SPiKA85

Hello everyone!
I'm traveling with my girlfriend to a few cities in Australia and New Zealand (and South Pacific) for our vacations, and I'd like to know where is better to rent a car, and where is better to use public transportation.

- Melbourne 3 nights (Definitely going to rent a nice car for the Great Ocean Road)
- Cairns 4 nights
- Gold Coast / Brisbane 3 nights (We arrive to OOL, and depart from BNE)
- Hamilton Island / Whitsundays 4 nights (Guess we don't need a car here)
- Sydney 3 nights
- Queenstown 4 nights (ZQN)
- Auckland 4 nights
- Nadi 3 nights (Most probably we are going to stay at the Intercontinental Fiji)

Thanks!

Mwenenzi

You are trying to visit too many places in too short a time in my view.
The best parts of Australia and New Zealand are out of the cities. A big city is a big city in any western country IMHO.

The distances in Australia are large and you may take the best part of a day to move cities (hotel check out, to airport, airport check in, waiting, flight, disembark, airport to hotel). Au to NZ is 3:25 hrs plus a 2hour time zone change.

In the main cities you may(will) find paying for parking may be(will be) to be more $$ than renting the car. And a lot more than daily caps on public transport.

Melbourne 3 nights
Buy public transport daily Myki pass. This will get you to most(all?) of tourist attractions.
Near where I work (city centre edge) daily casual parking goes for $72

Cairns 4 nights
What are you going to do in Cairns? Is better in areas to the north, like Port Douglas & Daintree
Others will comment on car hire. I would as Cairns itself is rather bland (being polite)

Gold Coast / Brisbane 3 nights
What are you going to do in OOL / BNE?
Others will comment on car hire.

Hamilton Island / Whitsundays 4 nights (Guess we don't need a car here)
Where would drive anyway?

Sydney 3 nights
Only the stalk raving mad would rent car in Sydney.
The majority of the main attractions are close the the harbour/water.
Buy a public transport Opal pass.

Queenstown 4 nights (ZQN)
What are you going to do?
There are places to drive to, so yes rent a car for 2 days

Auckland 4 nights
4 nights is too long in AKL
Rent a car and go the Coromandel or north of Auckland

Nadi 3 nights (Most probably we are going to stay at the Intercontinental Fiji)
Others will comment

Edit:
MEL-CNS-BNE-HTI-SYD-ZQN-AKL-NAN in great circle map in same order as post 1. Click on "blue marble"

CPMaverick

Are you spending one night on the Great Ocean Road? You really should, if you want to see it properly. It is just a very long and tiring drive, with nice views out the windows, otherwise. Not much time to stop.

In Melbourne CBD and nearby suburbs, you don't want a car. Use public transport.

What will you be doing in Cairns? That's a lot of nights there. If going on a boat of course, you don't need a car at all. But if you are going to the Whitsundays later in your trip, maybe you are based in Cairns to see the inland of Australia? Personally, I would drop Cairns off your itinerary completely if you are going to Hamilton Island. Add a few more nights in other places instead.

Yes, get a car here. The most efficient way to get from OOL to BNE anyway.


I do not recommend getting a car in Sydney. Excellent public transport to all the places you'd want to go in just 3 nights

For Queenstown and Auckland it just depends on your itinerary. I would suggest for both that a car for part of the trip would be nice. You can spend a day in Auckland and Queenstown without a car, but side trips to the surrounding areas require a car (or a bus tour).

SPiKA85

- We are not interested in Melbourne itself. Our idea is to sleep in a hotel in MEL (The Larwill Studio) and from there do day trips to the Great Ocean Road to visit The Twelve Apostles and Loch Ard Gorge, etc. If it's better to spend a night at the Great Ocean Road, where do you recommend?

- In Cairns our idea is to dive at the Great Ocean Barrier the first day, and then visit Port Douglas and Daintree.

- In Queenstown, we'd like to do Bungee Jumping and also visit Glenorchy, Milford Sound, Routeburn Track, etc.

- In Auckland, like Melbourne, we are not interested in the city itself. We are planning to sleep in AKL (Adina or Sofitel) and from there do day trips to Hobbiton Movie Set, Waitomo Caves, maybe something north of AKL, and so on.

This is our current itinerary:
LA 440N 23JAN AEPSCL 1245 1505 - TICKETED
LA 833G 23JAN SCLPPT 1825 0040 - TICKETED
VT 479Y 24JAN PPTBOB 0745 0835 - TICKETED
VT 438Y 28JAN BOBPPT 1340 1430 - TICKETED
TN 101I 30JAN PPTAKL 0755 1245 - TICKETED
NZ 125A 31JAN AKLMEL 1525 1730 - TICKETED
VA1291I 03FEB MELCNS 0855 1120 - TICKETED
JQ 967H 07FEB CNSOOL 0855 1110
VA1497T 10FEB BNEHTI 1240 1420 - TICKETED
VA1280S 14FEB HTISYD 1155 1520
VA 110I 17FEB SYDZQN 0845 1345 - TICKETED
JQ 292N 21FEB ZQNAKL 1100 1250
NZ 52A 25FEB AKLNAN 0930 1135 - TICKETED
QF3842Q 28FEB NANAKL 0845 1250
LA 800G 28FEB AKLSCL 1820 1350 - TICKETED
LA 445N 28FEB SCLEZE 1535 1730 - TICKETED

Maybe we can take one day from Cairns and add it to OOL/BNE?

Thanks to everyone!

Mwenenzi

A day trip to the Great Ocean Road is a very poor use of time and a car. The bus day tours leave early and arrive back in Melbourne at ~20:30 - 21:00. Stay overnight some where on the coast.

The Daintree is not a day trip, if you want to see the best of it, or indeed any of it. Stay overnight.

The Hobbiton Movie Set, Waitomo Caves & Northland are NOT days trips. You will not be doing anything but driving. Stay overnight.

You are trying to visit too many places in too short a time in my view. You are vastly under estimating where you can drive to. Everything you have planned needs to multiplied by 2 (so half the destinations). OOL/BNE is boring, so just skip staying at either. The best places of these are the airports so you can go some where interesting & Australian. I would definitely drop Fiji

SPiKA85

We like to travel asian style (we are actually korean)... as many places as we can, in the very little time we have... fast and furious!

Most of the flights are already confirmed, so we want to avoid paying penalties to make changes to the itinerary. But we can change the flights that aren't ticketed yet.

OK, so instead of 3 nights in MEL, I'll make a reservation for 2 nights near the Great Ocean Road and the last night in MEL.

While in Cairns, I guess then it's better to spend one night in Daintree.

And we have 4 nights in total in AKL, so then we do one night near Hobbiton, one night near Waitomo Caves... and where else we MUST go that is within driving range?

SOO for my itinerary... it's better to rent a car in MEL, CNS, OOLBNE, ZQN and AKL... and use public transportation in SYD, right?

Thanks!!!

bensyd

What are you looking to do, OP? Cairns and the Goldie are lots of fun, if your idea of fun is slaying Scando backpackers at Gilligan's. Otherwise, there's not much going on in either, although the GC does have some decent golf courses and it's not as in your face as it was 10-15 years ago. Cairns is really just a regional centre with not a whole lot going on. Brisbane is a fairly boring city and most of what you'd want to visit is either north or south of the city. If you're looking for a more laid back sort of place then the Sunshine Coast is a much better option than the Gold Coast, and maybe save your trip to Brisbane for a time when you are forced to visit Brisbane.

One last point, flying MEL-CNS-OOL-HTI-SYD has a lot of backtracking. Great if you like staring at the inside of a metal tube, not so good otherwise, especially on your itinerary which is already very tight.

SPiKA85

Yes, I know that I have some backtracking, but that's because I wanted direct flights. In fact, that's the reason why (for example) I'm going from CNS to OOL instead of HTI... because there's no direct flight from CNS to PPP/HTI... and also I'm leaving Gold Coast from BNE Apt... because there's no direct flight from OOL to HTI...

mandolino

I guess Mwenenzi means "over estimating".

If you're not interested in the city itself, then don't stay in the middle of it! It will make your planned "day trips" very tedious fighting with traffic at start and finish of each day

For Melbourne, you could stay (for example) in Geelong, which has plenty of urban facilities and is much more convenient for day trips to GOR, Bellarine coast and interesting places in the hinterland. Then take the train into Melbourne one day for a look around.

If stopping on the GOR, then Apollo Bay is a good spot but you are still in the school holidays so it's a bit pricier than normal.

CPMaverick

A shame you aren't interested in the great city of Melbourne!

If you want to see a lot outside Melbourne, consider this itinerary:

- 1 night near the GOR. Maybe Torquay, Geelong, or even Melbourne if you want to get an early start
- Drive the GOR to Warrnambool or somewhere nearby, 1 night there
- Drive north to Grampians National Park. Get an early start, you can see a lot in the park just driving but it takes some time. Great views and photo ops, and guaranteed to see Kangaroos and/or Wallabies near the park welcome center
- Drive to nearby the airport for your last night, since you have an early flight

You can successfully see a lot of great things, in a fairly rushed manner which you seem to want, and avoid Melbourne, which is a shame but next time please check it out

SPiKA85

Thanks to everyone for the recommendations.
I'm taking into consideration every opinion.

But... what about staying for 2/3 nights at Hamilton (NZ) and from there do day trips to Hobbiton Movie Set, Rotorua and Waitomo Caves?
Or where do you recommend to stay to visit these 3 spots?
We want to avoid to change hotels so often. I prefer to drive 1 or 2 hours instead of pack/unpack, checkin/checkout...

bensyd

You could always drive from Cairns to Airlie Beach then get the ferry over to Hamilton Island. Once you factor in getting to and from airports, security, flying time etc you'd probably be well ahead and it's a more interesting way to see things than flying over them. The drive is about 6.5 hours.

Mwenenzi

Hamilton or Cambridge would be OK, but not ideal. Matamata(Hobbiton) is sort of one the way to Rotorua. Better to stay a night in Rotorua than drive back 2 hours.

And yes, you are vastly over estimating where you can drive to in a day or 2 hours.

JClasstraveller

It's been said before but that is a lot of travelling in planes and backtracking.

In Cairns, don't stay there, stay in Port Douglas, it's only an hour from the airport and reef trips depart from there too.

Swimming up north at beaches in Feb will be difficult with stinger season fully underway. Daintree may be inaccessible if the wet season gets very wet.

Have you actually thought about what you want to do on the Gold Coast? Why the Gold Coast?

SPiKA85

From this list, which one requires a full day and which one can be done in half a day?
- Hobbiton Movie Set
- Rotorua
- Waitomo Caves
Can we combine two in one day? Depending on the time required on each spot, we we'll sleep in Matamata / Rotorua or near Waitomo...
Thanks!