Planning to make the long trip from Cairns to Brisbane? You could travel 19 and a half hours straight but then you’d be missing 2,200 km of sights and delights!
For the ultimate itinerary its best to spend at least 4-10 days doing this trip just so you can stop off and enjoy all the amazing tourist attractions along the way.
Best Ways to Travel
These are some of the best ways to get around:
Independently
You could drive the journey yourself via car or renting a campervan. This is the most flexible way to travel as you can go where you want when you want.
Greyhound Australia
Without the worry of getting place to place using Greyhound’s services from Cairns to Brisbane (and pretty much across the whole of Australia), you’ll have more time to enjoy these great pit stops plus many more on route. So, sit back and enjoy the leather reclining seats as you tell your mates all about your latest adventures with their free on-board Wi-Fi.
Tours
Local and international travel operators offer East Coast Australia tours including Contiki and G Adventures. These can be a lot of fun where you’ll get to travel with like-minded people and get taken to the best locations. Accommodation and transport is also included in the price which means you can travel hassle free.
Best Australia East Coast Itinerary: Cairns to Brisbane
Once you have your transport sorted you can plan your itinerary. These are the main places to see along the way.
Cairns
Home of the flyboard, you can’t come to Cairns and not try it! You might struggle for the first ten minutes but think of the muscle tone you’ll get to reverse that coach potato physique you worked so hard for. Speaking of potatoes, if you’d rather be under the sea than on top of it, then dive into the cod hole with the friendly potato cod fish that basically looks like a rock. Cairns is a great place to visit as a tourist and it is also one of the best places to travel and see the awe-inspiring Great Barrier Reef – somewhere you need to visit once in your life. There are lots of day trips, sailing adventures, scuba diving and snorkelling boat tours and more.
Mission Beach
Mission Beach is great for laidback beach relaxing, but one thing this place has got is a tree wearing a bikini – yep, you read that right. You can find that delight on Tully Mission beach road. If you’d rather get cultured then visit the Djiru National Park owned by the Djiru Aboriginal people which is full of interesting Aussie wildlife.
Airlie Beach
Here, head on over to the Whitsunday Islands – the famous islands slung across the tip of the enigmatic Great Barrier Reef. You can’t come to Queensland and not visit the reef so make sure you allow plenty of time for that! Once you’re snorkelled out, there are a wealth of amazing beaches on the islands to explore and lie on.
Yeppoon
Just a short way away from Rockhampton, be prepared to plan your day around sunrises and sunsets because they’re pretty magical here. When you’ve got chance in between that, meet some native cuties at Cooberrie Park Wildlife Sanctuary where little fur babies are nursed back to health for release into the wild.
Bundaberg
If you’re fed up with beaches and nature, Bundaberg is for you. This city is known for its rum so enjoy a tour around the Bundaberg Distillery followed by a tasting or many. For those of you who aren’t fed up with nature and turtles are your thing, take a trip to Mon Repos Beach from November to mid-March to see the nesting or hatching of marine turtles!
Hervey Bay & Fraser Island
Hervey Bay is one of Queensland’s best holiday destinations with the world’s closest encounters with humpback whales on a whale-watching trip also on offer. Hervey Bay’s beaches are beautiful but you can’t come to this side of the world without visiting Fraser Island – the world’s largest sand island. Get panoramic viewpoints from Indian Head and camp the night away under the stars.
Sunshine Coast
The clue is in the name, but this part of Queensland is all about beaches, sunshine and water sports. Try jet skiing, jet boating, surfing or kitesurfing to get your blood pumping and follow it all up with a visit to the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. You can’t miss the Glass House Mountains!
Brisbane
Congrats! You made it! Here, you can try kayaking in the pitch black in a Perspex kayak off the shore of Moreton Island, go diving with manta rays or if you’re a die-hard Harry Potter fan, go play Quidditch with fellow muggles at the City Botanic Gardens.
Plan a gap year in Australia today to see more of the stunning country.