Roadtrips in Australia
Jul 14th 2011, 2:26 am
#1
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Roadtrips in Australia
we recently bought a new car (Accord Euro) and as an initiation we went on an awesome trip round parts of NSW over the Easter long weekend. I thought I'd start a thread for anyone who has any road trips they would recommend, or just wants to find out what others have done.
Ours went like this:
State: NSW
Route: Balmain > Lithgow > Bathurst > Orange > Parks > Forbes > Cowra > Young > Wagga Wagga > Tumet > Jindabybne > Cooma > Bega > Bateman's Bay > Canberra > Goulburn > Mittagong > Balmain
Duration: 4 days
Car: Honda Accord Euro 2011
The Highlights:
Orange - we camped for the night and I remember waking up to a misty cold orange glowing morning. awesome. The jeepers-creepers-carnys in the camp site put us off camping for the rest of the trip though!
Milthorpe - loads of old Victorian era stone buildings in this village off the beaten track. Its like heading back in time. Beautiful.
Parkes - the dish was actually good fun to visit, especially the whispering dishes. People who've been there will know what I'm on about. The surrounding countryside is pretty.
Wagga Wagga - more cosmopolitan than I thought. lol.
Tumet - a beautiful mountain town at the start of the snowy mountains. But at the same time it has a real Alan Wake/Silent Hill/Small Town US Horror movie vibe. Very atmospheric. Stephen King could set a book here.
Snowy Mountains - just awesome driving fun. I think this was the bonding moment with the new car. Lots of orange Poplar trees on the road sides. very pretty. Remarkably un-mountainy for "mountains" though.
Cooma - great little country town. Massively friendly people.
Central Tilba - an old 1800s village just off the highway, somewhere near Bodalla. Beautiful old buildings, and really fascinating place. Except it was rammed with tourists. Which lead me to believe that its the only 1800s village in decent condition in the area!
Canberra - we were there when the tree's leaves were all red and falling. The whole city had a sort of red glow about it and it was very pretty. It was also Anzac weekend. First time there and I would definitely go back. Somewhere near Canberra,m to the east, we went up a huge mountain and it was really misty up there. At about the same time Misty Mountain Hop by Led Zeppelin came on the stereo. I had a little Zepgasm.
Mittagong and the surrounding Goulburn area - busy but quite nice pit stop towns.
The Downsides:
Young/Cooma/Forbes - they are nice enough but there's an obvious template to most NSW country towns, and they get exceptionally samey. Especially when there's nothing much in between them for a few hours.
Bega - the cheese factory was shit and the town wasn't much better. There's only so much mileage you can get out of mediocre cheddar...sorry "tasty" cheese.
Bateman's Bay - it was crap. Just was.
Jindabyne - off season. Nothing to do. Nowhere nice to stay. Boring as batshit. On season would be a different story entirely I would imagine.
Driving back through the Sydney suburbs for about an hour before getting home. Kind of took the buzz off, and brought us back to reality!
Does anyone have any to recommend, or indeed avoid? Its a big country and its great fun exploring it.
Ours went like this:
State: NSW
Route: Balmain > Lithgow > Bathurst > Orange > Parks > Forbes > Cowra > Young > Wagga Wagga > Tumet > Jindabybne > Cooma > Bega > Bateman's Bay > Canberra > Goulburn > Mittagong > Balmain
Duration: 4 days
Car: Honda Accord Euro 2011
The Highlights:
Orange - we camped for the night and I remember waking up to a misty cold orange glowing morning. awesome. The jeepers-creepers-carnys in the camp site put us off camping for the rest of the trip though!
Milthorpe - loads of old Victorian era stone buildings in this village off the beaten track. Its like heading back in time. Beautiful.
Parkes - the dish was actually good fun to visit, especially the whispering dishes. People who've been there will know what I'm on about. The surrounding countryside is pretty.
Wagga Wagga - more cosmopolitan than I thought. lol.
Tumet - a beautiful mountain town at the start of the snowy mountains. But at the same time it has a real Alan Wake/Silent Hill/Small Town US Horror movie vibe. Very atmospheric. Stephen King could set a book here.
Snowy Mountains - just awesome driving fun. I think this was the bonding moment with the new car. Lots of orange Poplar trees on the road sides. very pretty. Remarkably un-mountainy for "mountains" though.
Cooma - great little country town. Massively friendly people.
Central Tilba - an old 1800s village just off the highway, somewhere near Bodalla. Beautiful old buildings, and really fascinating place. Except it was rammed with tourists. Which lead me to believe that its the only 1800s village in decent condition in the area!
Canberra - we were there when the tree's leaves were all red and falling. The whole city had a sort of red glow about it and it was very pretty. It was also Anzac weekend. First time there and I would definitely go back. Somewhere near Canberra,m to the east, we went up a huge mountain and it was really misty up there. At about the same time Misty Mountain Hop by Led Zeppelin came on the stereo. I had a little Zepgasm.
Mittagong and the surrounding Goulburn area - busy but quite nice pit stop towns.
The Downsides:
Young/Cooma/Forbes - they are nice enough but there's an obvious template to most NSW country towns, and they get exceptionally samey. Especially when there's nothing much in between them for a few hours.
Bega - the cheese factory was shit and the town wasn't much better. There's only so much mileage you can get out of mediocre cheddar...sorry "tasty" cheese.
Bateman's Bay - it was crap. Just was.
Jindabyne - off season. Nothing to do. Nowhere nice to stay. Boring as batshit. On season would be a different story entirely I would imagine.
Driving back through the Sydney suburbs for about an hour before getting home. Kind of took the buzz off, and brought us back to reality!
Does anyone have any to recommend, or indeed avoid? Its a big country and its great fun exploring it.
Last edited by In Exile; Jul 14th 2011 at 2:32 am. Reason: addid duration and formatted
Jul 14th 2011, 2:51 am
#2
Forum Regular
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 159
Re: Roadtrips in Australia
We love them too. Most recent one was when we relocated from Adelaide to Cairns, clockwise the long way round. Took 5 months, 28,000km's vast majority off road (4wd and off road camper trailer). Many highlights, but as a section, the Old Savannah Track, up through Roper Bar & Borroloola from NT to QLD (through the proposed Limmen National Park)
