Driving from Sydney to Melbourne
Replies: 17 - Last Post: Aug 22, 2011 4:18 AM Last Post By: PoppyG
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Driving from Sydney to Melbourne
We might be back in Australia in November and have thought about driving from Sydney to Melbourne to see friends there. Is it a good drive and worth doing or should we just fly to have more time there? Anyone know how long it takes and if there are places worth seeing and staying en route?Thanks!
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Great Ocean road is amazing but not sure if thats the direct route but i definately reccomend going down great ocean road and looking at the 12 apostles. I duno about driving the whole way though. I think its like a 10 hour drive. Maybe just fly then hire a car in melbourne and drive there or something.3
Great Ocean Road is indeed amazing, but unfortunately is not on the way between Melbourne and Sydney. More like the opposite direction.Direct route is the Hume Hwy, about 10 hours drive, freeway nearly all the way, dead boring.
Coast road is the Princes Hwy, probably about 16 hours driving time, not all freeway standard, can be broken up into say 3 days drive. Kiama and Mallacoota make good overnight stops, though there are also plenty of others. A lot of it is very attractive, but you'd only do it if you liked driving.
Flights are frequent, cheap and quick.
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From another post very near top of secon page, so in the fifties as far thread number goes." The most direct route, down the Hume Motorway/Highway and just about dual carriageway all the way can be done in about 9-10 hours if you're in a hurry but a bit of a boring drive and yes it can be cool this time of year though there is often a balmy burst of weather with spring coming on.
If you want to make a bit of a tour out of it, you're far better to take the south coast route, leaving Sydney and turning into the Royal National Park for some great views and the Hargreaves cliff front ocean drive and then continuing on past Wollongong, there's the Kiama Blowhole, and plenty of delightful smaller villages and seaside towns - Berry, Milton, Ulladulla, Batemans Bay coast, Mogo, Bodalla, Narooma, CentralTilba (a definite) , Cobargo and then Merimbula for a stopover of depending on your budget, http://www.seahorseinn.com.au/ a bit past Eden is something different.
There are plenty of side trip possibilities along the way too, tree top walks inland from Wollongong, perhaps even a detour up through Robertson, across to Fitzroy Falls and down into the Kangaroo Valley from where you can go back to the coast at Nowra or even back track a bit on another route so as not to miss Berry.
You can backtrack from Nowra also and there is a good lookout over the Shoalhaven plains on the Kangaroo Valley Nowra road.
So you may want to make one stop in the Batemans Bay area and then make Merimbula or the Seahorse a second stop, something like Lakes Entrance in Victoria being an easy drive for a third stop with less by way of side trip options.
You'll find the coastal weather milder too and after Lakes Entrance, you may want to head down towards Wilsons Promontoray, though you can also do that via Tarra Valley from Traralgon or Mirboo North from Morwell and then after Wilsons Promontory there's Phillip Island and the nightly Fairy Penguin parade, Cowes being another possible stop over.
From Cowes, you could take a drive down the Mornington Peninsula to Sorrento, Portsea (lunch and a beer in the beer garden) and Point Nepean before taking a vehicular ferry over to Queenscliff for the Great Ocean Road before heading back to Melbourne via Ballarat if interested.
So there're plenty of options to use up all of the ten days quite easily and then fly back to Sydney.
Alternately, if you're from overseas, August is a great time to visit the inland centre, Uluru and then also fly over to Cairns and see some of the northern tropics and Great Barrier Reef, perhaps getting down to the Whitsundays as well from where you can fly back to Sydney.
http://www.queenslandholidays.com.au/?s_kwcid=TC|8196|queenslandholidays||S|b|6507077909
If you just Google any of the place names mentioned you'll get heaps of detailed info and make use of http://www.travelmate.com.au/index.php or similar sites and you can get an idea of distances and driving times. "
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From Cowes, you could take a drive down the Mornington Peninsula to Sorrento, Portsea (lunch and a beer in the beer garden) and Point Nepean before taking a vehicular ferry over to Queenscliff for the Great Ocean Road before heading back to Melbourne via Ballarat if interested.Just don't try to do all of this in one day, unless you are interested solely in driving and not in actually stopping to look at things.
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Thanks all, especially ranjon for all your suggestions. I think it sounds good...We have friends who live near Melbourne, hence the interest in visiting them while we're in Sydney with Mr Bell's brother. I lived in WA for 9 years so know the west coast really well and have driven from Perth to Kununurra once, years ago, which took 3 weeks, stopping off at different places on the way. So if we drive to Melbourne, it would be to discover the area as well as catch up with the friends.
Whatever the weather, it will be warmer than the UK in November!
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Coastal road is a schlep especially if you don't have much time whilst you are in OZ. The Hume highway is indeed somewhat dull but break it up with an overnight visit to Canberra and some of it's galleries and museums. When driving though be wary of the police / nanny state that Australia has become in the last decade and in particular Victoria. I was in Melbourne in March and drove down to the back beaches behind Sorrento (Gunnamatta) for a surf. Saw more cameras on that piece of road than you'd see on the red carpet at Cannes.10
Don't take any notice of those who tell you the drive down the Hume Highway is 'a bit boring'. Over the last few years I've done the bit between Yass and Melbourne several times, and always look forward to it. There is lots of nice countryside, particularly in southern NSW and northern Victoria. The drive is easy. You will find something to like if you drop into any of the towns (particularly in Victoria) now bypased by the freeway, eg the Rose Gardens in Benalla, the gallery by the lake in Euroa.11
As PNG2 says, Canberra is a good place for an overnight stop. It's an interesting place, especially if you like politics, since that's all the inhabitants can think or talk about. If you go via Canberra, you can keep driving south via Cooma and Bombala. Beautiful alpine scenery, a more spectacular drive than the Hume, but not as long and winding as the Princes.12
#10Yep, some reasonable countryside here and there but being on a motorway with a lot of other traffic can be monotonous and boring whether you want to consider it that way or not.
And yes, you do need to leave that boring drive to get into most of the towns now bypassed and though some can offer a change and a break in the monotony, they are nothing special to write home about.
13
If doing the faster Hume Hwy route, Beechworth is another good diversion and doesn't really add too much time to the trip. We do that trip a lot and the best motel we have stayed in was Poet's Recall at Gundagai. My mum recently stayed somewhere good in Albury. I can ask her the name if that is the kind of thing you are after (ie, motels rather than hostels).
