Shame to miss yamba and HH but yeah you were always low on time. Yamba would have been less schoolies affected than Byron but perhaps not free of infestation.

With 1100km left prob wouldnt backtrack.

1100km (10-11 hours) is the direct route, unfortunately. If I want to take a route that includes the Hunter Valley, The Blue Mountains, the Snowies (Kosciuszko National Park), and a coastal approach, it looks more like this:





20 hours, 1500km. If I try to crank that out in 3 days, it doesn't leave much time for actually enjoying stops, given it is 7 hours a day of driving. The question is, what to cut?

If I keep Kosciuszko and the Blues, and skip Hunter & the coastal approach, it drops to 15-16 hours, 1300km. That may be the new default. 15ish hours over 3 days is a lot more palatable than 20ish. Those last hours add up.

I would skip Canberra. Boring as ****. Take the coast road all the way to Sydney instead.

I ended up coming down M1, then cutting over to the Blue Mountains on A32. Was not very impressed with the Blue Mountains, they were just a chain of small towns. Well, that is until I got out of the car at Wentworth Falls and hiked around a bit. That's an impressive spot.

It was more mountainy past Katoomba, and I decided to cut through on a smaller road. This was a great decision. I took the Jenooian Caves Road south at Hartley and went through a lot of mountain pastures. Lots of sheep, very different terrain than I've been seeing. Kept heading south down through Oberon and Taralga. Almost no other cars on the road, and the speed limit was 100km/hr, so I was smashing the kms while enjoying the drive.

Stopped in Goulburn for the night. Tomorrow I'll most likely head down through Canberra, then through Cooma and over through the Kosciuszko National Park on B400. I guess I could also go Canberra -> Yass -> Tumut, then down B72 before over onto B400. That B72 road looks like it goes some sweet places. Maybe stop for the night somewhere around Albury?

The first route is 6hrs / 528km. The second is 9hrs / 753km. The second is too much. Maybe I follow the second route but stop in Jindabyne for the night instead, then go through Kosciuszko the next day. Only 2.5 days left!

Yep that looks a lot better. 5.5hrs / 490km for that route, then the next day it's 6.5hrs / 580km to Melbourne via M31. Also looked at heading down the Omeo highway and coming in coastal, but it's like 11hrs / 780km. I guess I could stop in Sale for the night and use the final morning to get in, but that seems like it would really be pushing it and not leave any margin for error.

Why wouldnt we love chicken schnitzel so much?

Sounds like a dope trip bro...Illukka is nice ay, so quiet...as is Nimbin :-)

hi josem or people living in Sidney,

i need help.
my company is offering me a move where the salary is 70k AUD NET (after taxes) per year + car.

Is this enough to live comfortably by myself (either a 1br or studio in nice area)? i find many different infos and comparisons on the net and would like an input.

Thank you very much

Decided to follow the second route. Skipped Canberra per the suggestion, and went straight to Yass, then down to Wee Jasper. From there it was 30km of unpaved road to Tumut, then took B72 all the way down to Cooma. Thought about heading to Jindabyne for the night, but was reading hotel reviews and all of the reviews were saying every property had bad wifi, which is a dealbreaker for me.

Decided to stay the night in Cooma as it's not that far from Jindy anyway. I'll pay for that tomorrow - still 600-700km out of Melbourne at this point.

So now the question is - down B23 to A1 and along the coast, or toward Jindabyne to look around Mt Kosciuszko to hit B400 then M31 in?

If I hadn't spent all day driving through the mountains, I'd have slammed the Kosciuszko option, but having done that today, I'm thinking the coastline is now back on the table as an option. The mountains have been fun to drive through, but like you guys said earlier, they aren't really that impressive.

Yes, I expect that it would be. Obviously it depends what your estimation of 'comfortably' is, but I suspect so.

The average, pre-tax, salary in Australia is something in the order of $55k - you'd likely be earning around double that.

I don't know what you're earning in Milan, but do know that Sydney is more expensive than Milan (and although you gain beautiful beaches, you lose beautiful lakes).

Went with the Jindabyne / Kosciuszko option. Very happy I did. The drive was much different than the previous mountain drives. This one was actually up in the mountains, with snow and everything. Not much snow, but some. Was starting to feel cheated at being in the Snowy Mountains and not seeing any snow.

The best part of the drive was from Thredbo (a little town just inside the Kosciuszko Park) to Khancoban, just outside the park.

Jindabyne was also neat to drive around. It's nestled right up against a large lake high in the mountains. I love places like that.

Driving around Lake Hume was neat, especially near Tangambalanga. The maps show a much larger lake than it actually is. I guess the water level has been down for a while? Lots of cows walking around grazing where there was supposed to be a lake. Also lots of dead tree trunks all throughout the lake itself, I guess it emptied then partially refilled at some point? Or water was diverted?

After I hit Wodonga, I got on M31 and took boring highway down to Melbourne. The skyline is impressive, you can see it from many km away.

Two notable roadkills after seeing endless kangaroo corpses - someone ran over a snake near Lake Hume. I saw it writhing around in the middle of the road, diverted my path to avoid it, then when I got close I saw that someone had already run it over right in the middle of its body. I thought about turning around to put it out of its misery but kept going. The second was a cockatiel, I think - one of those large white birds with the little yellow reverse jerry curl coming out the back of its head? He was somewhere on the side of M31.

Just found it.. a sulphur-crested cockatoo. Saw lots of those guys today.


Hanging out in Melbourne for a couple of days, then onward to the Great Ocean Road and Adelaide.

Lake Hume is a man-made lake, created by a dam across the Murray. There's a hydroelectric power station there, but it has other uses (irrigation, flood prevention).

Don't know much about it, but it might not be a great sign if it's already at a low level at the start of summer.

The trip to Adelaide is fairly no brainer. After the end of the great ocean road take the direct route to Mt Gambier and check the Blue Lake. Then unless you like wine (in which case Coonawarra) take the road close to the ocean until rejoining the A1 at Tailem Bend.

I wish I could clue you in to Adelaide's hidden treasures but there arent any. If you're interested in having a beer, I'd be up for that.

Id probably recommend overnighting in Mt Gambier. Decent town with facilities. Not a schoolies spot or anything. Quieter option would be Pt Fairy.

Would be my honor to buy you a beer after all the awesome advice you've provided.

Trying to decide if I want to rent a car here in Melbourne, then drive to Adelaide, then fly out to Sydney from there, or fly to Adelaide, rent a car there, and drive the GOR west to east back to Melbourne, then fly out of Melbourne to Sydney instead.

Will research both options tonight. Returned the free rental car so I'm much more flexible on time now.

Cant imagine two flights is better than one but check it out.

btw, am going to Bali on the 21st, so if you arrive in Adelaide after that, leave a voucher for a beer at any major pub. Just say it's for Chris, they know me.

I'll be there before that. Halfway across the GOR already, in Apollo Bay for the second night. Will stay another two nights somewhere on the GOR, then head into Adelaide on Thursday, most likely. Will drop off the hire car at the airport on Saturday, and fly to Sydney for a few days. Then head to New Zealand for some period of time, probably 2-3 weeks, exploring the south island, mostly the SW area with the fjords.

Right now I'm just goofing around hiking and looking at waterfalls and the coast along the GOR. Also fish & chipsing!

up anyone with any feedback about this?

and also what would a nice area to live by the beach to get a highrise 1 bedroom for < 2500aud a month? i dont really like low houses

70K after taxes should be fine.

Im definitely not a Sydney expert and it depends where your work is but I would consider the Manly area. You can commute into the city by ferry.

How's the GOR? I haven't been on it since I was a kid. There's a certain irony that you never visit the places that are in your backyard.

Any thoughts about what you want to do in Adelaide? I'd recommend the Waterfall Gully hike, it's a very popular roughly 2-hour round trip hike from Waterfall Gully to the top of Mount Lofty, which is the tallest peak in the Adelaide Hills and has a great view of Adelaide city and suburbs. You can also drive to the summit if you don't fancy the hike.

If you have the hire car until Saturday you could consider staying outside the city. If that appeals, you can consider anywhere in the area enclosed by the M1 to the south, the B34 to the east, the B10 to the north and basically a straight line between Crafers and Houghton in the west. IDK if you have any interest in wine, but the Adelaide Hills region is my favourite of the many wine regions close to Adelaide due to its quirkiness, boutique feel and relatively low tourist traffic (as compared to the heavily touristed Barossa Valley to the north populated by mostly large-scale operations).

If you like fruit I really recommend calling in at Cowlings Cherries. It's smack in the middle of cherry season and they have really incredible produce. Shell out the bit extra for the extra large cherries.

I should mention that staying inside the city has some appeal also I guess. It's hard for me to judge having grown up here. Adelaide is a planned city with reserved "parkland" green borders, as you'll see if you Google Maps it. There's a good rooftop bar in Adelaide where you can check the interesting bits of this out from above, I was going to recommend we have a beer there but it depends where you stay. It's hard for me to judge how interesting all this is given I live here. I know personally when I travel to other places I like to get up high and get a view of it, helps me feel like I understand it. The Mt Lofty view could also serve that purpose though.

I need to drop off the car on Saturday afternoon at the airport. Will most likely book a one way ticket to Sydney for Saturday as well and just leave when I drop the car off.

Just stopped for the night in Port Fairy. Enjoyed most of the GOR, but it went far inland after Apollo Bay and it was mostly fields and pastures then. Hopefully it will get good again between here and Portland. Also planning to hug the coast the rest of the way up to Adelaide as much as possible. That looks like about 6.5hrs/600km, so will plan on 300km/day on Wednesday and Thursday, arriving Adelaide Thursday evening. Explore Adelaide on Friday, then off to Sydney on Saturday.

I love to get up high and get a view, so just let me know where that rooftop bar is and when to meet you there. No interest in the wine stuff but I'll google the cherry place, fresh fruit is the best! Friday will be a good hike, will check out Lofty on Google.

Not sure about meeting random South Australians from the internet. You could end up in a barrel.

you should post this stuff on /r/sydney imo (reddit) and give them more details about the location of the job etc

Did my 300km today along the Princes Highway & B101. Very few other cars, and able to maintain 100km for long stretches in decent coastal scenic landscape. Stopped for a bit at Beachport and walked out their 775m jetty, hung out on a couple of the beaches there, then made it up to Robe for the night. Crushed a fish & chips, and now catching up on logistics stuff.

Should be in Adelaide tomorrow night, so then or friday works for a beer. I have the car until I fly out on Saturday, so location isn't an issue.

Yeti - I'm flying into Sydney on Saturday, will probably hang out there for 2-4 days before flying to Kiwiland. Let me know if you want to meet up for a beer as well.


I looked for a NZ thread but didn't find one (other than the poker-only one), so I guess it's on to the regular internet for advice on traveling there. I'm interested in a circuit of the South Island with the focus on the SW area. Thinking a campervan is probably the best approach, but they may be all sold out or crazy prices given it is high season. Other options include a guided bus tour of some fixed length, booking buses on my own, or renting a regular car and staying at motels or buying a little tent & sleeping bag then giving them away when I leave.

All depends on your definition of comfortable.

Are you willing to live with other people?

Is your employer paying for health care?