It’s not until you drive around Australia that you truly appreciate how big it is, and since we’d never taken them further afield than Melbourne we decided the kids needed a school holiday road trip to help them get a better sense of scale.

The plan was to go up the coastline to the Gold Coast, spend a few days there to warm up, then drive back down through central NSW. By spacing our stops to spend only a few hours in the car each day, we hoped to have time to see a few things along the way.

For most days, follow the link to another blog post to see what we got up to, but I’ve included a few highlights here, too.

Day 1: Canberra to Newcastle, where we experienced a rather nice sunset:

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Day 2: Newcastle to Port Macquarie, including the picturesque Ellenborough Falls:

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Day 3: Port Macquarie to Coffs Harbour, via Dorrigo National Park:

https://instagram.com/p/4yfcR1Omyv/?taken-by=davinfifield

 

Day 4: Coffs Harbour to Gold Coast, stopping at Woodburn on the Richmond River for lunch:

https://instagram.com/p/409ksoOmz3/?taken-by=davinfifield

 

Days 5, 6 and 7 in the Gold Coast were mostly unremarkable touristy stuff: a day at Dreamworld, a couple of games of putt-putt golf, rides on electric tandems, a trip up SkyPoint, watching Inside Out, and playing some tennis in between afternoon rain showers. On the bike ride, we spied this guy doing a water jetpack ride. https://instagram.com/p/4_Nu8cum_C/?taken-by=davinfifield

 

King Tutts Putt Putt in Surfers Paradise is actually pretty cool (and 2 of the 3 themed courses are indoor). This overly staged shot was the best I could manage to get both the kids and the dinosaur bursting through the roof in frame.

Day 8 was from the Gold Coast to Glen Innes. We’d had nice warm weather for the past several days, but a major cold front working it’s way up from Antarctica had a major impact on the rest of our trip. We managed to stop in briefly at a couple of parking spots close to the Gwydir Highway as it picturesquely winds its way through Gibraltar Range National Park, including at this nice little waterfall:

https://instagram.com/p/4_Qq2XOmyF/?taken-by=davinfifield

 

The Celtic Standing Stones in Glen Innes were a bit of a disappointment (it didn’t help that it was now about 5 degrees outside) so we quickly headed from there to the motel. We had very nice Thai meal on the main street. It seems like Glen Innes has been through some tough times, but could be on the up again.

The plan for Day 9 was to get to Coonabarabran so we could hike in the Warrambungles the next day. We woke to snow in Glen Innes, and encountered lots of travelers frolicking in it along the side of the road in a few places. Having experienced “proper” snow plenty of times before, the kids didn’t seem so inclined. We stopped in Armidale for an early-ish lunch, after enjoying the nice little New England Regional Art Museum, which had Louise Hawson’s intriguing 52 suburbs around the world on display. Several hours of driving later along mostly back roads, after making sure we had enough food to make our dinner and lunches the following day, we arrived at the Warrambungles Mountain Motel.

Day 10: Coonabarabran to Mudgee didn’t go at all according to plan. Featured instagram shot:

https://instagram.com/p/5ES-rwOm3C/?taken-by=davinfifield

 

On our last day, number 11, we drove back to Canberra via Bathurst, where we visited the excellent Australian Fossil and Mineral museum. It is quite small, but the minerals in particular are very well curated. It is well worth the $30 family entry fee.

An interesting temporary exhibit covered the yet-to-be-concluded unearthing and recovery of a new Icthyosaur by a family that fossil-hunts for a hobby. They discovered it while searching in a public fossicking site!

All in all, we had a varied and interesting trip; and the main objective was met: the kids now have a much better idea how big Australia really is.