There is so much more to Australia than the east coast trail, that well-trodden route that most travellers take. Whether it starts in Sydney or Melbourne, it takes in both cities (they're a short flight apart), then involves the long drive up the east coast of NSW to the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, and then up the Queensland coast to the Great Barrier Reef and Cairns. Backpackers with time on their hands do it in a Wicked Camper, older travellers opt for a Britz or Maui camper van, while cash-rich time-poor travellers fly between the main destinations. It's a fine trip but it's by no means the best Australia has to offer, yet it's the route everyone seems to want to take. Just this week Jean commented on my post Best time to visit Australia?: "We are planning a trip and are trying to figure out the best time of year for our journey to Australia. In a perfect world of 3 weeks of traveling, we would like to see the Barrier Reef, Sydney, Melbourne (and New Zealand), and spots in between and along the way." Last week we met a traveller in Victoria saving money for the same kind of trip while Vicky Baker wrote in response to my last post: "When I left uni, I went backpacking in Oz. I was definitely doing things I felt I *should do* then. The East Coast trail etc. I didn't want to "miss out" by varying off the route. Funnily enough I don't regret it, because I needed this experience to find out what I wanted from travel." Vicky makes a great point, but I still don't understand why the East Coast trail became that route in the first place. Because, as an Australian born and bred in Sydney (a gorgeous city) who spent every school holiday at some east coast seaside town (Umina, Forster, Yamba, Coffs, Mollymook, you name it, all charming places); spent five years travelling the country in a caravan with family as a teen; lived on the Sunshine Coast in my late teens (including one too many visits to Brisbane); re-visited Melbourne myriad times as an adult (all good fun); in recent years travelled the length and breadth of Western Australia (to write LP's Perth and WA), returning many times to visit my family (now in Perth); and more recently travelled through four states (Northern Territory, South Australia, WA and Victoria) over four months doing research for books for Rough Guides and DK... (now they're pretty good Australia-wide qualifications, right?)... I just don't get it. Admittedly I've lived in the UAE since 1998, so will someone please tell me how and why the east coast trail became the most popular travel route?
Pictured? A beach at Augusta on Western Australia's southern coast.
Perhaps the issue of how weather impacts your travel experience, providing it's not of disastrous proportions (epic heatwaves and heavy floods aside) is more a question of attitude than planning? We were at a restaurant the other night at Apollo Bay on the southern coast of Victoria where we met a keen young traveller who'd been waitressing for a couple of months to save money to do the big drive north with her boyfriend in a Wicked Camper. When we warned her not to travel to Northern Queensland before April, when the Wet season ends, she said they were in fact leaving Australia in April, so they'd intended to set out soon to ensure they covered the vast distance before then. I imagined the poor things huddled in the back of their Wicked Camper in a caravan park, the relentless rain pelting down around them. And because Australia's geography is the way it is, they'd have little choice but to head back south again, or take an expensive flight to another (drier) part of the country. I wondered if they'd persist with their original travel plans and if they did strike weeks of neverending rain, whether they'd see it as a disaster, a terrible end to what had otherwise been a good trip so far. Or whether they'd still enjoy it and think of it as an adventure, snapping pics of the flood waters rising around them, determined to make the most of it. I'm keen to know how you react to the onset of bad weather that puts a damper on your travel plans. Are you the type of traveller who endeavours to ensure you're not caught in snow storm in the first place? But if you are and the circumstances are beyond your control, do you make the most of it? I'm keen to learn more about how you travel and I'd also love you to complete my poll (top right), please.
Do you check weather reports before you travel? And if you do and it's turned especially bad before you're due to travel, do you change your trip plans? I'm talking really nasty weather. Consistently dreadful, such as the snowfalls in the UK, the heaviest in 18 years, which have severely disrupted flights. Or the heatwave south-eastern Australia has endured over the last weeks which has caused power blackouts, transport disruptions, cancellation of outdoor events, and even deaths. Or the floods in Northern Queensland which in some areas have caused horrendous damage and led to the closure for several weeks of the Barkly Highway, the main route connecting Queensland to the Northern Territory. Do you adapt your plans at the last minute and change the destination or direction if you can? Or do you continue on and risk disruption to your itinerary, and possible disappointment? I've posted about this before on Best time to visit Australia? It may be summer, but don't head Down Under but it's something that continues to intrigue me. From what we've been observing on our travels in Australia, many people simply don't check weather reports in advance and continue with their original plans despite a change in weather. Some appear to be happy to go through the motions of being tourists, despite the miserable conditions, taking photos, doing tours, and, like the couple pictured in the distance of this photo, embarking on a long distance walk that would be far more enjoyable in better weather. What do you think? And how do you react to the onset of weather so terrible that it disrupts your travel plans? Or are you the type of traveller who tries to ensure you're not in that position in the first place? I'd love to know what you think and how you travel. And I'd love you to complete my poll (top right). Thanks.
