because you can tow at 100 or 110KPH with most vehicles without too significant a fuel penalty but because you can stop at will and have a morning cuppa and then, later, a lunch break, self-hosted. Plus we tend not to travel for as much of the day so can spend time at intermediate destinations thus "smelling the flowers". Last year we did a trip nominally Brissy to Rocky, about 1300KM up and back the Pacific Hwy, but we took the round-trip scenic route adding about 1000KM extra to the trip along with about 2 weeks of looking around.  It's great not to be in a hurry all of the time.

Go back to that original image (Post #1) and see how many countries you would have passed through doing a couple of thousand Kms.