So, a month to travel between two cities may sound like a lot...but not when it's the Australian East Coast! My adventures here last year saw me spend 30 days travelling the 3000km from Melbourne, in southern Victoria, all the way up to Cairns in northern Queensland. In hindsight, I would have liked to have had a lot more time travelling this well-trodden backpacker route, a few months or a year perhaps! What I did have, however, was four weeks of action-packed travelling, very much going places and seeing things!

The Country

One of the main things which struck me about Australia was its size. If you come from the UK, then the scale of the country is pretty incomprehensible. Just the 3000km from Melbourne to Cairns, which isn't even the most-northerly point, is three times longer than the UK, and it's over 4000km across remote outback over to the west coast. Especially as I had just come from New Zealand, these distances just blew my mind and it's easy to forget when planning on a map that whole days are going to be taken up with bus journeys. What's more, the east coast route is still a pretty small part of Australia, yes it's got three of the big cities, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, but what about Western Australia? The Northern Territory? South Australia? Tasmania? With the huge popularity of the east coast, most of the rest of the country can sometimes, I think, be overlooked.

The Journey

Melbourne city centre
St Kilda sunset

Melbourne

I began my journey at the beginning of May, with a few days in Melbourne. Having just left the Kiwi autumn, it felt pretty warm, although obviously it wasn't, by Australian standards - I've learnt from the few Aussies I've met, even the ones that weren't born and bred there, that there is a big difference in what they would call a warm day! Anyway, Melbourne is a great city to visit. There are cafés, bars and shops galore, nestled in funky little laneways, there's trams, lots of green spaces and the beach not far away. I spent my time there with a visit to St Kilda beach to see the penguins come out at sunset (NB. I was kind of hoping for black and white penguins, the St Kilda variety are somewhat smaller, and bluer!), a trip to the MCG stadium to watch an Australian Rules Football match (Go Carlton!) and a bus ride along the Great Ocean Road. As well as getting to see the famous not-quite-twelve Twelve Apostles, this bus trip was also the only time I got to see koalas.

Sydney Harbour
Bondi Beach

Sydney

Next up was Sydney, after an all-night bus anyway. I loved Sydney, four days there really wasn't enough for me, I could have easily stayed. One of the best vantage points I found of the famous harbour was from the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the water, the city skyline, the ferries and the Botanic Gardens makes an excellent view, although obviously you won't get to see the bridge at the same time! One of the best things I did was the walk from Coogee to Bondi, a coastal path which takes a couple hours and has some brilliant views. However, I did think that Bondi Beach was a little overrated, sure the pool right by the ocean is pretty cool, but otherwise, it just looked like a beach to me.

If you want to get out of the city centre, then visit Manly. I got the ferry over one evening and watched the sun set over the beach, it was very pretty and is definitely somewhere I'd go back to.

 

Manly

 

Byron Bay

Very popular with surfer types, Byron Bay is all about the beach. A small town with a chilled-out vibe, it's easy to see why it's so popular with backpackers, and because of this, there are plenty of bars and shops around to keep you busy, if you want to be busy that is. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time here to really explore, although I did make it out to nearby Minyon Falls, a pretty spectacular waterfall, and to the Channon Market, a quirky hippie craft market.

Minyon Falls

Look out for The Journey, Part Two, coming soon...