Hello,

We are landing in Melbourne on the 12th Feb 2014, and have around a month to enjoy ourselves before heading to NZ for 2 months.

We are looking for places to go/ideas for a general plan of action whilst we are over there.

We are thinking:
1 week Melbs
1 Week Sydney (internal flight over)
???
???
Fly from Melbs to NZ

So, has anyone got an ideas of things we can do to fill the gaps?

Cheers!

Go north to the forests and reef? Fly to the nipple of Australia.

Hire a car and drive from Sydney up the coast road to the gold coast/Brisbane or further (Cairns?) fly back to Melb from coolangatta/Bris/Cairns. take your time and stay at beach campsites on the way up, it’s still warm at that time (sea and weather). If you do decide to do this, I can give you a list of the best beach campsites between Sydney and Brisbane. would be a nice alt from doing 2 weeks of city sightseeing.

At least a week in Tasmania, I’ve been to Australia 4 times now and its the best place ive been. We travelled around, so 2 days in Hobart, 2 on east coast, 2 in the centre then 2 south of Hobart. Genuinely lovely place with lots of different terrain types in a relatively small area.

Get the India Pacific over to Perth. But get a sleeper cabin, don’t sit up all day and all night for 3 days (and again on the way back) 😯

+1 for tassie, give me a shout can organise a ride or point you in the right direction – into Launceston out of Hobart to Sydney
http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=3297
http://www.bayoffires.com.au/
http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/?base=3363
http://www.mona.net.au/
Add in Maria Island, Brun Island, The west coast, http://www.franklinriverrafting.com/
and a bit more could do the month here.

My folks are doing a month, after Perth, hitting Adelaide and some wine tours, Barossa/McLaren Vale, then Great Ocean Road, Melbourne, Tassie to see us and then off to Sydney.

Grampians north of Melb is good, plenty to see but cities are just cities wherever you go.

1 week is too long in Sydney. A few days then go inland to Broken Hill. Lovely train ride, good little town and the old mines(that you can go down) are great. You’ve got Silverton and the night safaris are good.

I never went to Tassie, but wished I had done. Everyone who I know that has been raves about it. I lived in Melbourne for a few months & would say a week might be a bit much (same for any city really IMO).

A few days driving up the Great Ocean Road is definitely a good call – get a campervan or a car & a tent and just go – plenty of nice coves to stop at and free campsites if you look for them. Possibly continue from GOR to Adelaide or even better if you get a 4WD Land Cruiser and take the Oodnadata Track and drive all the way to Alice Springs to visit Uluru and have a proper outback experience. Would need some careful planning, but I reckon you’ll be able to find a 1 way hire company, then fly Alice Springs to Syndey. If you do make it up that way, visit King’s Canyon.

Reckon you could fill a couple of weeks with that itinerary. Add in a week on Tasmania & a few days either side in Melbourne & Syndey – jobs a good un! For me travelling around Oz was more about being on the ground & discovering all the natural wonders. Driving allows you the freedom to come and go as you please.

Driving allows you the freedom to come and go as you please.

It does but it take a long time!

ah yes – tasmania! how could I leave that off the list. 100% working that into it.

Driving up the gold coast does sound the dream indeed.

Thanks for the links there Mike, going to sink my teeth into!

Great ideas, keep them coming!

If your going to Sydney The Blue Mountains are worth a trip for a couple of days. very easy to access via train from Sydney too.

Top tip for the Great Ocean Road; drive straight through to Warnambool & drive the GOR from west to east. Tour buses can only come the other way & most other people go that way.
If you do get to Hobart, give us a shout.

true dat, the place is massive!

depends what you like, felt much like Benidorm to me, as did a lot of the East Coast.

My main bit of advice would be don’t try to do too much! For 5 days or so I’d recommend a road trip from Sydney heading down the south coast of NSW to Merimbula way (stop of at Hyams Beach on Jervis Bay for some of the whitest sand and best cafe food (my family’s) in the world, head inland up into the Snowies. Then you could go to Canberra if you want (but not a huge amount to recommend it for the tourist) or further inland through towards Cowra, Orange, Bathurst sort of way and back over the Blue Mountains to Sydney. You would see a huge variety of landscapes. If you go wanting to see the barrier reef, uluru, etc etc and tick off the list you won’t really have time to enjoy any of it.

Keep in mind at that time of year Queensland much north of Brisbane you can’t really swim and central australia (including Broken Hill etc) will be unbearably hot. Tassie, Snowies, South east are a good bet for this reason.

I did a month, east coast only.

Things I liked:

Sydney
Fraser Island
Cairns
Airlie Beach
Byron Bay

Things I didn’t like:

Brisbane
Gold Coast
Whitsundays

Things I wish I’d done:

Perth

Totally depends what you like. A month is a reasonable amount of time.

Sydney is nice, but it’s just a big city in a beautiful setting

Melbourne is just a big city with lots of trams and coffee

Tassie, GOR (I’m in Lorne as I type) and snowies are a must. Perth and sw wa also good. I’d really suggest somewhere a bit out if the way like Northern NSW hinterland, which is stunning, not too touristy, but has some really nice villages and towns too.

I’m on holiday and typing in my phone now, but email me (in profile I think) and I’ll get back to you when I’m home

Prob not much to add, but we drove the GOR from Melbourne then on to Adelaide over a week or so. Had a couple of days in Melbourne first, then picked up a car and headed off.

We stopped off wherever we felt like, my memory is a bit hazy of the details sadly (it was a while ago!) but we certainly stopped at the You Yangs for a walk on the way out of Melbourne, stopped round Torquay/Jan Juc/Bells Beach, Otway NP somewhere, Port Campbell and the 12 Apostles, Port Fairy. Had a couple of days on Kangaroo Island, then Adelaide and a flight up to Airlie Beach for a week or so, did some sailing/diving on the Barrier reef for a few days and a bit of good old fashioned partying 🙂

I would very much like to go back, Tassie is on the list of places to go!

Great time of year, though the Blue Mountains could be bloody hot.
Personally, I’d skip Sydney entirely, or at least allow only a couple of days to see the Opera House and take the ferry across the harbour to Manly. If you had to go to Sydney, you could drive the coast route (Sapphire Coast – not as bling as the Gold Coast) stopping at some fantastic beaches. Then, if you discover that you’re into beaches, fly up to Byron, Noosa or even all the way up to N Qld and Cairns, Mission Beach, the Gt Barrier Reef.

Personally, I’d happily spend the whole time in Victoria and Tasmania. NE Vic is great – Beechworth, Bright etc – as is Wilsons Prom, the Otways, Melbourne… In Tassie: Hobart for a few days, the east coast beaches, Cradle Mountain, Franklin-Gordon if you want to get adventurous, though water will be low then).

Not been to the Kimberley but the consensus is that it’s incredible.

Screw the cities – they’re just cities.

Fraser Island is damn nice, the Gold Coast is not.

Travel along any semi populated bit of coast and it’ll mostly be loverly.

We did a similar thing a few years ago, albeit without Melbourne.

We flew into Sydney, couple of days there then flew up to Brisbane.

From there we hired a car and drove up to Cairns stopping off at places we liked the look of en route. We had a start and end point with no real itinerary in the middle – so long as we hit Cairns by a certain date for our internal flight back to Sydney we could remain flexible. Magnetic Island, Keppel Bay Islands and Fraser Island are all worth a visit.

If you do get as far north as Cairns, its well worth a night at the Sanctuary at Mission Beach just south of Cairns. Your pretty much sleeping on the jungle floor at night which is quite an experience.

Melbourne is just a big city with lots of trams and coffee

and shopping and fashion and shopping and coffee – it’s a city if flying into Melbourne and that is sorted then you can do stuff and get the ferry to Tas’ takes about 20hrs google Spirit of Tasmania – see a bit of Tasmania and then fly from Hobart to Sydney if that fits plan

this is an obtuse but actually good guide to Melbourne http://www.whitehat.com.au/ or the Frommers book Melbourne Free and dirt cheap is up to date and worth using

edit with the whitehat need to look at newsletter page

1 week is too long in Sydney.

Agreed. Well worth a couple of days meandering, though! 🙂

Well, if in Melbourne, you should try to get to Tasmania as the flights are pretty cheap and Tassie is beautiful. While in Melbourne try and have a meal on the colonial restaurant tram – good food and all inclusive booze.
A trip up to the dandenongs and a day out on the steam train ‘puffing billy’ is a nice day out.

Interesting what you’re all saying about the cities… maybe we will cut down the time in Sydney.

Keen for a few days/week in Melbourne just to sort of relax and chill before starting adventures – then get stuck into adventures proper.

Ah it’s all very exciting!

As above, can do Sydney in less than a week! 5 days comfortably

Not thinking Perth?

Driving up the gold coast does sound the dream indeed.

No it’s horrible, don’t bother with that at all if you’ve only got one month.

If you can, WA is the ‘real’ Australia. I drove round most of Aus and WA was by far the stand out area, the east coast was an anti climax after the west. Get to Perth and if you can, down to Margarets River and up to Ningaloo Reef, much more accessible than the barrier reef, just walk into the bath temperature water off the white sand beach and straight onto the reef, surrounded by amazing fish. Depending when you are there there are whales and manta rays and turtles and all sorts too. I loved Perth and having a beer at Cottesloe as the sun sets over the Indian ocean is a real treat.

Melbourne and Victoria in general are lovely. Great ocean road is a lovely drive.

Byron is amazing and inland from there is stunning. Fraser Island is pretty cool for a day or two.

Nullarbor is quite an experience to cross in a camper van, probably the most isolated I will ever be in my life.

Sydney, very scenic, its nice to get the ferries everywhere but it didn’t appeal to me that much. Blue mountains are pretty but absolutely crawling with tourists.

To be honest, australian cities are just other cities where people speak english, drive on the left and drink beer and coffee, so I would make the emphasis on getting away from the cities. A month is long enough to see some amazing sights. I’m well jeal!

Gave me an excuse to look through some of the pics we took. I need to get saving and get back 🙂

They are some fantastic photos – so amped.

Going to basically write down a list of things we fancy from suggestions here and see how we can string them all together, thanks everyone for the suggestions.

Going to be a great month…!

Other places I have visited:
Sydney-meh tbh, but then I don’t like cities
Southern Hunter Valley, if wine is your thing then it’s close to the metropolis.
Blue Mountains – Nice scenery, but quite busy on the popular bits.
Budawangs – Similar scenery to Blue Mountains, but with no people as it’s about 4hrs from Sydney
NSW South Coast, lots of lovely places like Jervis Bay, where you can go Dolphin Watching. My folks live here, so things like Fitzroy Falls, Minnamurra rainforest and Jamberoo water park are close.
Snowy Mountains – proper hills, with a bike park I believe.
Fraser Island – different feeling, incredible place.
Gold Coast – Bleaugh

Just go to Tassie for a month though, and don’t forget to ask for a map!

Driving up the gold coast does sound the dream indeed.
No it’s horrible, don’t bother with that at all if you’ve only got one month.

A bit of confusion, my original ref was to the drive up the Great Ocean Road, Hunter Valley, Byron Bay etc and beyond. The Gold Coast bit is a bit of a resort.

Tasmania:

Melbourne will be nice that time of year. Lots of options though.
Have a look round the city – there is always some sort of festival or expo on.
Cycle path east along the bay – St Kilda beach, through Brighton to Black Rock (lots of places to eat/ drink, swim, relax.

Mornington and Dandenongs are daytrips from the city. The former has nice beaches – inner bay beaches on one side, rough ocean on the other. The latter has nice Rhododendron gardens. Both have vineyards.

Head east to Wilsons Prom (wonderful remote peninsula), west up GOR past Anglesey (surf central) to Otways and beyond, eventually hitting Kangaroo island.

Tazzie is meant to be ace.

I would pick out what you fancy the most rather than try and do everything. Australia is huge.

Bigjims is a good shout for WA but you’d have to be prepared for some long days behind the wheel but these can be very rewarding. we travelled from perth to broom in an old van via places such as the pinnacles, shark bay, wooleen station, coral bay, ningaloo reef. if you do decide to travel the west coast google wooleen station. worked there a few years ago…. covers half a million acres and has some spectacular scenery especially during the wild flower season.

If going near Brisbane then Moreton Island is lovely for swimming with Dolphins. And our lass says Moreton Bay bugs are lovely to eat. (it’s a crayfish type thing not insect).

Me and the better half lived in Oz for a couple of years. We managed to get 5 weeks holiday and thought about doing a big Oz tour. After researching transport and places where we wanted to go we ended up just doing NSW and the places bordering Queensland. The place is vast. The rural towns of NSW are great fun.

get the ferry to Tas’ takes about 20hrs google Spirit of Tasmania –

No point, you can’t take a hire car/camper easily, it’s exceptionally expensive, it’s a bit dull after 3 hrs. It’s a 50min flight to Launceston, you can book all you internal flights with your main flight through a travel agent at a better price.

I was over last year. Instead of hiring a car, I bought a motorbike, did 10,000 miles.

Oz bikeys are friendly so you have a handy resource in any strange place – much better than going by car.

Absolutely the best way to see Oz IMO, and if you stop anywhere buy a bike.

A wee taster.

Unless you like cities, just keep clear of them.

Wouldn’t spend to much time in the cities… They are cities after all.

If you like wine try South Australia, over 200 cellar doors! need I say more. (Note; the Oz wine you get in Tesco’s is rubbish! they keep all the good stuff for themselves!)

http://www.southaustralia.com/food-and-wine/wine-regions.aspx

Do the GOR it really is beautiful. And a road trip is a must. You can’t grasp the scale of the country till you do.

Have a Parmy in a local pub…

Feeling brave then I’d go for this…

http://www.sharkcagediving.com.au/

It’s on my list!

Give us a shout if you need any further tips…

Far North Queensland, Cooktown for remoteness, off roading up there on the Bloomfield track, Mission Beach, snorkeling on the reef – see loads and all in a day, Noosa Heads for surf and relaxation. Port Douglas is great. Go and visit some tropical rainforest.

benjbish – Member
Far North Queensland, Cooktown for remoteness, off roading up there on the Bloomfield track, Mission Beach, snorkeling on the reef – see loads and all in a day, Noosa Heads for surf and relaxation. Port Douglas is great. Go and visit some tropical rainforest.

+1

Cairns Esplanade

Coastal scrub (Bunya, Brisbane)

Central Queensland bush

Scrabbling through some rainforest (North Queensland)