Out of all the travel I have done, Australia has taken the most research - seriously, it's taken me hours and hours! This is firstly because the country is absolutely massive and when you have to narrow down where you're going, you need to be sure you're making the right choices. Secondly, due to the size of the country, different regions are like visiting completely different countries, so it actually depends what your are looking for when you visit.
Finally, I had to consider the time it would take to get from one city to another. Usually this is as simple as jumping into a rental car or getting a bus or train, but not in the land downunder.
Take, for example, the distance between the neighbouring cities of Sydney and Melbourne. Check them out on a map. Pretty close right?
... yeah, you're actually looking at 878km or 545 miles (approximately the distance from England to Germany).
Okay so, there I was knowing that the average one-stop-over-flight to Australia is between 22 and 27 hours, and direct flights are not only rarely offered, but are several hundred Pounds more pricey than the already £800+ return ticket. How do you even decide where to start, or what to miss when a flight out there takes longer than a whole day of your life?
The first thing I did was read numerous travel blogs, spent ages looking through Australian Instagram accounts, and reading sites like Trip Advisor to find out what the 'must sees' in the country are. Once I'd done that, I had a list that looked like this: Alice Springs, Perth, Cairns, Adelaide, Kangaroo Island, Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmania, and Darwin. No biggie - apart from the fact that those are just about all the major cities and the distance between - let's take Dawin and Sydney is almost 2000 miles/3000km.
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| Image from Google search |
So it was back to the drawing board for me for the second time. Eventually I had to admit defeat and realise that I can't do it all in one trip. It would take weeks of travel and hundreds of Pounds and I'd just have to stop being a brat and draw the line somewhere.
After much deliberation, pouting, and looking at pretty pictures, I eventually decided to take 15 days in Australia, and visit only the cities that are nearest to one another - or perhaps I should say the cities that are in the same hemisphere of the country? 😏 My trip looks like this: Adelaide, Barossa Valley and Kangaroo Island, Sydney, Hobart city and Mt Wellington, and Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road.
As my time was limited, I didn't want to waste any time travelling and so I began looking up domestic flight companies. Almost immediately I came across a company called 'Jet Star' who are absolutely amazing. Not only are their flights very economical (all my domestic flights cost me less than £130), but they have all sorts of optional extras to keep the prices down. The only downside is that, as with economy carriers in England, you only have 7kg of free cabin baggage. If you want any more, you have to pay for it. Was I going to pay for it? Hell no.
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!
My sister in law has been showing me these 'ranger roll' army-style packing videos on You Tube and I have decided I am only taking a small back pack containing the following items: 5 x pairs of leggings, 5 x tshirts, 1 x pair of trainers, a toothbrush, underwear, socks, and I will wear my winter coat, gloves, hat and scarf (believe it or not it gets really cold in southern Australia in the winter!).
And so, after two months of planning, I'm finally ready to go. All I have to do now is wait ... 😞
