East Coast 2026

My partner and I will be leaving home base on June 19 and spending approximately a month travelling down the east coast of Australia. This was originally going to be a trip through the Northern Territory that I had been planning since Christmas of last year, but the fuel crisis put a dampener on things so I compromised with my guy who much prefers touristy things like theme parks and packed beaches over remote deserts and crocodiles. This trip will cost me a few thousand less in both dollars and kilometres - gotta be happy with that.

We will travel through the Clare Valley region into NSW, spend the night in Broken Hill and then follow the Darling river to Brewarrina and onwards to Toowoomba, where I intend on spending some time in the Japanese gardens on the University of Southern Queensland's campus.

From Toowoomba its off to the Sunshine Coast where my guy will spend days dragging me through all the touristy delights he can find between Noosa and Tweed Heads. Meanwhile, I have every intention of gunning it through the Gondwana Rainforests of Southern Queensland dressed as a Hobbit.

From Brisbane we will cross back into NSW, first stopping at Cape Byron, the easternmost point of mainland Australia, then hit some more Gondwana Rainforests before cruising into Kempsey where I'll purchase a new Akubra straight from the source.

Sydney next, where we'll spend some time in the Blue Mountains before we head to Canberra. Admittedly Canberra is of very little interest to me beyond the National Portrait Gallery and Film and Sound Archive, but it serves as a nice stopover between Sydney and Melbourne while the Snowy Mountains are, well, snowy.

Melbourne in July may be the most pretentious place on Earth, which is exactly why we'll be shooting through and hitting the Great Ocean Road as soon as possible, if only to trek through yet more rainforests in Great Otway National Park.

A redux of our Grampians trip from last month is in order, and what better time to do so than during the coldest month of the year? From there we'll head back to cosy Adelaide where I'll inevitably start craving more travel the second I'm home.