sydney to caloundra

[BFYOOT]

gday all. after a bit of educated advice from you all if you can help. i am taking the lovely new bride and the xr8 up to caloundra, in qld, for a honeymoon. wondering if anyone has done the trip from sydney or if anyone has any idea how long to allow for the drive up. we are not in a massive hurry, so a rough estimate will do.
cheers
paul

[EA2BA]

About 12-14 hours or so, pending how many stops and exactly where in Sydney you are, and what time of day you leave, and traffic, roadworks etc.

[DBourne]

done it quite a few times now. its not bad. still a bit more of a pain than syd-melb.

itll take u bout 11-12hrs if you go along at a close to speed limit speed. youll be right. just make sure to swap drivers if and when you need to

[banarcus]

Watch out for the mass blitz of revenue cameras near Coffs Harbour. I would consider taking the New England on the way back down for a change of scenery with lighter traffic.

[HLC]

Originally Posted by EA2BA

About 12-14 hours or so, pending how many stops and exactly where in Sydney you are, and what time of day you leave, and traffic, roadworks etc.

newly weds... i'd assume that A LOT of "stop, revive, survive" breaks will be occuring

[atec77]

Originally Posted by BFYOOT

gday all. after a bit of educated advice from you all if you can help. i am taking the lovely new bride and the xr8 up to caloundra, in qld, for a honeymoon. wondering if anyone has done the trip from sydney or if anyone has any idea how long to allow for the drive up. we are not in a massive hurry, so a rough estimate will do.
cheers
paul

Via inland took me 11 hours on the nose last month in mostly dark . so a little further north add another hour 12 in total with some short breaks .

[gtfpv]

I HAVE DONE IT . the others are right 12 to 14 hours.
my advice is to leave sydney at around 9am . reasoning that all the overnight travelers from queensland,have reached thier destination by now .
if you leave at say 5 am . you are running the risk of passing people who have been driving for 10 hours overnight. . but saying that the roads are pretty much divided . for a fair way of the trip. have fun .

[Fairlane]

Done Central Coast to Mooloolaba plenty of times no problems. Can do it on Pacific in 10.8-12 hours depending on run and breaks.

Bottlenecks include Raymond Terrace, Coffs Habour, Ballina and the Gold Coast.

Remember to stop revive survive, watch for Coppers and camera's south of Coffs habour and traffic on the M1. Gateway can be a nasty bugger too in bad weather/traffic. Sometimes i even take Summerland Way/Mount Lindsay Highway from Grafton to avoid the crap up in the Northern Rivers.

The road is certainly better than the old days and the trip up to Kempsey is pretty sweet, but from then on it gets crap. Roadworks were nasty at Brunswick Heads laste summer got stuck for 30 mins or so there and again at the Tugun Bypass. New England can be a better in really bad traffic, but i generally find the Pacific a quicker trip these days.

[Zed7fiddy]

Let us know when you arrive if you wanna meet fellow ford folk on the Sunny Coast, when will you be coming, thats if the missus allows hehe

[scoupedy]

Done it heaps of time ....best is about 11 hours but you will want to drop into some spots check out Pacific palms (have to take tourist drive) very nice area boomarang beach is nice....then make sure you go to broken head just south of byron (~8km) and valla beach is nice and close to the Hwy arh Bay kebabs in Byron makes great well kebabs great drive watch out for the grey nomads have pleanty of breaks and don't go the new England i would even take two days if possible

P.s lucky bugger new wife and xr8 i'm jelous as

[The Yeti]

done it several times we used to have a property on bullcock before the all the development, we just run the putty it will take to 12 - 14 hours aas said before but take your time I can highly recomend stoping at the Tentifeild Bowling club for a meal

[prydey]

if you don't mind saying, where are you staying in caloundra?

I've been travelling to Qld every year for the last 9 years from Adelaide and we tend to alternate between g/coast and caloundra.

Have stayed at The Cerulean, The Watermark and The mariners. All very good 4.5 star resorts. The cerulean was the top floor penthouse so that stands out for me, but not much of a pool.

I really like it up there. far more relaxing and laid back than the gold coast.

Not sure what its like in sydney but once you hit qld you may suddenly think that your speedo is reading slow, esp on the pacific motorway and then as you head north out of brisbane up the bruce. seems the speed limits are for tourists. they love their 4wd's up there as well. every 2nd car is one.

have fun.

[BFYOOT]

ha ha ha, thanks for the help all. reckon the itinery is gonna be home (berry) to foster/tuncurry the first day, short trip up the road to port macquarie for a couple of days, night at woolgoolga, then up to caloundra for 5 nights. we're staying in a holiday rental, rather than a resort as such. place is right on the water, with spa and all sorts, got 5 nights for $280!!! let you all know if it rates. coming back will be the quicker trip, gotta get back to work unfortunately. as for the stop revive survive, may need to extend the holiday........