Australia in a Month

Australia in a Month

This country has been my dream since I was a little girl. My mom lived here when she was in her 20’s for a few years, so I’ve grown up always seeing pictures and hearing her rave about the beaches and getting lost in the outback. This past year I finally scraped up enough money to pay for the 15 hour flight and found a friend to make the trek with me! Here’s a ‘quick’ recap of our journey 🙂

We chose to travel along the east coast, beginning in Melbourne and ending in Cairns! Along the way we stopped at all of these places:

  • Melbourne
  • Sydney
  • Canberra
  • Byron Bay
  • Surfer’s Paradise
  • Brisbane
  • Fraser Island
  • Noosa
  • Airlie Beach
  • Magnetic Island
  • Cairns

 

 

My friend and I had been working full time back home so we could afford a little more luxury- we rented a car (super cheap and easy to do in Australia) and stayed mostly in Air BnB’s and hostels. I would definitely recommend getting a car- the country is really spread out and a lot of the main attractions are outside of the cities!

We started in Melbourne – the city of brunch! It’s a must do when you’re there – avocado eggs benny made my life. If you don’t have a car (or don’t want to deal with the stress of finding parking) it’s really easy to get around in the city via public transit – just go to any convenient store and purchase a Myki Card and load it up! Take the train into the main train station called Flinders Street Railway Station (it’s a GORGEOUS station). Lots of shopping and restaurants around this area!

If you want to experience what the locals do for fun – go to a horse race at Flemington Racecourse! We were lucky that when we were there was a really big race happening called the Emirates Stakes Day. Super fun- everyone gets super dressed up and wears crazy head pieces!

My highlight of our stay in Melbourne wasn’t even in the city itself- it was the 12 apostles! This is why having a car comes in handy – it’s about a 3 hour drive from the city center. The drive itself was part of the reason I loved this little side trip so much! It’s exactly what I pictured Australia’s countryside to look like – felt like a little taste of the outback without going too much into the boonies!  If you don’t have a car there’s tons of bus tours that go to the area for the day. My friend and I left early in the morning, spent a few hours soaking in the beaches and beautiful scenery of the 12 apostles and then drove back. GO SEE THIS SOON because the 12 apostles are slowly disappearing so don’t miss out!

Our next stop was the capital city – Canberra. We stayed here one night – not TONS to do here as it’s not on the water, but if you’re doing the drive yourself it’s a nice stop to make to cut the trip up on your way to Sydney. Heads up- the drive was FULL of dead kangaroos on the side of the road. We counted 46 between Melbourne and Canberra ! 🙁 As for things to do here – there’s a nice little walk up Mount Ainslie to see the beautifully landscaped parliament buildings.

Next stop SYDNEY!! My favourite city in Australia. (Sorry Melbourne!) The weather here is much hotter – I could totally live here! So much to see and do in Sydney! #1 things you MUST DO is go to Bondi Beach! My favourite beach of all time by far – exactly what I pictured Sydney to feel like – surfers everywhere – just a super chill vibe. LOVED it. When you’re there you should do the coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee Beach – you get views like the in the picture below!

 

Some fun day trips to do:

  • Rose Bay – there’s a coastal path from Rose Bay to Watson’s Bay! Super pretty and you get a view of the Harbour Bridge the whole walk! From there you can even take a ferry downtown or to Manly Beach! (not too expensive).
  • Manly Beach – a bit quieter and calmer than Bondi Beach. There’s lots of shops and restaurants along the main strip as well
  • The Blue Mountains are about an hour outside of the city – full of beautiful hikes where you can see views like the one below!

After Sydney we made our way to the infamous Byron Bay. We stayed at a hostel called Aquarius – I would 100% recommend this place! Tons of young people partying and it’s super close to the beach front and bars! This town has major surfer dude/chill vibes. My favourite thing to do here was lay on the beach/grass and chat with travelers from around the world! If you’re looking for something more active to do here, walk along the coast up to the Byron Bay lighthouse! It’s a relatively easy walk with gorrrrrrrgeous views!

If you’re looking to enjoy some night life…go to Cheeky Monkeys – it’s a famous bar/club where the bartenders are covered in body paint (no shirts!) It’s definitely an interesting experience to say the least!

After Byron we made our way to Surfer’s Paradise! It’s the perfect place to lay on the beach alllllll day. Super touristy area, but the beach is gorgeous and the night life is fun! There’s lots of bar hops that you can do if you’re looking to meet other travelers!

Our next stop was Brisbane! So much to do here! There’s tons of shopping in the city center – but my favourite place in the city was the SouthBank Parklands! There’s a large man-made pool/beach area with tons of bars and restaurants along the path!

Just outside the city there’s an island called Stradbroke Island (which the locals call Stradi). It’s a beautiful little island with lots of beaches and kangaroos if you want to get away from the city life a little! Lots of coastal walk to do here too (can you tell that’s my favourite activity?!) Just FYI the bus system on the island is very limited (we almost got stuck on the island for the night) so just be mindful of that!

We also went to the Long Pine Koala Sanctuary while we were here! There’s a huge open area where you can just go play with the kangaroos (WHAT COULD BE BETTER IN LIFE?!) We literally spent like 3 hours in here taking selfies with them and following them around hahaha. We also paid a little extra to hold a koala 🙂

After Brisbane we drove to Noosa. We only stayed here for the day – but that was enough time to try surfing for the first time ever! It was so hard – I didn’t successfully catch one wave LOL but it was still so much fun! Noosa is a great place to try surfing because there’s so much room and the waves are perfect!

After we had enough of falling off our surfboards we made out way to Rainbow Beach. This is one of the access points to Fraser Island (it’s either Rainbow Beach or Hervey Bay). Definitely don’t stay in Rainbow Beach unless you’re going to the island (there’s absolutely NOTHING in Rainbow Beach).

There’s tons of tours you can do on the island – the only one that wasn’t sold out when we were there was with a tour company called ‘Cool Dingos’. It was a bus tour with accommodation and food included! The most famous tour to do on the island is a camping tour where you drive your own 4×4’s but unfortunately that was sold out (which hindsight was okay because we don’t know how to drive standard so we couldn’t have done that one anyways!). On the Cool Dingos tour we hit all the main attractions: Lake Mckenzie, Maheno Shipwreck, Lake Wabby, Champagne Pools, Eli Creek, and  75 Mile Beach. My favourite place on the island was Lake McKenzie – the water was a beautiful turquoise colour and the sand is amazing for skin exfoliation! Lather up while you’re in there and your skin will feel so soft! (Check out my Cool Dingos Review for a more detailed description of the tour!)

After Fraser we made the TEN HOUR drive to Airlie Beach! The town itself is quite small but really nice! Lots of restaurants and little boutiques on the main drag. The beachfront is beautiful but you can’t swim in the water because of the jellyfish! However, they built a huge pool nearby where you can relax and tan for the day!

The main thing to do while in the area is visit Whitehaven Beach – which you have to sail to! Stupid us didn’t book in advance and there was only one sailing trip with 2 spaces left! It was with a private company called ‘Silent Night’ which actually turned out to be the BEST! It was 3 nights and they made all the food for us, took us snorkeling, dropped us off at Whitehaven, and took us for some hikes on some of the little islands! WARNING: if you are prone to sea-sickness take gravol! I felt nauseous literally the whole trip but it was sooo worth it because the views in the Whitsundays are UNREAL!

After the amazing sailing trip we continued up the coast to a place called Townsville. This is where you catch the ferry to Magnetic Island! We stayed at Base Backpackers which had the cutest little log cabins on the water! While on the island you HAVE to rent a car! It’s the best way to see the island – they have 4×4’s or they have these cute little pink Barbie cars you can rent too! We chose the 4×4 so that we could access the more remote parts of the island.

After Magnetic Island we had one more stop! 🙁 Cairns! We stayed at Gilligans which is essentially a hotel – but it’s an insane party place. While we were here there was a DJ called Timmy Trumpet –  this was one of the craziest nights of the trip! Lots of tourist shopping in Cairns (I filled up my bag with gifts for everyone back home on the last day!) There’s also a man-made pool by the water which is where we spent our last days soaking up the Australian sun!

Cairns is the best place to head over to the Great Barrier Reef. We went with a company called Passions for Paradise. This is an amazing company to go with- great food, great staff, cheap drinks! Obviously while you’re in Australia you CAN’T NOT snorkel at the Great Barrier Reef. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life!

And that was Australia in a Month!

Check out my other Australian posts for more in depth descriptions of my trip! 🙂

xo steens