Australia's East Coast Explorer

Twenty-six nights from Melbourne to Sydney, self-guided, down the Great Ocean Road and up the east coast, with an internal flight in the middle.

The flight from Adelaide to Cairns is what makes this work. Driving the Nullarbor and the Queensland interior would take a fortnight on its own, so the itinerary flies over it and spends the time on the two coasts instead.

Melbourne opens it for three nights, then Apollo Bay along the Great Ocean Road by Torquay and Bells Beach, and Warrnambool past the Twelve Apostles and Loch Ard Gorge, with whale watching available. Mount Gambier follows with the Blue Lake, then two nights in Adelaide by the Coonawarra vineyards. The flight reaches Palm Cove for two nights, the gateway to the reef and the Daintree, then Townsville, Airlie Beach for the Whitsundays, Rockhampton, and Hervey Bay for K’gari, the largest sand island in the world, with whales passing between July and November. Brisbane, Byron Bay with the lighthouse walk at the most easterly point of the mainland, and Sydney close the route.

The flights out to Melbourne and home from Sydney, the car hire, the internal flight and twenty-three nights in fourteen hotels plus up to three on the international flights are included, with meals depending on the room basis and a one-way car fee payable locally. The price shown is per person. The southern spring and autumn suit the whole route best, since the tropical north has a wet season from December to March and the Victorian coast is cold in winter. No wildlife sighting can be promised, on the reef or on the whale trips. Twenty-seven nights is the longest itinerary in the operator’s range and the only sensible way to see both coasts in one trip.