Perth to Gold Coast & back again OZ Holiday.

[state50 Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close state50]

Me & the wife have been trying to sell our mechanical workshop & decided when we did we would travel to the Gold Coast for 8/9 weeks of fun, sun & rum.
So we advertised, bought a Prado see, (http://www.pradopoint.com/showthread...ckster-buildup) We got nervous, had some expressions of interest and have now sold.

We have set our dates, now the planning.
We have decided on a trip 12 days on the road, 5 weeks in Surfers 12 days back,

Day 1 Perth to Norseman
Day 2 Norseman to Eucla
Day 3 Eucla to Ceduna
Day 4 Ceduna to Port Wakefield to visit family & then a late drive to Barossa Valley
Day 5 Barossa Valley to Mildura
Day 6 Mildura to Bathurst
Day 8 Drive Bathurst track (in Prado) & then to Sydney
Day 9 Sydney exploration day
Day 10 Sydney to Coffs Harbour
Day 11 Coffs to Gold Coast.

We think we have made a couple of short days amongst the longer ones to break it up & for the kids sake. We want to see as many BIG things as we can along the way so expect that the trip might blow out by a day or 2.
I also want to do a bit of beach work along the way somewhere (any suggestions???) and hopefully get off the bitumen at some stage.

Trip back will be much of the same but going to Canberra, Wagga Wagga, Adelaide for a day, Port Lincoln for family catch up, and maybe Esperance on the way back.

We intend on doing a couple of weekends away whilst on the GC, hopefully Bundaberg, but depends on damage from the floods.

The Prado (V6 GXL Auto) is being equipped with Bullbar, rear air bags, cargo barrier, extractors, recovery gear, extra fuel, water & most importantly a dvd player for the kids. Never done a trip like this so any feed back would be appreciated.
I will be doing updates with photos when I can and hopefully at least weekly updates, the wife will be doing a blog aswell.

Trip of a lifetime exploring this great country after several years of overseas holidays.
CANT WAIT!!!!

[jss Moderated member Find all posts View Profile Close jss]

Sounds like a great trip. Maybe consider spending a few days up on Fraser Island while you're over this way?? If you don't want to camp you can stay at http://www.kingfisherbay.com/ Just a thought.

Cheers
James

[state50 Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close state50]

Day 1 we did Perth to Norseman, filled up at the base of the Greenmount Hill and head off. Stopped at a few places along the way, toilet break for my son in Wundowie, stop at Meckering (cool photos in the big camera/museum there off the damage from the big earthquake) stopped at Merriden, saw I assume the fake Ettamogah pub. Bit of re-surfacing works happening that slowed us down a bit.
Nice driving out that way, day on 110kph all the way, got to Norseman and checked in to a half decent place (Golden Chain) and found the restaurant closed, went to the Norseman hotel for a couple of pizzas, they were massive and tasted damn good.
Prado did 713km easy, didn't miss a beat, fully loaded ended up adding 95 litres the next morning. So I worked it out to be 13.3 lph. Pretty happy with that. Topped up with standard unleaded at Norseman road house (great place, tasty food) the next morning.

[state50 Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close state50]

Day 1 we did Perth to Norseman, filled up at the base of the Greenmount Hill and head off. Stopped at a few places along the way, toilet break for my son in Wundowie, stop at Meckering (cool photos in the big camera/museum there off the damage from the big earthquake) stopped at Merriden, saw I assume the fake Ettamogah pub. Bit of re-surfacing works happening that slowed us down a bit.
Nice driving out that way, day on 110kph all the way, got to Norseman and checked in to a half decent place (Golden Chain) and found the restaurant closed, went to the Norseman hotel for a couple of pizzas, they were massive and tasted damn good.
Prado did 713km easy, didn't miss a beat, fully loaded ended up adding 95 litres the next morning. So I worked it out to be 13.3 lph. Pretty happy with that. Topped up with standard unleaded at Norseman road house (great place, tasty food) the next morning.

[state50 Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close state50]

Day 2 we did Norseman to Eucla. Didn't stop as much on this day. Stopped at Cocklebiddy for lunch and to stretch the kids legs. 90 mile straight was pretty cool, couple of nice little tracks near moondini bluff that I might try on the way back. Eucla motor hotel had a decent surf n turf. Park out the front for kids to play on. Started raining during the walk out to a lookout near the caravan park and hasn't stopped since. (I'm writing this from a Port Augusta hotel room after a drive from Eucla to Ceduna and Ceduna to Port Augusta)

[state50 Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close state50]

Day 3 we did Eucla to Ceduna. Fuel, So we pushed on thinking it would be cheaper at Border village and it was $2.16 for so I pushed on further to Nullarbor but had to pay $2.10 for 95. What a great drive today was, lots of lookouts to see he bight and went to Nullarbor for lunch and free wifi that didn't work. It was pretty cloudy all day with patches of rain. Stopped at the head of the bight for some photos. Started seeing some cool old farm houses, ruins, windmills, along the yalata, colons, Nundroo, pending stretch. Saw the Giant Wombat aswell. Fuel at Nundroo was $1.62 for 91. I really enjoyed today's drive, nice and relaxed, really enjoyed the latter stretch ino Ceduna.
Realized on the stretch from Norseman to Eucla where I sat at 120 kph most of the way that the Prado went up to 15.5 lph. So slowed down to 110 kph for today's drive and consumption went down back to 13 lph.