I’ve been in Oz just over a week now – with a short stint in Sydney, followed by heading back to one of my favourite places in the world, Byron Bay.
But over the last few weeks I’ve been excitedly pinging emails back and fourth with Scotty from HostelZoo.com who offered me a pretty epic opportunity. And now with most of the details firmed up I can announce the fact I shall be spending the next 3 weeks tackling the infamous East Coast Oz backpacker trail!
Not My First Time
Although I’ve already spent a good deal of time exploring Australia (both west and east coast) I’m still stoked to do it again!
The east coast trail is pretty much a right of passage for any backpacker these days – it’s crammed with amazing adventures, beautiful landscapes and more drunken party chaos than you can shake a goon sack at!
My first time up the east coast was in a campervan I bought and I lazily made my way around the country, settling in Byron for a long stint of work and bouncing around as and when I felt like having a mini adventure.
Finally at the end of my first gap year I headed up with a group of buddies to Cairns before flying home. That trip encompassed everything from canoeing in the Noosa Everglades, camping out on Fraser Island and sailing around the Whitsundays.
A fitting end to my year in Australia!
What’s The Plan?!
This time however I’m teaming up with HostelZoo.com and VIP Backpackers for a slightly more paced journey with the aim of checking out a whole heaps of hostels, reviewing them and of course squeezing in some pretty amazing experiences along the way!
The trip is split into 2 parts – both of which are equally amazing!
The first leg of the trip, which will take just over 2 weeks is smashing from Byron Bay all the way up to Cairns. En route I’ll be stopping off everywhere from Rainbow Beach and Brisbane through to Magnetic Island and the Gold Coast.
It’s a hell of a distance to cover – about 1900km in all – and I would never recommend any of your guys cramming in so much in so little time, but Scotty will be driving so I can simply kick back and enjoy the ride!
Yeeewwwwwww!
The second part, which will take us about a week is Sydney – Adelaide. Stopping of at Canberra and Melbourne – another 1900km trip!
This section will be sweet as due to the fact we get to cruise along the Great Ocean Road again, which was probably one of the best drive sI’ve ever done.
And of course this also means I can stop in at the Ripcurl and Quiksilver discount factory outlets in Torquay and hopefully catch some waves at the infamous Bells Beach!
I’m also pretty excited to catch up with a whole heap of buddies in Melbourne and see Adelaide for the first time too, it’s always good to fit in something new if you can hey!?
Heaps of Blogging
So over the next 3-4 weeks you can expect a whole heap of awesome adventures to be appearing over on the Backpacker Banter Facebook page, lots of photos to inspire your east coast oz trip and most importantly a good lashing of hostel reviews to help you pick some comfy places to crash along the way!
And of course I’ll be tweeting everything live as I go (so follow my account – @bckpackerbanter) and also putting up a heap of pretty pics on my Instagram account – backpackerbanter.
As with everywhere I travel feel free to ping me any questions you might have with planning your own adventure, and if there’s any hint and tips on things to do and see that you have chuck them my way and I’ll see if I can sandwhich them in!
Let the roadtrip chaos commence!
Sounds sweet as bro. I will have to contact hotelzoo and vipbackpackers when I get down there in November. Have fun.
should be heaps of fun! I’ll let Scotty know you’re heading his way :)
What an adventure! You are going to have a lot of fun! Looking forward to your FB and twitter updates :)
bring on the chaos hey!