A journey into the seemingly endless nothing turns up many wonders, writes David Whitley.
'What's that?"
As the ceremonial first bite of the roadtrip-starting bacon sandwich sinks in, something scurries across the floor of the Port   Augusta service station. It is, at best, a mouse. Suddenly the sandwich doesn't seem all that appetising.
It's good to set a marker for what's ahead, and the sight of the furtive rodent dispels any remaining illusions that the next 2834 kilometres are going to be full glamour. Driving the entire length of the Stuart Highway is not a mission to be undertaken with any apprehensions of pampered luxury. The vast majority of the trip is a brutal slog through barren, yet oddly wonderful, nothing.
Most settlements along the way are little more than a roadhouse with a couple of shacks tacked on. Anything larger than that tends to be very weird indeed. Yet taken as a whole, it is one of those adventures that feels like an Australian rite of passage. 
The Stuart Highway is named in honour of John McDouall Stuart, who was born 200 years ago on   September 7, 1815. The crotchety Scotsman was, over the course of six gruelling exploratory expeditions, the first man to cross the Australian continent from south to north. The highway largely follows his route.
Whereas now it's a tough slog of a drive, back then it was a truly exceptional feat. There is no permanent source of running water in the 2400 kilometres between Port   Augusta and Katherine, and Stuart's party travelled with minimum resources, surviving on whatever meagre rations they could find on the way.
Leaving Port   Augusta, there's an air of resignation. Seemingly endless nothing lies ahead. But it turns out that seemingly endless nothing is far more impressive than first imagined.
The sheer scale of the starkness, unfolding across the horizon and probably several horizons beyond that, is electrifying. The sense of isolation, of being much smaller than you ever previously imagined, feels oddly liberating. Gentle rises in elevation lead to phenomenal viewpoints, simply because there's nothing else in the way.
It is the sort of land that is perfect for firing rockets into, and that's exactly what happens. Significant chunks of the Stuart Highway's South Australian section pass through the Woomera Prohibited Area - and the weird military township which the exclusion zone takes its name from is the first real stop.
The small visitor centre provides a deeply, and some would say suspiciously, sanitised version of what has gone on. Just a bit of scientific research, you understand. The missiles lined up on display outside the local school would suggest Woomera's experiments haven't exactly been about peace and love, however.
Slightly further on, the highway skirts by Lake Hart. It's not the biggest of the giant salt lakes that cover much of the South Australian outback, but it's the most accessible. A few steps across the train tracks, and feet find themselves by the cracked, icy-looking saltscape. It's a place seemingly stripped of life, struck with an eerie otherworldliness.
If Lake Hart is surreal, though, Coober Pedy is downright bizarre. Since the first opal was found here in 1915 by a 14-year-old boy, miners have flocked from all over the world, leading to a surprisingly cosmopolitan community in the heart of the Outback. Italian clubs, Chinese restaurants and Greek cafes dot the dusty streets, while a Serbian orthodox church has been tunnelled out of the earth.
The latter would be unusual anywhere else, but here, living underground is the norm. Around 80 per cent of the homes in Coober Pedy have been dug into hillsides to escape the savage desert heat.
Faye's Underground Display Home allows visitors to get a glimpse of what these troglodyte abodes are like. Entirely excavated by hand, it first started life as garage for Coober Pedy's mailman before being expanded into a three-bedroom home.
After a few days on the Stuart Highway, a few realisations dawn. Firstly, you can forget about good food. Asking where the best place to eat in Coober Pedy is leads to the pithy response: "Mobil service station." Secondly, any speed limits are purely theoretical, as for the bulk of the time, you'll be stuck behind something. You also find yourself lulled into a certain mode of carefree, uncomplicated donkey work driving. Reality and the normal way of doing things get left behind. And the first roundabout to emerge on entry to Alice Springs comes as something of a shock.
The Northern Territory leg of the highway has a different feel to it. The landscape subtly changes, becoming greener and less dramatically supersized. Roadhouses appear more frequently and each seems to have its own gimmick, whether it's camel rides at Stuart's Well or an injured eagle strutting up and down a perch outside Aileron.
Winning the gimmick wars hands down, however, is Wycliffe Well. The grounds are full of plastic aliens and cheaply homemade spaceships, plus the occasional wooden Elvis. This is the UFO capital of Australia - and they are going to stick that story through hell or high water.
The greatest of the Stuart Highway's overnighters, however, arrives once the desert has properly started to lose the battle to the tropics. Daly Waters has a non-functioning traffic light, permanently on red to trick visitors into staying, and one of the undisputed classic outback pubs. Walls are covered in bank notes from all over the world, while a forest of bras donated by previous visitors hangs down from the ceiling near the pool table. Happy hour drinks get everyone well oiled, so you don't care too much about the spiders in the cabin.
The last leg on the Stuart Highway is the one that takes the longest, largely due to the wealth of highly appealing detours. The final 600 kilometres is back in the land of the ever-flowing water, more croc than camel territory, and the Kakadu, Nitmiluk and Litchfield national parks lie just off Mr Stuart's track.
But the end of the line comes in Darwin, and with most feeble fanfare imaginable. The Highway simply merges into Daly Street in the Darwin CBD, like a whale being swallowed by krill.
The sight of the Timor Sea sends bursts of pride pulsating through the body. Quite how it must have felt for a man who crossed the continent on foot is a different matter.
TRIP NOTES
GETTING THERE
Virgin Australia flies to Adelaide and Darwin from both Sydney and Melbourne. See virginaustralia.com.
STAYING THERE
Majestic Oasis Apartments, Port   Augusta, see oasisportaugusta.com.au.
Desert Cave Hotel, Coober Pedy, see desertcave.com.au.
Quest, Alice Springs, see quest apartments.com.au.
Wycliffe Well Holiday Park, see wycliffe.com.au.
Daly Waters Pub, Daly Waters, see dalywaterspub.com.
Knotts Crossing Resort, Katherine, see knottscrossing.com.au.
TOURING THERE
Major hire car companies can be found at Adelaide and Darwin airports. See vroom.com.au. 4WDs are needed for some of the more remote detours along the route.
MORE INFORMATION
southaustralia.com, travelnt.com.