bezzanbob

We are a family of four (two girls 12 and 6) a week in to a seven week jaunt across Australia from east to west. We’ve lived in Aus for a year and were last there in 2000 doing some studying. Just thought I’d share some info and images which might help others on their way.

Our plan is:
Qld: Brisbane – Agnes Water – Noosa – Gold Coast.
NSW: Lismore – Coffs – Newcastle – Sydney.
ACT: Canberra
Vic: Sale – Malacoota (sp?) – Mornington – Phillip Island – Geelong.
SA: Adelaide
WA: Margaret River – Perth.

We flew Emirates from Birmingham with no stopover. The first leg was fine but the second leg (14 ½ hours) was a bit long with quite a lot of turbulence over the Indian Ocean. It also took an age from Perth to Brisbane and seemed far longer than 4 odd hours.

We arrived at 7 a.m. in Brissie. Taken to one side by immigration as our Emirates e-Visa wasn’t quite right: an interesting moment. We caught the Sky Train to the city which is just a stroll from arrival and you can buy tickets on the platform, although I think they would have been a couple of dollars cheaper had we booked in advance – children were free. No problem with room.

Booked our first night in Brissie if only to recover and found a good deal at the Holiday Inn Roma Street with four of us to a room. Excellent service as we arrived at 8:30 a.m. and our room wasn’t meant to be available till 2:00 p.m. but an hour or so later we got in, showered, and fell asleep for a few hours. We treated the girls to a ‘whatever you want’ supper on Southbank which was just a 20 min walk through Queen Street. I asked a lady for a Hot Dog and she handed me a bottle of coke which suggests I need to work on the accent. Kids eat free at the Holiday Inn so we had breakfast at 6:45 a.m. (body clock all over the shop) and made sure the girls had their fill of fruit and whatever. Always good to start the day with a mango or three and they had a Pancake maker so you can imagine that was fairly well used.

We have booked a rental car for the first leg from Europcar. Tried all sorts of ways of booking including Oodles and Vroom Vroom but in the end was cheapest off the Virgin Blue site. No intermediates and full size models were expensive so have ended up with a Nissan X Trail which, with two drivers, works out at £20 per day for 33 days!

We decided that we needed a holiday to begin the vacation and with two girls headed north for some sun. Took an age to find a booster seat (renting expensive and comfort essential) and then to get out of Brissie as there are a lot of roadworks north of the city. Our destination were the towns off Agnes Water and 1770 and, based on some research in Lonely Planet, we thought the journey should take 5 ½ hours but it was probably closer to 7 in all honesty. Stopped very briefly at a Matilda roadside service station off the Bruce Highway (where we could have bought manure at a very reasonable rate) and Marybrough for basic supplies as we plan to self cater wherever possible. Agnes Water is about an hour from Miriam Vale on som fairly ordinary country roads and with an early dusk we arrived in darkness.

The good news was the got the choice of accommodation spot on. We can recommend The Edge on Beaches resort which we booked fairly cheaply at about $160 per night for 2 bedrooms from the Wotif website. Had tried to get in the Agnes Water Beach Club, but that had gone into receivership just a few days before we left, and Sandcastles 1770, which comes highly recommended from L Planet, but just found the online booking challenging. The Edge is a complex of two and one bed houses set around a pool and BBQ complex about a 20 min walk out of town. Sandcastles is closer to town (town being a servo and about 20 small shops) but that’s not really a draw for us. The accommodation was really good with great beds, two bathrooms, great kitchen and dining area, balconies. All we wanted at least and good to have a central BBQ so we got to meet quite a few other people who were there at the time.

We were right to go so far north as the temperatures were mid to high twenties and the surf was warm enough without a wetsuit. We could have gone for a cruise to Lady Musgrave and would have seen Migaloo but the turbulence over Perth put us off – strange what holding a sick bag for a 12 year old does to you.

What we will remember from our time at Agnes will be see the sunset over water – rare for the east coast - having brekkie in the park using the communal BBQ and seeing sunrise and an eagle on beach. If you want to campo there’s a great site on the beach at 1770 and we loved our walks along the inlet where we saw dolphins after our breakfast!

General stuff.
• We have cash but decided to use a Post Office card for most things. Chip doesn’t seem to have come in so either they or you swipe and say Credit and then Pin, otherwise you’ll have to sign.
• Petrol is cheap and getting cheaper if you buy groceries from Woolies and Coles who are offering money off coupons.
• Fruit and veg generally cheaper, especially from markets. Four Avos for $2 or even a kg pack!
• We purchased a Virgin Mobile pay as you go phone – Samsung Pink and white – for $49 plus some credit and a sim for an old unlocked phone. Free calls and texts between Virgin Mobile is helpful and should see us through the next few weeks.
• Have considered mobile broadband. USB stick from Virgin is $129 with 300Mb of data. We’ll see on that one.

Hope this stuff helps.

Bezza

sonlymewalter

Lovely post. Sounds like you had a great time

MartinLuther

Good post.

I was wondering which route you were planning from Canberra to Vic. Just that at the moment if you want to go over the mountains you supposed to carry chains on some routes.


That is cheap for composted cow manure. Chuck a couple of bags in for us.

bezzanbob

Not given much thought on the route from Canberra south - very happy to receive advice.

Bezza

fish.01

Thanks for an update. Just as a side note - Australia has had a chip and pin equivalent on debit cards since the 1980's - you hit the Savings button and then enter your pin number. If you have a non australian debit card it probably doesn't work which is why you have to use the credit button.

bezzanbob

Fish,

Funny you should say that because when we lived here in the mid 90's we had a Commonwealth account and were asked to enter the pin number. I remmeber having no idea what the pin was and ending up with a rather long queue behind us in Woolies first time out.

What has taken me by surprise is that nobody has placed our card in a machine they've just automatically swiped - I even asked at the IGA but she just wanted to swipe.

Bezza

bu1lder

looking forward to your next post, i'm heading for the west in august but would love to see the east. great post.

MartinLuther

Chip and Pin on credit cards has only been in about a year and not all cards issued in Aus use it yet. I would also imagine that foreign cards are still swiped.

As said above pins on EFTPOS cards has been around for ages.

MartinLuther

I've not done it myself but I'd head south out of Canberra on the 23 (initially called the Monaro Hwy). This will take you towards Mallacoota. I'm not sure if you'll encounter any snow that way but NSW does not legally require chains if you're in an AWD (Vic does).

Mallacoota to Sale you're pretty much limited to the Princes Hwy (A1).

From Sale to Mornington I would avoid the direct route (A1), if you have time, and take a route further south through South Gippsland. Much prettier. If you really have the time, you might want to head down to Wilson's Prom.

fish.01

Not sure what you mean by "placed our card in a machine"....whether it is a debit with a pin (eftpos) or credit with a pin or sign, you swipe it through a machine.

MartinLuther

Sometimes with credit with a pin you push it in a slot at the bottom of the machine rather than swipe it.

ABCDiamond

I have noticed more and more places have been doing that during the last few months.

But some shop assistants may be a bit hesitant, and would rather swipe even with the newer machines that can use the chip or swipe.

quoll

All depending on how much time you have - Canberra to Sale. If you are strapped for time then it is about 4.5 hours down the Monaro (though Cooma, Bombala, Cann River) to Orbost and another 45 minutes to Lakes Entrance and just over 2 hours to Sale but that would miss out Mallacoota of course. Mallacoota is a bit out of the way! Orbost is about half way between Sale and Mallacoota. AFAIK not going to have any problems there requiring snow chains.

Alternatively go down to Cooma and along the Monaro and dont take the turn off to Bombala but go down Brown Mt to Bega then through Merimbula and Eden and south around the coast from there.

Whichever way is a long drive and, quite frankly, rather boring! But if you go through Bombala you will experience the reverse angle parking phenomenon common of some country towns

MartinLuther

I think through force of habit they swipe it and then stick it in (oo err) if the machine tells them to.

bezzanbob

Having a fab time but the days are going far too quickly - let's see what the next seven weeks bring!

Bezza