Australia and Japan trip May 2026

[J1000]

Last night at the meeting I got a lot of questions about my rental cars during my vacation and was encouraged to write up a trip report. @MeatPopsicle and I went on a 3 week vacation for our 10 year wedding anniversary and had a blast. We spend about 2.5 weeks in Australia and then 5 days in Japan.









We flew into Sydney and spent a day seeing the sights. We are not city people so we immediately flew to Adelaide.











In Adelaide I rented a 76 Series Land Cruiser. That's what everyone cares about It was a 5-speed truck with the 4.5L twin turbo diesel V8. I debated about getting the same truck with the 2.8L 4-cylinder diesel, but I'm glad I got the V8. Fuel was expensive, 2.25 AUD per liter, about $7 per gallon, but the 2.8 probably would have only saved a few liters anyway.

It was well setup with Toyo Open Countrys, snorkel, and bull bar.



I rented from Complete Ute and Van Hire in Adelaide (https://completeuteandvanhire.com.au/). I highly recommend this company. It was super easy to reserve the vehicle and the communication from the staff was excellent. They have several LCs to choose from, other 70s with pickup beds, the new 250 with 2.8L diesel, also Hilux and Rangers and other Aussie utes. When we dropped it off they didn't try to nickel and dime us either. You can even rent a UHF radio as a lot of their customers use the vehicles in the outback.







We hit the road and headed to the ferry terminal to Kangaroo Island.









The truck was the perfect vehicle for Kangaroo Island, or KI as they call it. As soon as we hit the washboard roads the 76 was in its element and the ride smoothed out. It had a massive bull bar on the front which gave us peace of mind. The wildlife in Australia are constantly jumping in front of cars. Kangaroos and Wallabies are like really stupid deer. We saw so much roadkill and busted front bumpers. We knew that the 76 would win any collision but luckily we never came close to hitting anything. Driving the LC also helped us fit in with the locals, other drivers would wave as we passed them and they gave us priority parking on the ferry.









The LC had a huge fuel tank, 140 liters, so we drove all the way to KI and back just about under 1/2 tank. Ended up driving 802 km and the LC returned 22 MPG. Speed limits were low, mostly 80kph or lower. We never went above 115 kph.

 

[J1000]

The V8 diesel was awesome, I quickly found out that starting in 2nd was the smoothest and once moving I could drive everywhere in 4th or 5th gear. At about 1000 RPM in 4th you could put your foot down and it would just pull and it would climb any hill on the highway in 5th. I saw other 70s pulling massive trailers and boats around. The 70 series is like the Super Duty of Australia from what I could tell.


























We returned the LC and grabbed another flight to Melbourne. We rented a campervan and took the Spirit of Tasmania to Devonport, Tasmania. About this time we regretted turning in the LC as the campervan was really uncomfortable and annoying to drive. It was an LDV which is a Chinese built van. It was obviously a LHD model they just mirrored the driving position to RHD, but there was no place to put your left foot. Everything was also controlled by a touchscreen panel and it had all sorts of "driver assist" features that we had to disable every single time we started it up. It also had a driver monitoring camera that uses AI to see if you are using a phone while driving or falling asleep....I guess?





Our hotel was in an old prison which was pretty cool.







Chinese van seating position, knees hitting the dash and arms fully extended.





AI cameras






Anyway the van was a means to an end and Tasmania was absolutely beautiful. Of course it didn't stop me from spotting all the cool LCs around. We spotted some wild platypus and saw a wedge tailed eagle and little blue penguins.

 

[J1000]

Spotted this truck and immediately thought of @DomOfTheDead :







We hiked up Cradle Mountain in the rain and saw some more wildlife.





















We used the camp kitchen and made a fire with an old guy we met there and talked with him for several hours. He and his son have a Nissan Silvia that they rally race around Australia, he just turned 80 and on a trip by himself in a campervan.

















Countdown til someone in our club has this plate.

 

[J1000]

Our last day in Tasmania was in Hobart where we stayed in a 1860s house and pretended to be British.















From Tasmania we flew to Brisbane for another day and saw more animals at the zoo.








Then we flew to Osaka, Japan for the final leg of our trip.













In Osaka I rented a Mazda RX-7 from Mr. Hiro Car Studio. I really wanted to rent a GT-R but it was in maintenance. In the end, I'm glad the GT-R wasn't available because it was a bigger and wider car than the RX-7, and the roads are very narrow. We followed GPS and it lead us down some really small roads which was exciting to say the least.

 

[J1000]

Driving in Japan was awesome, but stressful. The traffic lights and road marking were a little confusing but we quickly figured it out. Other drivers were courteous and respectful even when we made a wrong turn or held up traffic. I was surprised that all the vehicles on the road were in nearly perfect condition.



Our first stop was a strawberry farm and we ended up on a road in between two rice paddies that was literally no wider than the car. When we got to the farm it was end of season and everyone was leaving for the day but when the workers saw us pull up and get out they started chatting with us, when we said we were American they immediately said "ok wait here" and went and filled a box up with fresh strawberries and gave them to us for free, we tried to give them cash but just said to enjoy the strawberries. Every single one was perfect and delicious, not a single blemish, we ate them over 3 days.

We stayed in a traditional ryokan hotel which was awesome. I was not prepared for the traditional Japanese breakfast





The rules are strict in Japan and the speed limits are extremely low. Most of the driving was at 40 to 60 kph. Only on the expressway could we get up to 80 kph. The rental terms with Mr. Hiro basically covered me for anything and everything, except if I was speeding.

Also I was limited to 5,000 RPM. The car had a dash cam and GPS etc so I just followed the speed limits. I did open it up a few times and even under 5000 RPM it pulled well, I never felt like it had a lack of torque that rotaries are known for, but that's probably the twin-turbos kicking in






The RX-7 was such a good looking car, I couldn't help but stare at it every time I got out. We drove through some really touristy areas in Nara, Uji, and Kyoto and it caught the attention of other tourists. Tons of people would just stop and whip out their phone or camera when we drove past, which was pretty cool!



We petted the deer in Nara and bought a boat load of tea in Uji. I got really good at reverse parking.













We followed the GPS in Kyoto after missing a turn and ended up on the tiny streets of Gion. We panicked but made our way slowly through the crowds and came out unscathed.



The RX-7 lived up to it's rotary heritage and delivered 12 MPG during our journey We never even went over 60 MPH!


I was totally blown away by the culture and people in Japan, especially in Osaka/Kyoto area. The cities were immaculate, zero trash. Even the river was pristine, we tried multiple times to spot a piece of trash in the river and I think we saw one soda can on the path, otherwise it was completely clean. I thought about the Platte river and how filthy it is.

 

[J1000]

I went to an Up Garage but couldn't find anything I needed. We only had time to hit one store unfortunately.






I ran into a local parking his Miata in Kyoto and showed him my Miata t-shirt. He asked to take a picture of me with his car and we chatted in broken English/Japanese about Miatas and followed eachother on X then went our separate ways.











We took the high speed train to Tokyo for the last 2 days.

















All in all was an awesome trip. Definitely need to visit Aus and Japan again to see more stuff and have more adventures. Japan is definitely bucket list tier. I want to drive in Japan again but I'll just get a normal rental car and maybe do a track day or something a JDM legend.


Even after a trip like this it's still a good feeling to come home and see the Rocky Mountains.

 

[Johnny Utah]

Fantastic Jimmy! Thanks for sharing this trip with us! Amazing photos!

 

[lars]

Two of my favorite countries. Thanks for sharing your trip.