{"id":22137,"date":"2011-03-10T03:28:13","date_gmt":"2011-03-10T08:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/22137\/great-australia-road-trip-2010-page\/"},"modified":"2011-03-10T03:28:13","modified_gmt":"2011-03-10T08:28:13","slug":"great-australia-road-trip-2010-page","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/22137\/great-australia-road-trip-2010-page\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Australia Road Trip 2010 \u2013 Page One"},"content":{"rendered":"

Preflight \u2013 Wednesday – September 15<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

After months of planning, tomorrow we leave.\u00a0 I\u2019m excited, scared, apprehensive, giddy, worried, and on pins and needles, all at the same time.\u00a0 I know I\u2019m not going to be able to sleep tonight.\u00a0 Maybe I should have a beer.\u00a0 I just hope we have everything covered.\u00a0 I hate surprises, especially when you\u2019re thousands of miles from home and it\u2019s a long swim back.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We have all of our papers in order, passports, e-visas, our medical insurance, and the road maps.\u00a0 The bags are packed with just enough clothes to get us through a week at a time, for both the cold and the hot.\u00a0 We have the cameras, the laptops, a movie player, an electrical converter, binoculars and our music.\u00a0 Can\u2019t go on a road trip without our favorite road music, I don\u2019t care how far away it is.\u00a0 I broke down and bought a travel vest so I won\u2019t have to lug a purse around and I\u2019ve solved my smoking dilemma with electronic cigarettes.\u00a0 No smoking is allowed on the plane or in the motorhome and there\u2019s no way I\u2019ll be able to get through a 14 hour flight and 29 days on the road without something.\u00a0 Yeah, I\u2019m addicted.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We have our flights booked with Qantas.\u00a0 I have always wanted to fly on Qantas, basically to find out if the hype matches the reality.\u00a0 It rarely does in anything else, but we\u2019ll see tomorrow.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be flying on their Airbus 380 which is supposed to be their latest and greatest plane with two levels of seating.\u00a0 It looks awfully cool on their website.\u00a0 I certainly hope the economy seating is as nice as it looks online.\u00a0 Fourteen hours in a plane is a very long time.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve rented a 3-berth motorhome with Cheapa Campa which should be ready and waiting for us on Saturday.\u00a0 I just hope we can find our way over to the rental office from the Sydney airport.\u00a0 On Google it looks like it is right across the street, but we\u2019ll hail a taxi anyway.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got a few bags, all pushed to the packing limits, and I\u2019m not built like a mule.\u00a0 A small pony, maybe, but definitely not a mule.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Once we get the motorhome, we\u2019ll hit the road.\u00a0 Our general trip plan and direction of travel will be:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a01. \u00a0Sydney to Canberra<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a02.\u00a0 Canberra to Melbourne<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a03.\u00a0 Melbourne to Adelaide<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a04.\u00a0 Adelaide to Coober Pedy<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a05.\u00a0 Coober Pedy to Ayers Rock<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a06.\u00a0 Ayers Rock to Alice Springs<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a07.\u00a0 Alice Springs to Katherine<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a08.\u00a0 Katherine to Darwin<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a09.\u00a0 Darwin to Townsville<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

10.\u00a0 Townsville to Brisbane<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

11.\u00a0 Brisbane to Coff\u2019s Harbour<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

12.\u00a0 Coff\u2019s Harbour to Sydney<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing on this trip is a definite, except our flight and rental vehicle.\u00a0 We have lots of ideas, but no hard schedule of events.\u00a0 Everything is subject to whatever will be, since all we have to follow is a general timeline.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Australia!\u00a0 I can\u2019t believe we\u2019re actually going.\u00a0 Now for that beer.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preflight \u2013 Wednesday – September 15 After months of planning, tomorrow we leave.\u00a0 I\u2019m excited, scared, apprehensive, giddy, worried, and on pins and needles, all at the same time.\u00a0 I know I\u2019m not going to be able to sleep tonight.\u00a0 Maybe I should have a beer.\u00a0 I just hope we have everything covered.\u00a0 I hate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2,25],"tags":[651,2451,1640,2450,2431],"class_list":["post-22137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-other","category-world","tag-australia","tag-journal","tag-memories","tag-preflight","tag-road-trip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}