Travel the Newell Highway

January 26, 2008 2:41 PM

I want to travel to Brisbane from Melbourne via the Newell Highway. I have done thisn drive many times before, but non stop. I have a young family now and would like to break the trip up.

We'd like to do the trip over three days, with one day beig around Dubbo so we can visit the zoo. Can anyone suggest other overnight stops?

posted by mattoxic to travel & transportation (3 comments total)

Jerilderie's a nice place to stop off for a bit - Ned Kelly famously held up the bank there back in 1879, so there's a few obligatory Ned Kelly displays, and there's a museum or two in town that might be worth exploring. (I used to live around there, but haven't been back in ages, so take this with a grain of salt.)

As far as overnight stops go, though, it's not great - there's a few motels there, but that's it. You might be better off to push on to Narrandera, which is a charming little town right on the Murrumbidgee - it's about 450km out of Melbourne, so it should be good for the first night's stop, depending on how big your appetite for driving is.

There's a pretty nifty interactive map here.
posted by The Shiny Thing at 3:42 AM on January 27, 2008

Given that Dubbo is nearer to the start than the finish of your trip, I'll assume that it's your first stop. The obvious next stop would be somewhere down near the Murray-Riverina. I recall that Narrandera had some holiday business, but a little further on you're in Albury-Wodonga and the edge of Rutherglen. There's a bunch of wineries - some with things for kids to do - and some museums, river activities and so on. It puts you some 3-4 hours from Melbourne, so maybe the trick might be to stop somewhere short of Albury, and break up the last day with some tourism there or maybe at Glenrowan for some tatty Ned Kelly displays.
posted by outlier at 3:46 AM on January 27, 2008

I drove from Canberra up to Brisbane for the holidays via the Newell and stopped in Coonabarabran as my halfway overnight stop. Turns out it's the astronomy capital of Australia, so that's an option if you want to introduce the kids to star gazing.

Given that the Western Plains Zoo is on the to-do list, have you considered staying there? The Zoofari Experience looks very cool.
posted by d-no at 5:09 PM on January 27, 2008