I am lucky enough to have friends who live outside the UK that I can stay with, In the last 9 months I’ve been to Israel and the Netherlands to stay with friends, but one friend lives in Australia and we would love to go and visit him for a trip before the kids get too much older! He lives in Sydney, which would be an amazing city to explore of course, but there are a few road trips I would love to tick off my travel bucket list too.
Syndey to Brisbane
We’d more than likely fly into Sydney to spend time with our friend before doing any exploring, but once we’ve made the most of the city I think we’d head out along the highway to Brisbane. According to the route planner it’s about an 11 hour drive, though we’d do this over three of four days I think, stopping at various points on the way. The thing with kids is that hey get tired easily, and also need a lot of down time when you’re expecting them to be excited and full of energy each day, so we’d rather not pack too much into our daily schedules and take it a bit slower. There are the vineyards of Hunter Valley, Byron Bay with its surfers and lighthouse and finally on to Brisbane, with Mount Coot-tha looming above it, home of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens.
Fraser Island and the 75 Mile Highway
Shipwrecks, Sand as far as the eye can see, forests, a highway that is actually just sand… for 75 miles. Oh, and the iconic 12 Apostles. What’s not to love?
Fraser Island has been at the top of my list ever since a friend went in a gap year and shared so many gorgeous photos of the island, on the east coast of Australia in Queensland. Lush and green with beaches of golden sand stretching in all directions. It’s the largest sand island in the world, in fact! We’d drive from from Brisbane, along the Sunshine coast through Toolara State Forest, on past rainbow beach and then a ferry on to the Island itself. I love some of the town names in this area of the country too; Gin Gin, Good Night, Bungadoo and Mount Glorious are my favourites!
I think for this trip a caravan would be the perfect way to explore and sleep, we can hitch it up for the longer journeys but un-hitch it and go off road (or on beach!) for shorter expeditions. It means we wouldn’t have to pack and unpack each night at a different hotel or motel and would be able to save money on eating out as we could barbecue and prepare food in the little kitchen in the caravan. I think the best idea would be to search for a caravan on Gumtree, and then sell it on again at the end of our trip, we’d not be using it for long so it hopefully wouldn’t depreciate in value too much and hopefully another travelling family could love it and make memories in it too!
Darwin, Kakadu National Park & Alice Springs
If you want gorgeous sunsets and waterfalls then this is the road trip to pick. Some of the photos of the waterfalls and rivers around this area are simply stunning. I’d want to make sure we did a river cruise on the Adelaide River, which winds snake-like into the Kakadu National Park. Then we’d continue on down route 21 to Katherine, with the hot springs then following route 87 down to Alice Springs and the national parks in that area. It’s about a 16 hour drive from Darwin to Alice Springs, not accounting for any stops, but I think doing this route in around a week would be the best idea, to really make the most of swimming in glorious pools of water, walking through forests and stopping whenever we see something that takes our fancy! Again, a caravan and a four by four would be the best way to do this trip!
For more road trips take a look at this post for European road trip ideas!