A brief guide to my travels around Australia
I managed to hit up every state in Australia through a mix of solo travel, travels with friends, my host family, my own family, and also tours.
Being on a working holiday visa for a year, which included six months of working as an au pair, meant I ended up with a base: Adelaide. I therefore started/ended many trips there, while also returning to Australia twice from my year in New Zealand to travel some more. The result: my travels were not exactly linear.
I am going to provide a state by state list of the main cities/towns/areas I visited, while also explaining the method and route used for my own travels to such.
This can be used as an itinerary guide/extra destination ideas for whichever state(s) you may be travelling to.
South Australia
Road-trips from Adelaide:
- Victor Harbour
- Day trip
- Middleton
- Day trip
- Yorke Peninsula
- Weekend trip
- Deep Creek Conservation Park
- Multiple day camping trip
- Flinders Ranges
- Multiple day camping trip
- Port Neill
- 10 day trip to a beach house
- Port Lincoln
- Day trip from Port Neill
- Mount Gambier
- Stop off on Great Ocean Road trip
- Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road
- Weekend trip (one way road-trip – flew back to Adelaide)
Tours from Adelaide:
- Kangaroo Island Tour
- 2 day tour with Groovy Grapes
- Outback Tour
- 10 day bus tour from Adelaide to Darwin: 6 day Rock Patrol tour + 3 day/2 night Alice Springs to Darwin Northern Territory tour. https://peterpans.com/package/10-day-adelaide-to-darwin-outback-tour/
- SA stops:
- Flinders Ranges
- Coober Pedy
- Watarrka National Park (Kings Canyon)
Northern Territory
Outback Tour (as mentioned in South Australia section)
- Yulara
- Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park
- Alice Springs
- Daly Waters
- Mataranka
- Banka Banka
- Nitmiluk National Park
- Darwin
- Spent 4 nights here at the end of the tour
Queensland
Following my Outback tour I flew from Darwin to Cairns, and bought a bus pass that took me from Cairns to Byron Bay: The Greyhound Bus was my go to travel option for my solo travels of the East Coast. Had I not already been to Sydney, I would have opted for a pass that ended there.
I will provide the list in a logical order as these could all be stops on the Greyhound bus/road-trip. My East Coast travels however were a little all over the place (I will note how I travelled to each).
- Cairns
- Flew to Cairns from Darwin
- Tour + road-trip around the area when there
- Townsville
- Greyhound bus from Cairns
- Magnetic Island
- Ferry from Townsville
- Airlie Beach + Whitsundays
- Flew from Adelaide to Brisbane, Brisbane to Proserpine. Airport bus to Airlie Beach.
- Tour from Airlie Beach to Whitsundays
- Agnes Water + Seventeen Seventy
- Ferry from Magnetic Island to Townsville, Greyhound bus from Townsville. 15 hour bus journey – overnight bus (passed through Airlie Beach as had already been).
- Hervey Bay + Fraser Island
- Roadtrip from Brisbane
- Fraser Island tour from Hervey Bay
- Noosa
- Road-trip from Brisbane (twice)
- Road-trip around the Sunshine Coast when there
- Brisbane
- Greyhound bus from Agnes Water (skipped Hervey Bay + Noosa as had already been)
- Flew into Brisbane once from Adelaide, once from New Zealand
- Gold Coast
- Day trip to the Gold Coast from Brisbane, by local bus
New South Wales
- Byron Bay
- Greyhound bus from Brisbane (& back to Brisbane to fly to Adelaide)
- Port Stephens
- Train from Sydney to Newcastle + local bus from from Newcastle
- Newcastle
- Local bus from Port Stephens
- Sydney
- Train from Newcastle to Sydney
- Flew into Sydney twice from Adelaide and once from New Zealand
Australian Capital Territory (ACT)
- Canberra
- Greyhound bus from Sydney (2 night stop over on way to Melbourne)
Victoria
Road-trips:
- Great Ocean Road (trip sarted in Adelaide, SA)
- Warrnambool
- Port Campbell
- Cape Otway
- Apollo Bay
- Kennett River
- Lorne
- Aireys Inlet
- Melbourne
- Also traveled to Melbourne by: Greyhound bus from Canberra + flights from Adelaide, Sydney + Tasmania
- Sandy Point
- Multiple day trip from Melbourne
- Wilsons Promontory National Park
- Day trip from Sandy Point
Train:
- Frankston
- Day trip from Melbourne
Western Australia
So far, I have only explored Perth in WA, but hope to do a WA road-trip one day.
- Perth
- Flew into Perth from Sydney
Tasmania
Flew into Hobart from Adelaide.
Road-trip around the state in a truck camper, starting and ending in Hobart.
- Hobart
- Eaglehawk Neck
- Pirates Bay
- Tasman National Park
- Lime Bay
- Port Arthur
- Freycinet National Park
- Coles Bay
- Bicheno
- Chain of Lagoons
- Binalong Bay
- Bay of Fires
- Launceston
- Lake Barrington
- Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park
- Liffey Falls State Reserve
- Hastings
