Melbourne to Brisbane road trip - best route and attractions

I'm driving up to Brisbane on short notice with some mates. I've never done the drive before so this is all going to be new. What's the best route to take and what are the must see/do things along the way?

 

I've done this trip via the Newell three times and once via the Pacific, (skipping Canberra and passing through Sydney).

Best route is inland via the Newell Highway, it's faster.

Leave Melbourne at 2-3am. With a break for breakfast and lunch, you'll get to see the dish in Parkes late afternoon.

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Could then possibly continue on to Moree by evening and book into one of the motels that have the artisan bore baths. There's a caravan park that's pretty decent, or a chinese restaraunt/motel called Dragon Phoenix or something similar.

Take turns driving. Stop every hour or two at those rest areas. They can be quite fun if you're traveling with mates. Keeps you sain if you're by yourself.

Gilgandra to Coonabarabran has a fair few turns, which can be kinda freaky with all the trucks making use of the road. Make sure you have a fresh pair of eyes behind the wheel.

If you're driving throughout the night - be sure to keep an eye on petrol. I found out Coonabarabran has no petrol stations open after dark and ended up JUST rolling into the Narrabri servo .

 

I've done this trip about 20 times now, my favorite route is going far inland and taking back roads, some epic roads around rural NSW.

Copied from a post I made a couple months back after doing my last brisbane trip, melbourne-broken hill-brisbane-back down the coast. Needless to say, this route is amazing fun. Those single trail roads are awesome to drive. Went 3-4 hours without seeing a single other car

Also, what glitchlol says about fuel is very true. I learned this the hard way lol, had to sleep for 5 hours waiting for a servo to open because I ran out of fuel and they weren't open at night. I now carry a 20L jerry can with me and fill up whenever possible.










































Certainly not the quickest route, but I still made it to Brisbane in less than 2 days, and man that drive was fun. Although if I was going with mates I'd probably just go up the coast and make random stops along coastal towns.

 

Yeah, I've gone and come back now. Took the hume to Sydney because there's nothing really to see on any other route. I went past that petrol tanker crash. Must have only just happened because there was only a few emergency vehicles and the north bound lanes were still open.

Then I was about 1km away from that school that went up in Newcastle. Massive black plume of smoke and we're just like "that's lunch, let's go".

Got up at 4am yesterday,after staying the night in Sydney, to make it back to Melbourne before peak hit.

Success

 

Wow, I don't think I'd have a fun trip in a car like that on some of those roads.

I did Brisbane/Melbourne coastal on the way down and inland on the way back. Inland was definitely the quickest. I heard that there are a tonne of roo's on the inland route though we didn't see any.

 

great thread as im planning on doing this early August. What is the drive time realistically to Bris Vegas?
2 days?

 

Yeah, about 23 hours total driving time. Add an hour and a half for fuel and food breaks each day. A good half way point is probably the other side of Sydney (at least if you are avoiding tolls). It takes a good one and a half hours to get through the traffic so it's good to get it out of the way before the second day.

Newcastle is just over an hour out of Sydney so if you start early enough you could make that easy.

 

Well, it's that time of year again - where I take annual leave and try get some kms onto the novated lease .

Planning on leaving Friday morning at 3am. Should hit Sydney by lunch time and thus avoid afternoon traffic when heading north. I have a second driver with me, so all's good

Any recommendations on somewhere basic to crash overnight between Sydney and Newcastle?

 

I stayed at the Gosford Motel. Was actually pretty good. Food close by, servo right there, 5mins back on the freeway. Plenty of cheap stays along there.

Like $80? For the night.

I am driving to sydney on friday to get the k's up as well. GWS v Collingwood game.

 

How did the car hold up after the back roads . Some of them can be pretty corrugated

 

Damn how slow are you driving?

Bris -> syd can be done in a tad over 10.5hrs with cruise on at the speed limit (although that is only stopping for fuel)

Syd -> melb is what 6-7hrs?

I know with 4 drivers before we've done bris-> melb in around 18hrs doing the speed limit.

Inland is much quicker than pacific. I like the new england highway Bris -> syd as its much more scenic and far less trucks than the pacific (shorter too!). Bris -> melb the newell is the best (fastest) route.

 

I learn't it the hard way about Sydney traffic when I rode my bike from Melb>Brissy. It was 2010 Dec...half of Newell was closed, so we got directed back to Hume/Pacific. Then I tried to avoid the toll roads in Sydney and got caught up for 2.5 hrs in Sydney redirected traffic.

Newell is definitely faster...just need to look out for the roos, never had that problem around Hume/Pacific. Heavy traffic takes care of that. While taking the Hume towards Melb I always tend to cross Sydney and stay the night at Mittagong/Goulburn to avoid Sydney traffic the next morning.

@Munchkin1, that looks like an awesome trip. Care to share a google map plot of the route please? Will take the Pajero if it isn't suitable for the bike.