Hi Snow Leopard,
I know im a bit late in on the convo but i just did this trip over the Christmas break and wanted to share my experience.
Peronally being from Sydney, i had family come from overseas and my mum wanted to take them to Melbourne so we could explore (as it was our first time going there as well) and also to meet another family member who lives there.
Plane tickets over Christmas are expensive espeicallu having 6 people so we decided to drive there. Our plan was to drive from Sydney to Canberra and spend the night there, and go to Melbourne the next afternoon. We then planned on spending 4 nights in Melborune and return directly to Sydney from there. We had 4 drivers and two cars. One was myself (full license), my mother (full license), my brother (Red P's and cannot drive >90km/h) and uncle (overseas lisence).
Never have i experienced such a mind blowing journey, i was so tired in the end and so were the rest of the drivers. I think it is safe to do this trip if you take on this advice:
- Take frequent rest breaks and switch drivers whenever necesary.
- Plan lunch stops weather it be at Maccas or if you have your own food.
- Make sure your car is serviced beforehand as even mine was having the 'check engine light' come up throughout the joruney especially with this hot weather overheating the engine.
- Check petrol levels feequently, and see if you can risk taking it to the next station. Be aware that on the motorway, some of the petrol stations are a few km out into the town. This wastes time so might be better option to go to the ones on the actual motorway.
- Make sure you know the rules of the other state (although most of them are the same anyways) as being my first time driving in VIC, i had no idea about the Tram rules until my cousin explained.
- Purchase an in car phone charging kit. My phone died when we reached Melbourne and so the rest of my families and i was forced anyways to one at the servo cause i had no idea where our AirBnb was.
Good luck with it. I hope you dont start seeing things along the way