It’s been a while since I did d a bush trip in Microsoft Flight Simulator so the other day I embarked with a friend on a multiplayer trip. The trip, called the “Ocean to Desert,” is one of several trips that World Update 8: Australia added to the sim. Over the first part of the journey, it put us in the cockpit the Diamond DA62 over some vast landscapes.

Multiplayer bush trips?

Before I go any further, those familiar with Bush Trips will know that, by default, these are not multiplayer experiences. They used to be and we’d done a few in the past, but this time around we found that we couldn’t see each other despite being on the same server and in the same group.

Fortunately, there’s a very simple hack that you can do to make this a multiplayer experience again. Change a 0 to a 1 in one of the configuration files for the trip and away you go. The details of how to do that are documented here on the MSFS forums.

Asobo, make a note, bush trips should be multiplayer by default. It’s the best way to experience a bush trip!

Point to point across south central Australia

For this tour I’m going to show you some of what you can see without excessively documenting the whole experience. The bush trip itself is already a fantastic guide and it takes you through various points of interest which we followed along both in-sim and on our phones using Google Maps to get a better sense of the area. I will point out some highlights and show off what you might see along the way!

The trip starts you in Whyalla, South Australia. It’s located in the south central part of Australia and to the north west of Adelaide. This small town is the first of many that we flew over as we ventured north into the arid and hilly terrain that was to come.

The trip took us north, past Port Augusta West, and then into some more mountainous terrain. One of the points of interest along the way was Warren Gorge. As we flew over, both of us were on our phones checking out photos of the real thing. MSFS does it justice as far as we could tell! And it was not the only gorge that we spotted along the way as the whole area gets very rugged.

As we cruised along, I developed the feeling of being quite small in a vast landscape. It’s the kind of place where you look out at the horizon and it just keeps on going forever. It’s something that Microsoft Flight Simulator’s extremely impressive render distances captures extraordinarily well and it certainly took me in.

Although the DA62 is not what you’d traditionally call a “bush plane” it is a good cross country cruiser and all of the airports that we’ve stopped at so far have been well suited to the the aircraft. It also happens to be one of my favorites so that didn’t hurt my experience of this in the slightest!

We have more of this flight to fly before we’re finished but the experience so far has been excellent.