26 Days To Travel

It is almost time: in October we leave for Australia! After a 3-day stop in Singapore we will have a little over 5 weeks to explore this massive country. Obviously, lots of posts will follow about our trip later, but for now here’s a little preview of our plans.

Melbourne
After a few days in Singapore, we will fly to Melbourne. We are staying in Melbourne for 5 days, meaning we will have 3 full days to spend here. We heard that Melbourne is the place for coffee- and beer lovers. And those just happen to be two of our favourite things!

Great Ocean Road
At Melbourne Airport we pick up a rental car and head to the Great Ocean Drive, one of Australia’s most famous road trips.  We will of course stop in coastal towns along the way and at the Otway National Park, after which we continue to the Twelve Apostles.

We then drive to the Grampians National Park, where we will be staying in Halls Gap, for 3 days of hikes, waterfalls and views. After that our route leads to Bendigo, an old gold-mining town. We have already booked a tour there in the Central Deborah Gold Mine, where we will experience what it was like to work in the mine.

Cairns
From Melbourne, we will catch a flight to Cairns. Lots of things to see and do here, but of course the Great Barrier Reef is on top of the list. We will be doing a day trip to the reef as well as a scenic flight over it. There’s a couple of days left to spend in the area, and we are thinking of hiring a car and visiting Daintree Rainforest, Cape Tribulation and possibly the Atherton Tablelands.

Alice Springs
Then it’s time to head to the ‘Red Centre’, where we will for the first time experience the outback! We are renting a small campervan for five days to explore this area. Our first stop will be at Kings Canyon, where a tough but rewarding (so they say) hike awaits. Then, of course, we will continue to Yulara, to see famous Uluru and Kata Tjuta.

Western Australia
From Alice Springs, we fly to Perth. We have decided to stay in Fremantle instead of Perth; it seems like a relaxed town, it is closer to the beach and Rottnest Island and we found super affordable accommodation through Airbnb. We will do a day trip to Rottnest Island, most well-known for the quokkas but the beaches look great too.

After 3 full days in Fremantle we will pick up a small van (not really a camper this time, had to stay on budget!) and start our last roadtrip through Western Australia. We will have 10 days, which is not a lot of time to see so many places.

Our route is not determined yet, but we will probably start at Kalbarri National Park. Then we will spend a night at the Principality of Hutt River to get our passports stamped and hopefully meet the prince himself. After a night of stargazing at the Pinnacles, we head Southwards. We would like to visit Denmark and the ‘Valley of the Giants’, home to some of the tallest trees on earth. At Hamelin Bay we hope to meet the stingrays and we will spend the last night of our roadtrip in Busselton to watch the sunset on world’s longest jetty.

After that it’s time to return our van… We will then have two more nights in Perth, meaning one full day to explore this city, after which it will be time to head home!

Overview
Too much text? Here’s what it all looks like on the map.
Since we only had 6 weeks and Australia is SO big, we had to make choices.
We chose not to visit Sydney, as you have probably noticed. Our main reason for visiting Australia was the wonderful nature, so we decided that if we had to cut something out of the itinerary, it would be a city. Since we were already flying to Melbourne and it was the starting point for the Great Ocean Road, it made sense to only visit Melbourne.
Our second choice you might had noticed, is that we skip most of the famous East coast, including Brisbane and the Whitsundays. We prefer to visit less touristic places and are hoping that Western Australia will be just as pretty, but more private.

We would very much appreciate any tips regarding the places we will be visiting!