Road trip from Brisbane to Sydney

dixierip

Myself, wife and two children are going to Australia for holiday in January. Part of this will involve a campervan road trip from Brisbane to Sydney. Just wondering what people think are the must dos and must sees?

Jagera

How long do you plan to take?

You can take the inland New England highway and take in a bit of outback Australia, or take the Pacific Highway and take in the coast. Both highways are around 1000km. You can, of course, do a bit of both - just cross over from one to the other.

If you take the inland way, you could go out as far as Dubbo, and see the Western Plains Zoo, and then come into Sydney via the Blue Mountains.

A lot of the country towns have great National Parks nearby, with loads of amazing scenery, museums, water falls & all that.

EVERY town has its own tourist information centre - which are great for popping in and asking "what is good for me to see around here?" They all take pride in showing off their little towns.

Mellor

Big giant bananna

Gonzales

I did that trip in reverse from Sydney to Brisbane, we did it in 6 days.
one tip is not to travel every day, try to keep your driving to at most every second day. I reckon we had too much mileage to cover in 6 days. try to allow yourself 8-9 days so you are actually holidaying & not just driving all the time

Byron bay is lovely & we were sorry we didn't have more time there- this for us was the must see. everything else can take or leave it. Brisbane is a nice relaxed with with a nice riverside walk & market.

enjoy & drive safe- make sure you know & comply to laws regarding child restraint- check it out with the campervan vendor.

Stinicker

Gonzales wrote: »

I did that trip in reverse from Sydney to Brisbane, we did it in 6 days.
one tip is not to travel every day, try to keep your driving to at most every second day. I reckon we had too much mileage to cover in 6 days. try to allow yourself 8-9 days so you are actually holidaying & not just driving all the time

Byron bay is lovely & we were sorry we didn't have more time there- this for us was the must see. everything else can take or leave it. Brisbane is a nice relaxed with with a nice riverside walk & market.

enjoy & drive safe- make sure you know & comply to laws regarding child restraint- check it out with the campervan vendor.

I drove from Sydney to Hervey Bay which is a bit further up north than Brisbane in three days this July. The foot was to the floor as we were heading up North to Queensland but we took the Pacific Highway and our itenerary went like this:

Day One: Sydney to Taree, Left Sydney in the afternoon, drove out to Bondi Beach, spent an hour there, drove out over the Sydney Harbour Bridge up to Palm Beach where Home & Away is filmed. Spent the evening there then got back on the Pacific Highway, headed north for a few hours and stopped off the Highway into a small town called Taree, plenty nice cheap Motels, stayed there for the night. The Bars close at 11pm so there is not much to do really.

Day Two. Taree to Byron Bay, Visited the Koala Wildlife Park just off the Motorway outside Port Macquarie, lovely to interact with the Koala's and feed the Kangeroos and Wallabies. As you have Children I would definitely recommend this.

Arrived into Byron Bay in the evening after spending two hours or there abouts in the koala park. Byron Bay is a nice spot, full of surfers, backpackers and alternative "hippy" types. The lighhouse is cool and we got left in before it closed and the nice chap there told us some stories of its history and showed us the antique nicknacks. As you will have a camper van driving up to the top will be tricky so you may have to park further down the road, which operates on a one way system with one road leading up to the lighthouse and another back down. There is parking wardens so becareful and one VW Camper got a $200 parking fine while I was there.

This is the most Easterly point on the Australian continent and we were very lucky and priviliged to see migrating schools of Humpback whales migrating North from the bitter cold Antarctic winter. Accomodation in Byron Bay was Motel again and and reasonable, walk-in from the street! Byron Bay beach is lovely too.

Day Three: Byron Bay to Hervey Bay, we spent most of the afternoon in Byron so left late and spent the remaining hours just driving bar a stop off for Dinner in the town of Kempsey; from here I drove further North around the environs of Brisbane which is a large urban sprawl with the road widening out to 8 & 9 lanes at its widest, the infrastructure is excellent and with my SatNav I never dithered, however all of us were in agreement that I was the man for this stretch of the Motorway! Brisbane looks nice but we never went there and after our excursions up in Queensland at the Great Barrier Reef we drove back down to Brisbane Airport for a flight to Sydney for our flight back to LAX for a few days in LA & Vegas and onwards to Heathrow.

Having travelled around the world these road trips were the highlights of the holiday and getting to see the scenery and all that goes with it was brilliant. Driving in Australia is to be savoured and I think you will have a great time, don't rush it and it will be a lifetime memory!