Driving To Melbourne And Back

[Stinky Rooster]

So, I have decided to begin testing the waters on a driving holiday.

I have promised the youngest a trip to Melbourne for her birthday (well, I wanted to go, and taking her along gets me out of hosting another 13th birthday party, and I still havent recovered from the last one 4 years ago, however I digress) and I am getting rather srs about driving there. I have an almost brand new car that is under warranty, so reliability is not an issue. So, on to the questions

Has anyone done it?

How long should it take?

Is there anywhere along the way you think I HAVE to stop and see? (and any places you recommend I avoid at all costs)

Is there any routes that are better than others?

Is there anything I am likely to have forgotten to consider?

And Lastly - feel free to give me some damn good reasons why I should just fly.

kgo

[Hank Scorpio]

Flying is so farkin' cheap and painless these days you would be stupid not to. It doesn't take long, you get lots of in flight entertainment, IMO the only way to go!

Kids in the back of cars get very restless after a day and I should know, I'm just a big kid!

[t_revz]

So, I have decided to begin testing the waters on a driving holiday.

I have promised the youngest a trip to Melbourne for her birthday (well, I wanted to go, and taking her along gets me out of hosting another 13th birthday party, and I still havent recovered from the last one 4 years ago, however I digress) and I am getting rather srs about driving there. I have an almost brand new car that is under warranty, so reliability is not an issue. So, on to the questions

Has anyone done it?

How long should it take?

Is there anywhere along the way you think I HAVE to stop and see? (and any places you recommend I avoid at all costs)

Is there any routes that are better than others?

Is there anything I am likely to have forgotten to consider?

And Lastly - feel free to give me some damn good reasons why I should just fly.

kgo

Wilcannia...avoid like the plague.

also dont listen to flat brim hat wearing Brad Pitt^^^. driving is heaps better than flying. i entertained myself to the gold coast and back and apart from some boring bits in NSW i had a phat time and caught up on lots of old music

[Grifforelli]

It's a long way out of the way and almost completely irrelevant considering you are in a new car but the coast hwy (can't remember exact name) between wollongong and sydney is a f**king awesome drive.

my 2c

[Hank Scorpio]

It's a long way out of the way and almost completely irrelevant considering you are in a new car but the coast hwy (can't remember exact name) between wollongong and sydney is a f**king awesome drive.

my 2c

Yes, yes it is!

As a native from the 'Gong I couldn't speak higher of it.

[turboedsloth]

Did this drive when i was a bit younger than what i am now. It's frickin awesome. Went across the nullabor, went to all the touristy places, check out the Bite, the nullabor roadhouse did a frickin good feed aswell i remember. If you go to melbourne, head north to Jamieson/ Mt Buller etc, really nice place

[ARTZ]

Good on you Dale..so many people just dont get the point of a good roadtrip anymore...

The journey is just as important as the destination...

[342Four]

dale....drive

and see how fast you can do it in

make a sport of it

[meat]

dale....drive

and see how fast you can do it in

make a sport of it

Haha, this.

[MBS206]

I looked up driving from Wollongong to Perth after just driving to Melbourne and Back

From Wollongong to Perth, I was looking at 36 hours of continuous driving IIRC. For Perth to Melb, it's 37 hours... So four days of driving if you do 8 hours a day. If you're the only driver, that's VERY tiring. You'll want to break it down, and take a whole week to drive there. And then a day or two to recover...

Secondly fuel prices. I took my XR6T down and back with 4 adults, we were doing 8.5L/100KM pretty much. Seeing how it's 3,400KM there, and the same back, if you average my fuel economy, and get fuel at around $1.50 a litre, you're looking at $433 each way to drive it... (I think)...

I run 98 or 95, and most of the time I was finding it at $1.60... (And I copped a bad tank of fuel that put economy out at 13L/100km!)

So it can be expensive, but if you have multiple people, it's cheaper. But it can get VERY draining just driving...

My trip to Melb was fine, went past very quickly... The return trip, I think I'd prefer chineese water torture...

[Grifforelli]

As a native from the 'Gong I couldn't speak higher of it.

The awkward moment when I'm from there too.

Unsure of correct usage of there and too so please leave me be grammar nazi's

[MBS206]

The awkward moment when I'm from there too.

So are I...

Unsure of correct usage of there and too so please leave me be grammar nazi's

It's okay, I've given them a reason to not flame you...

[ossie_21]

Flying would be better off, considering she's only 13 she will be bored shitless for most of it anyway.

I drove 4500km from Sunshine Coast to Perth in my old 33, so I'm happy to be able to say that I've done something like that in a car not meant to be doing that sort of trip Seen a few cool places along the way, had fun counting roadkill, dodging cows & roos & overtaking 2 long truck/trailers, a couple of caravans & another couple of cars in one go across the nullabor. How much they would have thought wtf about that in the middle of nowhere

It's something that should be done at some point, but flying would be the way to go as it's capital to capital

[Boss-zilla]

Right o i have done this as see bellow:

So, I have decided to begin testing the waters on a driving holiday.

I have promised the youngest a trip to Melbourne for her birthday (well, I wanted to go, and taking her along gets me out of hosting another 13th birthday party, and I still havent recovered from the last one 4 years ago, however I digress) and I am getting rather srs about driving there. I have an almost brand new car that is under warranty, so reliability is not an issue. So, on to the questions

Has anyone done it?

yes

How long should it take?

we did it in 5 days (to Geelong but Melb is about the same) that was about 8-9 hours a day with a half day in the middle.

Is there anywhere along the way you think I HAVE to stop and see? (and any places you recommend I avoid at all costs)

if i did it again i would suggest doing the coast road, stopping at the bite and instead of cutting across vic from sa into melb do the great ocean rd!

Is there any routes that are better than others?

see above, we cut out the 'tourist' part but were sort of limited on time

Is there anything I am likely to have forgotten to consider?

cost? from memory we spent about 1k all up (food. accom, fuel etc)

And Lastly - feel free to give me some damn good reasons why I should just fly.

cost and time! you get there dam quicker and eveyone can go for the same money plus you dont have to camp in a tent.

kgo

so like i said we did it in 5 days. We stayed at caravan parks on a powered site in our tent. while some of the place along the way have a "motel" they are no better than the camp i stay at in Karratha and most were about $100 a night. soooooo not worth it!!! Some of the 'towns' along the way are no more than the servo so dont expect anything good. Food (half decent stuff) is hard to come by. we stopped and had roast beef and gravey rolls. the rolls were stale and reheated, the meat was very, very thing and the gravey was water.

also there was a great little inlet at ceduna (i think) over the sand dunes from the caravan park. spent quite a few hours in the water there on the half day.

Happy to go into this further in person next time i see you.

When are you thinking of going? Im in melb over easter will have to catch up if you're thinking the same time.

[t_revz]

Drive continuously only stopping for fuel. Will be quick cheap and they won't have time to get bored. If I could get to the gold coast in 48 hours you should be able to do this in 35 haha

[dirtyRS4]

torquay to warrnambool would be an epic scenic drive.

i always wanted to do the great ocean road in the stagea.

[_Ryan_]

Drive continuously only stopping for fuel. Will be quick cheap and they won't have time to get bored. If I could get to the gold coast in 48 hours you should be able to do this in 35 haha

I would go flat out to adelaide etc, have a look around, then go via the appostles, GOR, otways(stay over night in apollo bay and do the otway fly etc), then head down the bellarine peninsula, get the ferry to sorrento, then drive up to mount dandenong(stay a night at Gracehill in olinda, eat dinner at wild oak ) go through the yarra valley(mt donna buang, the road from warburton to noojee,) jump on the monash fwy and take it into the city and do you city trip.

THEN, hall arse the whole way home

[_Ryan_]

torquay to warrnambool would be an epic scenic drive.

i always wanted to do the great ocean road in the stagea.

you would want to take the bypass from anglesea, otherwise its a traffic jam... unless you surf, then head to bells

Also watch out for driving east along the GOR, falling rocks, best to head west along it.

The back roads are incredible...

[t_revz]

What about drive over next year for sau nats. Then we can convoy

[HR_31GT]

So, I have decided to begin testing the waters on a driving holiday.

I have promised the youngest a trip to Melbourne for her birthday (well, I wanted to go, and taking her along gets me out of hosting another 13th birthday party, and I still havent recovered from the last one 4 years ago, however I digress) and I am getting rather srs about driving there. I have an almost brand new car that is under warranty, so reliability is not an issue. So, on to the questions

Has anyone done it?

I drove from melbourne (ballarat actually, 1 hour west of melb) anywho, I did this last year on the 28th of December with my gf. Drove back the car i purchased over there back in August.

How long should it take?

Depends which way you go. We went from Ballarat, to Geelong then all the way to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road (A MUST if you do the Drive IMO) Below are google map pictures of the drive we took.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Alone the way we did stop and take a few pictures along the Bite, really good views, Especially on good weather.

Is there anywhere along the way you think I HAVE to stop and see? (and any places you recommend I avoid at all costs)

There is plenty to stop and look at along the way. It really comes down to how long you want to take. 90mile straight is quite boring. Very in fact.

Is there any routes that are better than others?

Cant say, Kinda just took this one as it appealed to us more. Next time i think i will take the south west coast, just to see more down there (im a Victorian, thus im still exploring WA)

Is there anything I am likely to have forgotten to consider?

Accommodation, Wanting to camp or stay in the hotels. Food and drink, snacks etc. Money for petrol ot does get expensive. I drove back my HR31, so it was a preference to have 98. I only got 95 once on the way back, so not bad really. On average we got about 650km to a tank, so not to bad really. I think at one stop i paid $2.15 a litre.

And Lastly - feel free to give me some damn good reasons why I should just fly.

Why?

you can fly anytime really. Sure its only a 4/4.5 flight (done it many times), but what is stopping you from driving? how many other times car you going to be able to drive from Perth to Melb and back. Let alone actually do it. I was umming and ahhing about it for ages. I thought just put the car on a truck and fly back, but what better way (in my opinion) to see how well your car can handle on long trips (should you constantly do them).

For me it was just "one of those things" that i wanted to tick off and say "i've done that drive"

kgo