My Campervanning Routes on Google Maps

Now you can view my suggested campervanning routes on Google Maps. Click on the following map to go to Google Maps. I have marked the routes I have done with a campervan, as well as suggested routes based on my driving around Australia (30-odd trips) and New Zealand (3 fly & drive trips). I have marked campervan hire places in green, overnight or scenic places in red and the lines represent the routes. This is a work in progress. You can relate the routes to the individual blog postings I continue to make.


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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Campervanning – Sydney to Melbourne (summer mountain & sea route)

One of the best campervanning trips you can do in Australia is the Sydney to Melbourne route or visa versa. These are one-way trips that offer you the prospect of getting a great discount off the standard travel price. Looking at the Standby Cars website its apparent that vehicles in Sydney are picked up or delivered to Mascot, whilst vehicles in Melbourne need to be picked up or delivered to Melbourne City or Braybrook. See Google Maps for location details. The trip I consulted offered $110 petrol allowance, 3 days and a 1142km travel allowance for this trip. You will need to pay $5/day plus extra for kilometres over the allowance. The appeal is the variety of scenery that you will come across, as well as the accessibility to nice places to go out. There are also a great many routes to choose from. I have seen a great deal of NSW so I will outline what I think is the best way to go:

1. Departing Sydney: You are likely to be picking up a campervan at Mascot near Sydney Airport, so travel south on the tollway towards Wollongong. I recommend having a stop at Kiama for a bite to eat, maybe seafood. This will likely be around lunch time.Then driving on to Gerroa for a walk along the beach. Don’t spend too much time here you have alot of kilometres to drive. I recommend spending a bit of time exploring the coast around Ulladulla as its a very beautiful area. Depending how you are doing for time I recommend staying the night in Narooma or Moruya.

2.Departing Moruya: I suggest starting out early to avoid the afternoon sun. Continue south towards Bega, passing through Bermagui. Before Bega there is a turn-off to Cooma. Take this road, as it will take you through up the mountain ranges. This section will be boring, so speed through here. From Cooma take the Berridale turn-off to Jindabyne. I would think about having a snack in Berridale, with the intent of stopping in Jindabyne to buy any groceries to eat in the national park. The intent is to have a late lunch in Thedbo Ski Village. You should be able to leave their by 4PM, with the intent of staying in the park at a river flats that will become immediately apparent when you get there. But really you could happily find a great number of places to stay. Just take care driving at night or day because this is a narrow mountain road. Check whether the route is possible.

3. Departing Snowy Mountains National Park: The Alpine Way turns north Khancoban, which sees you exist the park, and then continue on to Corryong, Tallangatta, Wodonga, Wangaratta, Melbourne. The speed with which you complete this section will depend ultimately on when you have to have the vehicle back.

My concern with this route is that it will be too long. I have structured it as the scenic route. Unfortunately a number of these areas are very remote. I would suggest this route would likely require 1500km because of the amount of travel on secondary roads. For this reason you would want unlimited kilometres, and it would be far more pleasant to have 4 days. You have sleeping accommodation with you, so perhaps it makes sense to travel longer on the evening of the first night. This will mean you have a picnic llunch in the Snowy Mountains National Park at Tom Groggin, where I was actually suggesting camping.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com