Is this feasible? Trip to Australia.

[AddictedtoCrunchies]

I'm planning to run the Sydney marathon at the end of August 2027. I'm UK based so, as I'm going all that way, I'm hoping to combine it with a holiday - I'll have three weeks overall and around two weeks post-marathon.

I've been to Sydney before and the Blue Mountains. I've been to Perth and the West Coast. I have a friend to visit in Melbourne which is south coast and a flight away, maybe for a couple of days. But what I really want to so is visit Uluru which is obviously smack in the middle.

Am I being over optimistic? Timescales would be roughly

Tues/Wed wk1 travel UK to Aus
Get over jetlag, acclimatise etc
Sun marathon
Mon recover
Tues wk2 flyto Melbourne
Sat wk2 fly to Alice Springs
Tues wk3 fly back to Sydney
Thurs/Fri wk3 fly home

Any thoughts? Pipe dream or realistic?

I've run several marathons so not worried about the recovery time. The more active the better.

Thanks

Sounds fine to me...

I suppose in an ideal world and assuming the Marathon is an AM start I'd go for more time in Oz pre the run (to acclimatise) but otherwise looks OK.

Looks fine but don't fly to Alice Springs, unless of course you want to visit Alice Springs. It's a few hours drive from Uluru. There are flights directly to Uluru from all main Australian airports.

Do you need to fly back to Sydney? Have you priced up open-jaw tickets, as in fly into Sydney and out of Melbourne or into Sydney and out of Darwin? Darwin would only work with very specific airlines, but Darwin would save you hours of flying time involved in flying back to Sydney and then basically flying back over Alice on the way home. Unless you need to return to Sydney I wouldn't. If you can avoid returning to Sydney you could reorder your trip to do UK -> Sydney -> Alice Springs -> Melbourne -> UK and cut down on your internal flights. Whatever you choose I'd allocate 3 full days to Alice because it's 3+ hours to drive each way to Uluru.

With direct flights between Uluru and both Sydney/Melbourne it shouldn’t be an issue. If you can get your main ticket into Sydney and out of Melbourne it could save you an additional flight

It takes a lot longer to get to Uluru than you might think. I'd speak to a travel agent about arrangements for that part of your trip.

Why? Unless something changed in the last few years it's very simple. Fly to Ayers Rock airport, take a 15 minute shuttle bus to the main resort complex, join a tour of Uluru. We stayed there for 2 days a few years ago. It was spectacular but oppressively hot in December. However, heat shouldn't be an issue in August.

Thank you for all the tips. I think I'll get a professional to help with the plans.

I did melbourne, to uluru, to cairns then sydney in two weeks and it didn't feel rush. An overnight is enough time at ayres rock.