Planning (or not much planning) a road trip to Cairns (from Sydney) next week, thinking about 2 weeks including the return trips.
Fairly familiar with the stops in NSW, and somewhat up to Gold Coast, but have not drove beyond Brisbane. Is there any major points of interests (between Brisbane and Cairns) that are worth of stopping for a day or two?
Otherwise, the plan is to stop over at Brisbane and Mackay for the nights:
- Sydney -> Brisbane (950km)
- Brisbane -> Mackay (950km)
- Mackay -> Cairns (1000km)
So basically 6 days on the road (3 days each way), that leaves 8 days for Cairns. Depends on how things go, might stop at Gold Coast for a couple of days on the way back, that leaves 6 days for Cairns.
Any reason to spend time in Mackay if we are going to Cairns for the Reef?
Your thoughts?
Update
6,000km later we are back, thanks all for your input and advice. Road trip itself was fun, surprisingly the kids love it and they did not mind the long drive. But weather wasn't the best, pretty much rained continuously up North.
Due to lack of prior planning, the trip was pretty much constrained by available accommodation. I figured that we need 4 full days at Cairns, that means 5 nights of accommodation. Most places are either not available for that many nights or super expensive. At last found an apartment at Port Douglas through Airbnb and so we went.
Once we had the dates locked in, we left 2 days in advance, stopped at Brisbane and Mackay. Arrived Port Douglas at around 4pm on the third day, unloaded the car and went to Four Mile Beach to have a look. It was high tide, so not much beach. Then just went to town centre for dinner and groceries.
The main attractions we visited were Daintree Rainforest up to Cape Tribulation, the Daintree Discovery Centre, some beaches and walking tracks along the way. We also visited Mossman Gorge and did the 2km walking track in heavy down pour. I found Mossman Gorge is much more enjoyable, it's closer and more accessible. I would not recommend going further north unless you have deep appreciation of rainforest, love to bush walk, or want to do crocodile cruise.
We went to see the Great Barrier Reef with Quicksilver, the cruise itself was fine. We did ocean walk and snockering at the platform, they also have an underwater gallery and mini submarine going around to see the corals. But the overall experience was a little underwhelming, probably diving is only way to fully experience the reef.
I would recommend taking the Skyrail from Smithfield to Kuranda, it was quite a sight seeing the Wet Tropics from the top down, the forest goes on and on and on. Barron Falls also put on an impressive display from recent rainfalls. A disappointment was that the scenic railway did not operate due to the rainfalls. Kuranda was a nice tourisy town to spend the afternoon nonetheless.
Somewhere along Captain Cook Highway is a beach full of balancing rocks, was an interesting sight, it's call the Gatz Balancing Rocks on Google Map if you want to look it up. Right next to Smithfield terminal is the Australian Tank and Artillery Museum, it wasn't in our plan but I'm glad we saw it, the kids were in for a treat.
Leaving Port Douglas, we drove to Kuranda again in order to head inland. Kennedy Highway is made of beautiful and twisty mountain passes, wish I was on the bike. We had a quick look see at some fruit wineries in Atherton Tablelands and stopped at Jaques Coffee Plantation for lunch. There are lots of waterfalls in the tableland region, which required frequent stop to check them out, in fact there's the whole Waterfall Circuit if you have the time. We spent the night at Yungaburra, did not see any platypus, but the Curtain Fig Tree is impressive.
The next day was Paronella Park, though the history was fascinating it's probably not everyone's cup of tea, but if you are driving pass then might as well have a look. The hydro power plant was well ahead of its time in the region.
From then on we stopped at Townsville, Rockhampton, Hervey Bay, Surfers Paradise, and home. Spent half a day each at Townsville and Rockhampton to check out the local attractions. 2 nights at Hervey Bay, to do a day tour of Fraser Island. 3 nights at Surfers because the kids want to go to Sea World, and to unwind before the long drive home.
Driving 10 hours a day is brutal, and not fun, driving those distances why not just fly to cairns / Gold Coast
Look at imoova for one way rentals?
Some places in qld —> Bundaberg, Townsville, Rockhampton
1770 is nice