Our most recent 3 months in Australia were spent exploring the east coast, returning to a few favorite spots but mainly exploring the northern Queensland coastline, an area we have not been to before. Once we started heading north from Brisbane the journey was all about being in nature and finding the best beach walks. If you like big city life, this road trip is probably not for you 😊 Below is a summary of our latest Australia travels with links to the individual pages with more details:
Canberra: We began with 4 days in the capital of Australia. There are a lot of memorials and museums to visit and a beautiful lake in the city center. Restaurants are plentiful and the city center in compact enough to walk around. We enjoyed our 4 days here and could have spent longer, there are some areas just outside the city that we thought would be worth exploring.
Sydney: We have spent a fair bit of time in Sydney over the years so this visit was specifically to meet up with some Aussie friends and celebrate a 70th birthday. We stayed in a very fancy hotel in The Rocks and it was a fun splurge. We love Sydney and will happily spend a few days here any time we have the opportunity.
Cessnock: It’s a small town in the heart of the Hunter Valley wine region. We have visited the Hunter Valley before but never stayed in the middle of the valley. We love this wine region and wanted to come back and explore it in more detail, having 10 days allowed us to leisurely re-visit a few favorite wineries and discover some new favorites. This is a gorgeous part of Australia that we recommend visiting. If you want to do more than tour wineries, the town of Newcastle is less than an hour away on the coast and well worth a visit. We based ourselves in Newcastle when we were here in 2020.
Maroochydore: This is probably our favorite place on the east coast and one we could see coming back to for a 3 month stay. During the covid lockdown of 2020 we spent almost 2 months in and around this area. The beach here is fabulously walkable and we wanted to return for a week this time to explore some areas that were closed in 2020. We had the chance to re-visit Noosa Heads and walk the coastal trail in the National Park.
Agnes Water and The Town of 1770: This was the first new town to us on our route heading up the North Queensland coast. We fell in love with the 5km long beach here and went for long walks every day. The down side is the town is very, very small with no gym or swimming pool. There are not alot of places to visit nearby so one week was long enough here.
Slade Point: The beach here is really nice to walk along at low tide, at high tide its quite pebbly so it’s not as enjoyable as some other beaches further south. There are some interesting walks and places to visit nearby plus we found an amazing gym in Mackay. We thoroughly enjoyed our week here and thought it was the right amount of time.
Airlie Beach: We spent 10 days here and it was much too long. I don’t think we realized that pretty much the only thing to do here is take boat trips out to the Whitsunday Islands. These trips are very expensive so doing more than one is just not affordable. There are no beaches long enough to go for a decent walk, which is something important to us. Airplane and helicopter tours are popular, but too expensive in our opinion. We did not have the best weather while in Airlie Beach but I’m not sure it would have mattered because we could not find enough things to do that interested us. We found a decent gym just down the road from our apartment which helped.
Magnetic Island: We stayed on the island for 6 nights and it was the right amount of time. It is predominantly a holiday destination with many visitors popping over from the mainland for just a few days. The majority of the island is National Park with marked walking tracks to secluded bays. We found enough walks to keep us busy during our time here but would not want to stay here any longer. The best part…..seeing Koala’s in the wild.
Wongaling Beach: We spent two weeks here and enjoyed every minute of our stay. Wongaling Beach is in the middle of the Mission Beach area with miles of beautiful flat sand beach that we walked daily. There was a gorgeous outdoor swimming pool for me and a gym for Blair so we kept up with our fitness routines. I think what made staying here special for us was the opportunity to see Southern Cassowaries in the wild and enjoy walks in the tropical rainforest. There are not a lot of touristy attractions here so its a great place to relax and unwind. This ranks as our second favorite place in Queensland after Maroochydore and somewhere we would return to, but not for 3 months.
Palm Cove: We spent 10 days here and it was too long, mostly because it was cloudy and wet. We did not find a lot of things to do and the beaches slope into the water making long walks less enjoyable. Palm Cove is a holiday town and caters to short term visitors with lots of hotels, cafes, restaurants and bars along the waterfront. We had one big excursion to Kuranda which was fun, but I don’t see any reason to return to Palm Cove.
Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation: This was our northernmost point in Queensland and we spent 2 nights here. Mainly because its quite remote with very few services. We found a number of boardwalks through the rainforest to walk, searching for cassowaries but none were to be found. Myall Beach was the best beach we found to walk on, its flat and roughly 2km long. Two nights here was the perfect amount of time in the oldest rainforest on earth.
Port Douglas: This is another holiday town catering to short term visitors. The 4 mile long beach is spectacular and we loved our daily walks. We found a good gym to join but no swimming pool. It was the ideal place to spend the last 5 days of our road trip before flying to Sydney to begin the journey to Canada. We also met up with some Kiwi friends from Rotorua who were here celebrating a 70th birthday.
We have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the Far North Queensland with amazing beaches, scenery and interesting animals. While we found this area extraordinarily beautiful and interesting, I don’t think we need to come back. The ever present warnings regarding crocodiles and marine stingers in the far north means that you cannot enjoy the ocean. If we were to spend months in one place we would like to be able to get in the water. Although we would come back to the Mission Beach area for quiet beach walks and to look for cassowaries again.
Did you know that Australians love to shorten words? We enjoyed listening to everyone talking and sometimes trying to figure out what they meant. For example:
- Avo = avocado
- Arvo = afternoon
- Truckie = refers to a truck driver
- Barbi = barbeque
- Cozzie = swimsuit
- Servo = gas station/service station
- Bottle-o = liquor store
- Choccy = chocolate
- Sunnies = sunglasses
We also learned a new word…’hooning’ which means ‘deliberately driving a vehicle in a reckless or dangerous manner’. Our Kiwi friends knew the word, so its used there too.
And the most confusing statement of all is when Aussies like something they say “its as good as” I used to wait to find out what its as good as, but that was the end of the comment 😂 It has been a joy talking to all the Australians we met during our travels!!
Including these past 3 months, we have spent a total of 303 days in Australia so I suppose you can say it’s one of our favorite countries. We have explored many different regions and definitely have a few favorite spots that we would consider returning to for an extended stay. It’s an easy country to live in and the people are great.
I’m pretty sure we’ll be back, so until next time Australia….. 💕
TRIP TIPS
Car rentals are expensive but the only way to visit all these out of the way places is by car. We rented a car in Brisbane and dropped it off in Cairns, driving 3,438 km over the 69 days we had the car. The rental cost came to USD $2,966 plus we paid USD $166 for a one way drop off fee and USD $95 to upgrade to a hybrid vehicle (which saved us much more than that in fuel costs). The one way fee was well worth it and cheaper than taking 2 or 3 days to drive 1,800 km back to Brisbane.