Australia: Sydney to Brisbane
When to go
All year, best from September to November and from March to May. The seasons are reversed: summer is December to February, hot and humid, with afternoon storms further north, and over Christmas and the January school holidays every beach town on this coast is full and booked ahead. Winter, June to August, is mild and dry around Byron Bay and Brisbane, and from about June to November humpback whales migrate along this coast, often seen from the headlands.
The stops
Interactive map of the route on our site ›
- Sydney2 nights
The Opera House, opened in 1973, was designed by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon, who left the project in 1966 and never came back to see it finished. Among the convicts of the First Fleet, which founded the colony here in 1788, were several Jews; the Great Synagogue on Elizabeth Street, facing Hyde Park, was consecrated in 1878 and still holds services.
- Brooklynstop on the way
A river village on the Hawkesbury, where the old Pacific Highway and the railway cross the wide estuary. From its wharf the Riverboat Postman, a working mail boat, still delivers the post to houses up the river that have no road.
- Australian Reptile Parkstop on the way
A wildlife park where keepers milk venomous snakes and funnel-web spiders by hand; the venom goes to make the antivenoms used in Australian hospitals, and visitors can watch the milking.
- The Entranceone night
A beach town on the channel where Tuggerah Lake meets the sea. Every afternoon at half past three the pelicans of the lake gather on the waterfront to be fed, a daily show that has made the town call itself the pelican capital of Australia.
- Catherine Hill Baystop on the way
A coal-mining village of miners’ cottages on a quiet beach, with the long timber jetty where coal was once loaded on to ships. The whole village is heritage-listed.
- Newcastlestop on the way
The coal port at the mouth of the Hunter River, founded in 1804 as a penal settlement for convicts sent to dig coal. Below the cliffs at the end of the beach lies the Bogey Hole, a swimming pool cut out of the rock by convicts for the commandant around 1820, and the sea still fills it.
- Tea Gardensone night
A river town on the Myall River where it runs into Port Stephens, joined to Hawks Nest and its surf beach by the Singing Bridge, named for the sound the wind makes in its railings. The bay has a resident pod of bottlenose dolphins, and boats go out to see them.
- Sugarloaf Point Lighthousestop on the way
Lit in 1875 on the headland above Seal Rocks, it is one of only two lighthouses in Australia with a staircase on the outside of the tower. From the lookout below it humpback whales pass close in winter.
- Cape Hawkestop on the way
James Cook named the cape in 1770 after Admiral Edward Hawke. A short, steep walk through the forest of Booti Booti National Park leads to a lookout tower over the coast, Wallis Lake and the hills inland.
- Forsterone night
A beach town facing its twin, Tuncurry, across the mouth of Wallis Lake. The lake is one of the main oyster-growing estuaries of New South Wales, and the Sydney rock oysters from its leases are sold on the waterfront.
- Crowdy Head Lighthousestop on the way
A small lighthouse of 1878 on a headland over a fishing harbour. James Cook named the head in 1770, it is said, after the crowd of Aboriginal people he saw gathered on it from the Endeavour.
- Lake Cathiestop on the way
A beach village on a shallow coastal lake that opens to the sea after heavy rain and closes again behind the sand. The name is said “cat-eye”.
- Port Macquarieone night
Founded in 1821 as a penal settlement for convicts who had committed new crimes in Sydney. The town is known for its Koala Hospital, run since 1973 to treat koalas hurt by cars, dogs and bushfires; visitors can walk among the patients’ enclosures.
- Kempseystop on the way
A river town on the Macleay. The Akubra, the felt bush hat of Australia, is made in its factory here, and the country singer Slim Dusty, born nearby in 1927, has a museum in the town.
- Trial Bay Gaolstop on the way
A granite prison on the headland, built from 1877 so that its prisoners could build a breakwater for a harbour of refuge, which was never finished. In the First World War it held German men interned as enemy aliens.
- South West Rocksone night
A beach town at the mouth of the Macleay, one of the few places on the east coast of Australia where the sun sets over the sea. James Cook named Smoky Cape, south of the town, in 1770 after the smoke of Aboriginal fires he saw on it; its lighthouse stands above the beaches.
- Nambucca Headsstop on the way
A town at the mouth of the Nambucca River whose breakwall, the V-Wall, is covered from end to end with messages and pictures painted on its rocks by travellers.
- Bellingenstop on the way
A valley town on the Bellinger River under the escarpment of Dorrigo National Park, part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia, a World Heritage site. A large colony of flying foxes roosts on Bellingen Island, in the river by the town.
- Coffs Harbourone night
A town of banana plantations on the hills above the sea. The Big Banana by the highway, opened in 1964, is one of the first of Australia’s roadside Big Things; from the marina a breakwall walk leads out to Muttonbird Island, where shearwaters nest in burrows from spring to autumn.
- Woolgoolgastop on the way
A beach town with one of the oldest Sikh communities in Australia, many of them banana growers. Its Guru Nanak gurdwara, built in 1968, was the first Sikh temple in the country.
- Graftonstop on the way
A river town on the Clarence, its streets lined with thousands of jacaranda trees. When they flower purple at the end of October and into November the town holds its Jacaranda Festival, held every year since 1935.
- Yambaone night
A fishing town on the headland at the mouth of the Clarence, one of the largest rivers on the New South Wales coast. Its trawlers land the Yamba prawn, and from the lighthouse on the hill there are beaches on both sides.
- Big Prawnstop on the way
A giant fibreglass prawn at Ballina, one of the Big Things of the Australian road, built in 1989. When it was to be pulled down, a hardware chain bought the site and restored it in 2013, tail and all.
- Lennox Headstop on the way
A village with one of the best right-hand point breaks on the coast. Lake Ainsworth, behind the beach, is a lake of water stained brown by the tea trees around it, and people swim in it.
- Byron Bay2 nights
James Cook named the cape here in 1770 after John Byron, a navigator who had sailed round the world and was the grandfather of the poet Lord Byron. The old whaling and meat-works town became, from the 1970s, a town of surfers and alternative living, and it is still one.
- Cape Byron Lighthousestop on the way
Lit in 1901 on the most easterly point of the Australian mainland. The walking track round the cape from the town beaches is the best place on this coast to watch the whales go by in winter.
- Point Dangerstop on the way
The headland on the border between New South Wales and Queensland, named by James Cook in 1770 to warn of the reefs off it. The memorial lighthouse on top was built for the two hundredth anniversary of his voyage.
- Burleigh Head National Parkstop on the way
A headland of rainforest and basalt columns, left by lava from the ancient Tweed volcano, between the surf beach and the mouth of Tallebudgera Creek. A walk round it looks north up the towers of the Gold Coast.
- Surfers Paradiseone night
The towers of the Gold Coast stand on what was a village called Elston, renamed in 1933 after the Surfers Paradise Hotel that Jim Cavill had opened there in 1925. The Gold Coast hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2018.
- Tamborine Mountainstop on the way
A plateau of rainforest, galleries and wineries above the Gold Coast hinterland. Witches Falls, on its western edge, was declared in 1908 the first national park in Queensland.
- Lone Pine Koala Sanctuarystop on the way
Opened in 1927 on the Brisbane River, it is the oldest koala sanctuary in the world, with more than a hundred koalas, and kangaroos that roam free in an open paddock where visitors can feed them.
- Brisbane2 nights
The city began in 1825 as the Moreton Bay penal settlement and was opened to free settlers in 1842; it will host the Olympic Games in 2032. The Brisbane Synagogue on Margaret Street, consecrated in 1886, is still the home of the city’s oldest Jewish congregation.
What it costs
Eighty dollars a night is the room. The car, the fuel and the tolls are yours. The motorways, tunnels and bridges of Sydney and Brisbane are tolled electronically, with no booths and no cash; the rental car carries an e-tag, and the company charges the tolls to your card afterwards with a fee of its own. Between the two cities the Pacific Motorway is free. The real extra is the one-way fee: picking the car up in Sydney and leaving it in Brisbane, in another state, costs a one-way charge, so compare it before you book.
What to know
Three things. One: Australia drives on the left, and the speed limits are enforced hard, by fixed cameras, by unmarked mobile cameras in parked cars, and in New South Wales by cameras that catch drivers holding a phone. On school days the limit outside schools drops to 40 kilometres an hour in the morning and afternoon. A fine reaches the rental company, which passes it on with its own fee. Two: kangaroos. At dawn and at dusk they come out on to the roads, and hitting one at speed wrecks the car; do not drive in the country after sunset. Three: the tolls. Leave Sydney and enter Brisbane on the motorways with the rental e-tag switched on; if a car has no tag, the toll must be paid online within a few days or a fine follows.
Roads, tolls and rules
Australia drives on the left. The Pacific Motorway runs the whole way from Sydney to Brisbane and is now a divided road almost all of it, but this route leaves it every day for the coast: the Central Coast lakes, Port Stephens, the lighthouses of the mid-north coast and the river towns of the far north. No day is longer than about 150 kilometres, two hours or so of driving with two or three stops. Queensland does not change its clocks in summer, so from October to April Brisbane is an hour behind Sydney and Byron Bay.
Travel Australia: Sydney to Brisbane
The route on our site, with a room up to $80 every night.