Now I know backpacking nowadays can be kind of daunting and a bit frightening. Let me assure you, it is definitely the best way to see Australia (and save some money doing it!). You get to meet more of the locals as well as other foreigners, make friends, do things you hadn't heard of before, and get discounts on local attractions.
We started our road trip in Queensland and worked our way down. We had previously gone to Cairns, which if you haven't done before this trip, I recommend that as your starting point and then flying to Airlie Beach.
Overview: Airlie Beach (Whitsundays) --> Brisbane --> Gold Coast --> Byron Bay --> Blue Mountains --> Sydney --> Melbourne
Airlie Beach
We took a bus from Townsville to Airlie Beach. Note: Print bus tickets before!The group split up here and some stayed at a hostel a block away from ours (but, our hostel was better). Our hostel had it all: beer garden, restaurants, adorable villas in a lush jungle backdrop. It is called Airlie Beach Magnums ($22/night). We stayed here for three nights.
We used Mantaray Bay Charters to explore The Whitsundays. With them we got to do one dive and take time to explore Whitsunday Beach aka one of the best beaches in the world.
The other two days were for going to the pool, shopping, and drinking (which you will find we did a lot of in Australia, as is customary).
There is a $20 airport shuttle that will pick you up from almost anywhere in Airlie and take you to the closest airport.
Brisbane
Hostel: Manly Harbour for three nights ($15/night).Brizzy is a major city in Australia and as such there is much to do. The airport also has a Krispy Kreme! I had the pleasure of flying through Brisbane a lot. This was the only time I was able to explore there.
There is a gorgeous strip of restaurants, park, shops, art, and a ferris wheel by the river. The ferris wheel is a good thing to do right away as they give you a map to the city and as you go around the ferris wheel they point out all the major landmarks, most of which you can see from your pod.
We also did the XXXX Brewery tour, which is a fairly popular beer in Oz and definitely my favorite one I had from there. It was a really good brewery tour, even if you don't like beer that much. We got to see the packaging facility, which was fascinating to me (although I am easily entertained).
Guess what else is in Brizzy!? The Australia Zoo. That's right...Steve Irwin's Zoo. It was incredible.
Brisbane is where we picked up our rental car to drive down to Gold Coast.
Gold Coast
Gold Coast...ahh the party city. Here's the thing we did wrong and yet kind of right. We stayed at a hostel called Komune for three nights ($30/night), which is also a club at night and has an awesome pool. It's also across the street from the beach. We had a great time exploring the wilderness inland and laying out on the beach. We also went skydiving here. Some of our other friends stayed a little further north and it was hard to meet up with them. Regardless both groups had a great time. On our way to Gold Coast from Brisbane we stopped at Dreamworld, the largest amusement park in Australia, themed for DreamWorks and they have tigers! It was a ton of fun and definitely worth the money.Byron Bay
Byron Bay!!! Too many people skip out on this adorable beach town. This was honestly one of my favorite things. We had such a great time exploring this little surfer paradise. They had the cutest stores, a great beach, and the most unique people. We stayed here for only three days and I wanted to stay so much longer. I felt so at home. We stayed at Backpacker's Holiday Village ($37/night), which was a short walk to the beach and all the shops. We also took a day trip to Nimbin. I don't think I can really go in to detail about that trip, but maybe another time. Look it up ;)
Blue Mountains
We hooked up with the posse in The Blue Mountains, just outside of Sydney. The drive in was awesome right off the bat. It was like a fairytale driving up and down the windy roads through the mountains and looking out over the expanse of trees that looked so small from above. The magic of the Blue Mountains should definitely be experienced. We went straight to our hostel Blue Mountain Hostel ($28/night), which was a fine place to stay for the one night. There is a hop-on hop-off tour that will take you to any of the sights of the Blue Mountains for a good price, but we opted to load up the car past capacity and drive around so we didn't have to worry about how long we were going to be somewhere. We spent the day at the most incredible places I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams. Of course, the Three Sisters. We also went to some of the cascades and other wonderful spots. I have photos out the wazoo. Beautiful photos.
Sydney
So this was my second of three trips to Sydney while I was in Australia so I will do a separate post on it later. It's a gorgeous city. We spent the night at Nate's Place ($32/night). We went to some awesome places in just that one night. But I will talk more about it another time. Just know for now that Sydney is a lively, modern, and breathtaking metropolis.
Melbourne
Melbourne. The most livable city in the world. And it's not hard to see why. Within the city limits there is a free trolley that anyone can just hop on and off. We stayed at Flinder's Backpackers ($30/night) for part of the time and Nomad's Backpackers the other part. Nomad's was probably a better location, but Flinder's was such a cool hostel. It had recently been updated, there was a travel agency downstairs, and the space was fun and hip. I spent time at the Sea Life Aquarium (Melbourne Aquarium) and the Eureka Tower. Melbourne has an open range zoo that is accessible by train called that Werribee Zoo. It was so cool to go through a zoo where a lot of the animals weren't in enclosures, but had space to roam around and just be animals. Giraffe's came up really close to the bus and we got some awesome pics. The best thing to possibly do in/around Melbourne is the Great Ocean Road tour. We went with Otway for our tour. We were loaded in a van with a few other people and had an awesome tour guide. We all quickly became pretty comfortable with each other. We went to a cold weather rainforest and drove down the Great Ocean Road stopping periodically along the way. The tour lasted two days and one night. We stopped at a zoo and at Phillip Island to see the fairy penguins, the beach, and the sunset. This had to be my favorite thing we did on this whole trip.
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