Down Under

Day 1 · Home → Sydney

Home→Sydney

Day 2 · Sydney

Day 3 · Sydney

Day 4 · Sydney → Port Stephens

Beat the jet lag with a walk from Bondi to Coogee along the clifftops, then a harbour ferry to Manly at golden hour.

Opera House and the Botanic Gardens, climb the Harbour Bridge or just the Pylon Lookout, and oysters at the fish market.

Day trip up to the Blue Mountains — the Three Sisters at Echo Point, the Scenic Railway down into the valley, and gum-tree air the whole way.

Sydney→Port Stephens

Day 5 · Port Stephens → Coffs Harbour

Pick up the car and head north; a 4WD dune tour on the Stockton Bight sandhills, sandboarding down, and dolphins in the bay.

Port Stephens→Coffs Harbour

Day 6 · Coffs Harbour → Byron Bay

Break the drive at the kitschy Big Banana, then a sunset walk out to Muttonbird Island.

Coffs Harbour→Byron Bay

Day 7 · Byron Bay

Day 8 · Byron Bay → Noosa

Australia's easternmost point — the dawn walk up to the Cape Byron lighthouse, dolphins and often whales offshore in September.

Barefoot beach town: a surf lesson at The Pass, market mornings in the hinterland at Bangalow, and a long lazy sunset with a drink on the sand.

Byron Bay→Noosa

Day 9 · Noosa

Day 10 · Noosa → K'gari

Cross into Queensland; the coastal cool of the Gold Coast behind you, settle into Noosa's Hastings Street.

Walk the Noosa National Park headland track to Fairy Pools and Hell's Gates, koalas dozing in the trees above the path.

Noosa→K'gari

Day 11 · K'gari

Day 12 · K'gari → Airlie Beach

Barge across from Rainbow Beach onto the world's largest sand island — everything here is 4WD, the "roads" are the beach itself.

Swim in the electric-blue freshwater of Lake McKenzie, float down Eli Creek, and see the rusting Maheno shipwreck on Seventy-Five Mile Beach.

K'gari→Airlie Beach

Day 13 · Airlie Beach

Day 14 · Airlie Beach

Day 15 · Airlie Beach → Home

The long haul north into the tropics — the road-trip's big driving day, sugar-cane fields and roadhouse pies.

The reason you came: a full-day boat out to the **Whitsundays**, snorkelling the fringing reef and the silica sand of Whitehaven Beach, the swirl of Hill Inlet from the lookout.

Second boat day out to the **Great Barrier Reef** proper on the outer pontoon — turtles, giant clams, and the whole colour spectrum; a scenic flight over the Heart Reef if the budget stretches (**book ahead**).

Airlie Beach→Home