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Beach Life, Paros Style
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Sydney to Brisbane -- make time to stop and smell the roses.
There are a great many road trips people embark on in Australia that look quite breezy on a map, but turn out to be many, many hours.
Sydney to Brisbane is one of those kinds of excursions. Instead of trying to do the whole stretch in one go – 12 hours straight driving, why not opt to take it safe and meander your way up the Pacific Highway? The plus with this option is that there’s plenty of fishing, sailing, sunbaking, shopping and bushwalking that can be done as you go along.
If you are planning on doing this nice little road-trip but have forgotten that you might need a car, book a rental car online and save yourself a bit of cash. You can visit sites like www.vroomvroomvroom.com.au which pool together all of the current prices and specials on offer from the most popular car rental companies in the country. That way you can make sure you get a brilliant car rental Sydney deal.
So once you’ve negotiated your way out of North Sydney and onto the Pacific Highway, you can start on the fishing, bushwalking and sailing side of things by stopping at the pretty Hawkesbury River, which flows into Broken Bay, and is surrounded by three national parks. The most popular being Ku-Ring-Gai Chase.
For sunbaking and a spot of shopping, just a little further up the road a quintessential beach-side town – Terrigal. It has followed the tradition of the likes of Byron Bay – where a residual alternative vibe has been frilled up to serve a relaxed and palatable mainstream holiday feel. Artsy-crafty shops and a good street-side café culture.
Newcastle is another place you’ll want to stop by. Its got five beaches (try Nobbys Beach, it’s the most popular and it has a bad name – what else do you need?), a huge student population (ie: thriving music scene), some beautiful architecture lurking in colonial buildings and terraced housing – and after a long walk you can head to Darby street for the obligatory latte and international cuisine experience.
Ever onwards and upwards will find you pulling in to Port Stephens, which is barely an hours drive away from Newcastle. If you’ve ever dreamt of dolphin
spotting, then this is one of the places to do it. There are a load of charter vessels whose business it is to search out the 150 or so local bottle-nose dolphins that play in the waves close to the coast. There’s also plenty of little resort towns and villages nearby.
From here on in, there are plenty of little towns and laid-back cities – you’ll be passing by the beach-laden Port Macquarie, the tiny resort town of Nambucca Heads, the big banana near Coffs Harbour. But you’re now fast-approaching one of the most popular corners of NSW.
The farmers like the soil, the hippies like the trees, and the yuppies – well, they follow the hippies and make everything fashionable and smell like coffee beans. The backpackers like the beer, and so do the students. The north-east corner of NSW takes in the truly picturesque (Byron Bay and the surrounding scenery); the alternative (Nimbin being just one of the little communities burrowed in the hillside doing things their way); and the odd (Mooball has painted its telephone poles and service station in the patterns of a milk cow).
There are some truly wonderful pubs around: Byron Bay’s The Beach Hotel; the Nimbin Hotel (in Nimbin of course); and the Tumbulgum Tavern (Riverside Drive in Tumbulgum – just outside of Murwillumbah), just to name a few.
It’s only another two-and-a-half hours to Brisbane after that (some people fall into the trap of stopping in at Surfers Paradise and giving all their money to the Jupiter’s Casino or the clubs on Orchid Ave).
Lovely Brisbane, with it’s unendingly sunny days (bad for the gardens, but good for the soul) and its rolling river, and its Queenslander houses all leaning up against each other while everyone’s down in West End having coffee and people-watching.
About the author:
Alyssa Betts has wandered around various places, usually with sore feet and a big backpack. She now works for www.vroomvroomvroom.comau which has some great car rental Sydney deals.
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