Our road trip took us on a 1500km drive from Melbourne to Sydney (yes, those cities are only 880km apart via Hume Freeway, but the easy way is never fun). We actually went Sydney to Melbourne via the Great Alpine Road and the coastal scenic drive. Both were fantastic and with a one-way rental car for less than 8AUD/day and unlimited kilometers, why not!?!
The highlight of the Great Alpine Road was the pass up and over Mt Hotham. Not as tall as many of the passes in the US (at only 1860m) but gorgeous nonetheless. There's a ski resort up there that Brendan and I will definitely be back to check out in the winter – anyone is welcome to join! We pushed on to the coast and ended up staying in a roadside motel that night. The place was packed when we pulled in. However, we determined that this must have been the entire town hanging out at the bar since we were the first people to sign the guestbook in over a month and the parking lot was not equally as packed in the morning!
The next day we set out up the coast. We saw deserted beaches, small towns and the angry Tasman Sea from many different viewpoints. That night we camped in a campsite right off of the beach. Given the entire campsite was on a steady sloping hill, the campsite was much better suited for the campers/caravans but we managed to find a flat enough spot to throw a tent up. It was too overcast that night for stars, but we did wake up to an incredible chorus of strange birds! The noises coming out of those birds were fantastic although they do make me a bit nervous to go backpacking down here. Its one thing to hear strange noises in the morning in the light, but what happens when you hear strange noises at night in the dark…
Sunday we saw Black Head, Sea Cliff Bridge (think Blue Ridge Aqueduct meets Devil's Slide), a blowhole (which was rather small relative to what we saw in NZ but was still beautiful and interesting to watch all of the Japanese tourists), kite biking on seven mile beach, and several more small towns and angry Tasman sea vantage points.
We didn't see everything, but I think we got a good taste of Australia's southeast coast. We purposely skipped Canberra (Australia's capital) on this trip since we didn't think we would have time even though everyone tells us that it's only worth 1/2 a day. Someone also told us that the Twelve Apostles are just some rocks in the ocean, so we figure that we'll head up to Canberra on a weekend some time possibly with bikes and we'll be the judge of it.
The highlight of the Great Alpine Road was the pass up and over Mt Hotham. Not as tall as many of the passes in the US (at only 1860m) but gorgeous nonetheless. There's a ski resort up there that Brendan and I will definitely be back to check out in the winter – anyone is welcome to join! We pushed on to the coast and ended up staying in a roadside motel that night. The place was packed when we pulled in. However, we determined that this must have been the entire town hanging out at the bar since we were the first people to sign the guestbook in over a month and the parking lot was not equally as packed in the morning!
The next day we set out up the coast. We saw deserted beaches, small towns and the angry Tasman Sea from many different viewpoints. That night we camped in a campsite right off of the beach. Given the entire campsite was on a steady sloping hill, the campsite was much better suited for the campers/caravans but we managed to find a flat enough spot to throw a tent up. It was too overcast that night for stars, but we did wake up to an incredible chorus of strange birds! The noises coming out of those birds were fantastic although they do make me a bit nervous to go backpacking down here. Its one thing to hear strange noises in the morning in the light, but what happens when you hear strange noises at night in the dark…
Sunday we saw Black Head, Sea Cliff Bridge (think Blue Ridge Aqueduct meets Devil's Slide), a blowhole (which was rather small relative to what we saw in NZ but was still beautiful and interesting to watch all of the Japanese tourists), kite biking on seven mile beach, and several more small towns and angry Tasman sea vantage points.We didn't see everything, but I think we got a good taste of Australia's southeast coast. We purposely skipped Canberra (Australia's capital) on this trip since we didn't think we would have time even though everyone tells us that it's only worth 1/2 a day. Someone also told us that the Twelve Apostles are just some rocks in the ocean, so we figure that we'll head up to Canberra on a weekend some time possibly with bikes and we'll be the judge of it.
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