Holiday organising i need some help from peeps who have done oz thanks

[lukeysmummy]

right flights are booked to oz in jan im meeting my sister who i havent seen in 20 years
anyway the plan is to fly to melbourne stay with her for a few days at the beginning of the hol and some days at the end were there for 3 weeks in total
so was planning on starting in melbourne then driving upto to sydney which we think is about 10 hours we cant do it in one go though as we have 3 kids who will be 6,10,12
anyone have any suggestions ar we best to just chance a stop off in a hotel half way or do we book in advance and are we best to do a villa or an apartment for a week in sydney we have thought a bout a motorhome but were a bit unsure

oooooooooooooooooo anyone have any help its really hard to plan

thanks

We had an aussie posting for 2.5 years, and did a lot of travelling.

One holiday we hired a motorhome in Darwin. Flew up from Adelaide. Motored through Kakadu national park, did the top end of Aussied, and drove down to Alice, stopped off at Uluru (Ayers Rock). We did the journey in 2 weeks, but had a small child so did everything slowly.

We had a fantastic time. Just a hint - if your dh asks you to walk through a ford to check how deep it is just make sure there are no yellow signs with a croc, and a foot with a big red cross over it. I will leave it to your imagination how fast I got out of that ford!!!! (Did wonder at the time why dh had increased my life assurance).

Integral to your book or don't book question is the exact timing - if you are pre-Australia day, the kids will still be on Christmas holidays and accommodation can be tough. If you are post Australia day, the kids will mostly be back at school and you can wing it. There are lots of motels on the road from Melb to Syd - I have never had a problem getting accommodation along the way out of school hols.

I went a couple of years ago with my 3yr old daughter and DP for a month. We arrived in Sydney on Australia day, so their kids went back to school quite quickly. We booked the first place then booked as we went. We used the holiday parks, BIG 4 are one name that I can remember, but we used them all whenever we felt like stopping (drove up to Brisbane over 2 weeks, then flew to perth and travelled around). They're great, we started off with the basic ones which were fine, about £40 a night then, and ended up with sea facing luxury cabins because they were such good value and we loved it!! The people that run them are really nice and really helpful. At one point we got a bit stuck in a full one, but they rang the next one along for us and booked us into there.

You'll have a great time!

The other thing I had which you probably already have thought of is portable DVD players. Great for those long drives through the outback - for some reason kids aren't that into beautiful sunsets after a glance!!

We took dd who was 5 at the time and did the east coast (well Sydney to Surfers), which all together was 21 hours by coach.
Dont underestimate just how far apart things are in Oz I know I did.

Can recommend the blue mountains, any zoo's or wildlife parks.

Accommodation in Oz is fab, we had a family hotel room, in a 4 star central sydney hotel with a pool and everything for approx £32 a night , we found it very reasonable