I love road trips. The planning is tedious but I love being able to plan my own travel route, visit only places I am interested in.
Booked a flight to Sydney and back from Gold Coast and the road trip began. This post will be a rough outline and itinerary of the road trip. I will go further into the details of each location in the other posts!
You can watch the entire trip in this video. A pretty amateur video. Both our action camera and DSLR died halfway through the trip (we suspected it was because of a short circuit in both the cameras when we were charging them).
We spent two days in Sydney. I'm not exactly the city traveler so two days was enough to explore the major attractions. We stayed in a really affordable airbnb accomodation which was near Bondi Junction. The host was extremely nice and even offered me some vitamin when I was feeling under the sun from the cold.
We rented a car and drove up to Blue Mountains. I definitely recommend staying a night here as it was one of the most memorable nights I ever had. The milky way was visible with our naked eyes and it was beautiful beyond words. It was definitely a lot more beautiful when you can see it.
Hunter Valley is the place for wine and good food. It's where we had the best meal in Australia, and tasted some of the best wines. My favourite wine tasting place was Scarborough Wine Co. Definitely one of the best.
Nelson Bay is the place to go if you want to whale watch. We got on a 3hour cruise and unfortunately, luck was not with us. We were near a whale but she was sleeping under the surface so there wasn't any show for us to see. We did see some seals though! And we had a free cruise again because even though we did see the whale blowing water, we didn't actually get to see much of it.
We did not make it to Port Macquarie before sunset so we missed that stop. A pity though as I was looking forward to it. Coffs Habour is the right in the middle of Sydney and Gold Coast, which made a perfect stop for the night. The weather was getting warmer for us by then so it was perfect to drop by the beach. I love my airbnb accommodation here so I'm highly recommending it! It was lovely and much better than the pictures have portrayed.
One of the locals I met there said he moved to Byron Bay after a short vacation there made him fall in love with the place. Byron Bay definitely has its charm. This was the place where I first learnt to surf and the first time I dived (and was within 3m away from a grey nurse shark!) Diving was definitely a highlight and was incredibly glad to be able to see the endangered grey nurse shark just when we were about to end the dive.
This photo was taken on the road to Brisbane. I highly recommend going to the Mount Coot-tha Lookout to have a view of the Brisbane city night skyline. If the weather is good, you may even get to see Gold Coast.
We ended at Gold Coast because we were flying off from here. We covered both Dreamworld and Whitewater (despite it being winter). It was close to 28 degree Celsius at noon time so it was a nice weather to play at the water theme park (also, there was no crowd because it was winter). We even made a day trip to Springbrook National Park and stayed to admire the glow worms under the natural bridge.
Booked a flight to Sydney and back from Gold Coast and the road trip began. This post will be a rough outline and itinerary of the road trip. I will go further into the details of each location in the other posts!
You can watch the entire trip in this video. A pretty amateur video. Both our action camera and DSLR died halfway through the trip (we suspected it was because of a short circuit in both the cameras when we were charging them).
Day 1 & 2 - Sydney
We spent two days in Sydney. I'm not exactly the city traveler so two days was enough to explore the major attractions. We stayed in a really affordable airbnb accomodation which was near Bondi Junction. The host was extremely nice and even offered me some vitamin when I was feeling under the sun from the cold.Day 3 - Blue Mountains
We rented a car and drove up to Blue Mountains. I definitely recommend staying a night here as it was one of the most memorable nights I ever had. The milky way was visible with our naked eyes and it was beautiful beyond words. It was definitely a lot more beautiful when you can see it.Day 4 - Hunter Valley
Hunter Valley is the place for wine and good food. It's where we had the best meal in Australia, and tasted some of the best wines. My favourite wine tasting place was Scarborough Wine Co. Definitely one of the best.
Day 5 - Nelson Bay, Port Macquarie
Nelson Bay is the place to go if you want to whale watch. We got on a 3hour cruise and unfortunately, luck was not with us. We were near a whale but she was sleeping under the surface so there wasn't any show for us to see. We did see some seals though! And we had a free cruise again because even though we did see the whale blowing water, we didn't actually get to see much of it.
Day 6 - Port Macquarie, Coffs Habour
We did not make it to Port Macquarie before sunset so we missed that stop. A pity though as I was looking forward to it. Coffs Habour is the right in the middle of Sydney and Gold Coast, which made a perfect stop for the night. The weather was getting warmer for us by then so it was perfect to drop by the beach. I love my airbnb accommodation here so I'm highly recommending it! It was lovely and much better than the pictures have portrayed.
Day 7, 8, 9 - Byron Bay
One of the locals I met there said he moved to Byron Bay after a short vacation there made him fall in love with the place. Byron Bay definitely has its charm. This was the place where I first learnt to surf and the first time I dived (and was within 3m away from a grey nurse shark!) Diving was definitely a highlight and was incredibly glad to be able to see the endangered grey nurse shark just when we were about to end the dive.Day 10 - Brisbane
This photo was taken on the road to Brisbane. I highly recommend going to the Mount Coot-tha Lookout to have a view of the Brisbane city night skyline. If the weather is good, you may even get to see Gold Coast.Day 11 & 12 - Gold Coast
We ended at Gold Coast because we were flying off from here. We covered both Dreamworld and Whitewater (despite it being winter). It was close to 28 degree Celsius at noon time so it was a nice weather to play at the water theme park (also, there was no crowd because it was winter). We even made a day trip to Springbrook National Park and stayed to admire the glow worms under the natural bridge.
I visited Pokolbin, a quaint little town in Hunter Valley. Unfortunately, I did not manage to get an accommodation there as I booked my holiday only a month before. Also, as I visited Hunter Valley in Winter, most of the vineyards were barren and I was definitely missing out on the hot air balloons - a common sight in Hunter Valley.
I made a booking a day in advance over at Cafe Enzo for lunch after reading the rave reviews on TripAdvisior. Cafe Enzo was also situated right next to the wine cellars I wanted to visit. We were a little late on our schedule because we were stuck in a slow traffic while bypassing another town in Hunter Valley. I phoned in to make changes to my reservation and the staff was courteous.
I'm a budget traveler but I could not miss out on tasting some of the best foods in Hunter Valley. Cafe Enzo is set in a Tuscan inspired village, picturesque from every angle. It overlooks a vine yard and a pond. Even though it was winter, the weather was a perfect 25 degree Celsius, which made it perfect for al fresco dining.
I had the linguine with tiger prawns while my partner had the smoked lamb with mushroom risotto. Both were truly amazing and the ingredients used were really fresh. We both agreed that we would definitely return to Cafe Enzo the next time we visit Australia.
My favourite was Scarborough Wine Co. The service was excellent and I had a really fun time tasting the wine and the staff was knowledgeable and approachable. We ended up spending most of our travel baggage wine limit from there. Do note that there is a wine limit that you can bring back to Singapore. Out of all three wine cellars, only Tyrell sold travel bags for the wine.
Here I'm tasting a Shiraz from Tyrell. However, Hunter Valley is well-known for her Semillon. Semillon is a dry and sweet white wine made of golden skinned grapes. We ended up opening a bottle during one of our dinners at Byron Bay and it was so good.
Scarborough Wine Co has the perfect backdrop for photo taking. It would have been much better if it wasn't winter, but I'm not complaining because the weather on that day was perfect. I never had to put on my jacket throughout the entire day.
Some of the wine cellars do charge for wine tasting. I do know that Tyrell and McGuigan don't but I can't be sure for Scarbourough because we ended up buying lots of wine from them. Also, Hunter Valley is home to chocolate and cheese tasting. We did not make it in time for the chocolate but the cheese tasting do charge.
Next stop: Byron Bay!
