Road trip!!!

"We're all going on a summer holiday....."

So yes, the plan is for DH and I to take the kids across on the Spirit of Tas on the day trip (kids will be nearly 4, nearly 2.5 and just turned 1) and stay in Melbourne that night and then start driving to the Sunshine Coast to spend Xmas with our families.

Soooo... I need some help puhhhleazzze....

We will be taking the shortest drive possible, so up the middle of Vic and NSW. We sorta plan to start driving at 7am, stop at 9am for breakfast for an hour, drive for 2 hours, stop at 12 for an hour for lunch, drive till 3, stop for an hour for a break/arvo tea, drive for 2 hours, and stay that night wherever we end up at 6pm. So however many days this would take us - apparently it takes 19 hours to drive? So we would cover approximately 8 hours of driving a day.

Can anyone help out and suggest good places to stop in for breakfast/lunch/rest breaks on the way through - or alternatively good accommodation that is very kid friendly and not that expensive?

All suggestions welcomed!

(oh, and wish us luck with 3 young kids in the car... bwahaha)

Day trip on the boat? Are you sure? It is much easier with kids to go overnight and be in the cabin. I have done the night trip and been very happy with it. Two separate lots of friends with kids did the day trip one way and then changed their booking to go overnight on the return.

Anyway back to the road trip. I assume you are travelling the Hume. Pretty good drive really. Lots of toilet stops. As for food, we normally stop about an hour of of Melbourne, I think it is Seymour and a Mobil station/roadhouse. We normally stop for fuel there and their steak sanga is not bad. Just can be very busy in the holiday period. After that, unless you pull over in small towns, there are the Macca's and BP at Glenrowan. Also can be quite busy, so look at drive through and pulling over at the next rest stop. For the return trip the next truck stop is quite good and has a bit of a nature walk if you need to stretch legs. After Glen rowan you next stop would be Albury/Wodonga unless you take the bypass. About 45 minutes past Albury is Holbrook (the town with the Submarine). The bakery there is pretty good, have eaten there a fair bit as we often visit DH's family there.

Have fun!

Something to think of is trying to avoid the bigger cities during rush hour. We got stuck in rush hour coming home going through Windsor (so traffic from out west of Syd going into Syd in the morning), didn't think about it! No advice of where to stop tho.
Another idea is to have an in car DVD player. We just did a 9hr cross NSW drive and the DVD player was a godsend. We managed to do a 3hr drive, stop, 2 hr drive, stop and 2hr drive, before Lily puked in the car and we had to stop overnight, lol! The kids were angels until then and only Liam complained on the last 2 hr stretch a little bit.

OOoh thanks guys :)

I'm not sure which highway it is - the one that goes through parkes and dubbo and stuff? Hume yeah?

That's the Newell Hwy (sp?).

I've been both ways but prefer the coast drive.

That's the Newell highway.
We stopped in Dubbo overnight and did the drive in two days stopping every three hours or so.
I think you do it it in three days driving 8 hours a day.
It takes about 17 hours of straight driving to get from Melb to Toowoomba so add a couple more hours to get to the coast.
The drive is pretty easy.
We stopped in Shep from memory, Dubbo (overnight), Moree and then drove all the way to Toowoomba. They were the major stops were some smaller pit stops along the way at parks/servos.
DD was 3 at the time, only had the one then, she was well over it by the last couple hours but we did the drive in two days.

I'd also go overnight on the boat. It's a long time to keep the kids occupied and there just isnt that much to do on the boat after a while. If its raining then you have to stay inside, too hot and you'll all get burnt from sun wind water reflection. So while it is doable, I think it would be much easier at night. Just depends on how game you are :)

p.s just re read what I wrote and its def time for bed, can hardly write a sentence so I apologise lol

We did a road trip over Christmas from Townsville to Adelaide and back. And we tented it. The kids loved tenting, we were all in together. I didn't so much, my back didn't like it. We got DVD players, which were wonderful. 1 tip on those though, get spare fuses from D!ck Smith for the power thing. The fuse blew and we couldn't find a spare one until we got home, thankfully only a day. Avoid driving at night. We found a roo on the way home. Have lots of different activities and stop at as many parks as you can. Lots of towns don't have electric BBQ facilities so try to keep to good old sangas or take your own camp stove and pot. If I think of anything else I will pop it in here.

I'm back so i'll elaborate on our road trip now....

When we drove to QLD we went up on the Hume to Sydney. We stayed a couple fo nights with DH's parents then drove to QLD on the Princes Hwy, it took about a day.

On the way home we went on the Newell. We left early in the morning and stayed overnight at Gilgandra (spelling?) then headed back to Melb.

I found the Newell took longer than the coast and wasn't as pretty a drive but we got to see the dish etc. I wish we had have had time in Dubbo to go to the zoo but we drove through there too early in the morning.

Our kids were 5,6 and 5 mths at the time. I was so worried about how they'd go in the car for so long but they actually enjoyed it. Portable DVD players weren't around back then, we kept occupied by counting road kill (:rolleyes:) and utes. We played games and chatted. We stopped ever 3 or 4 hours depending on when DD needed a feed. It was actually a pretty good trip, the kids got to see and experience so much, they still talk about it.

I understand what everyone is saying about not taking the day trip on the boat, however I really think it would be easier with our kids. They don't sleep well at the best of times, so I think a strange little cabin with tiny beds in close quarters will be stretching them a bit much. DH and I have discussed it and decided this is the best way, its better to try and have a good nights sleep in a nice motel the night after the day trip, and then drive, opposed to having crap all sleep on a boat and then trying to drive a full day - ya know? Plus, we'll bring stuff for the kids to entertain them, two of them will probably still have a nap in the day so I'll bring the Ergo and DS will absolutely be enthralled at being on a boat so he'd be easy to entertain. So I'm not expecting it to be easy, but I'd rather that than being kept up all night by kids that don't want to go to sleep cos they are on a boat for the first time and thats exciting!!! ;)

I'll write down the places everyone is saying and try to plan out our trip :D How excitement!!

Oh - and yes we have a DVD player for the car :D

When we did the Melbs-Brissy drive, we did it over 4 days, alternating between 3 and 8 hours each day. Not deliberately, but based on where our free accomm was!

We left Melbs at 4:30pm Friday, and drove a bit past Mansfield. Stayed in a cousin's caravan. [2.5 hours, I think]
Left Mansfield next day, quick visit with DH's grandparents on the way, then up through Wagga, Bathurst, to Hill End, to stay with a friend. [8 hours total driving]
Next day detoured through Mudgee, lots of cheese places and wineries (pre-vegan days!) and then up to my nan in Gunndah. [3 hours total]
Next day did the 6 or 7 hours to Brissy. Most boring day of the lot, but exciting because we were nearly there. That was on the Newell.

My nan and sister both hate the Newell because there's heaps of trucks. But I would slowly remove my own head with a nail file before ever driving the Hume again.

Have FUN!