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March 19, 2024, 06:35:27 pm

Author Topic: How safe would it be to travel to Sydney by car?  (Read 2365 times)  Share 

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Snow Leopard

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How safe would it be to travel to Sydney by car?
« on: December 30, 2019, 04:42:17 pm »
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Hey AN,

I was curious as to the safety of travelling to Sydney by car from Melbourne.


Aaron

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Re: How safe would it be to travel to Sydney by car?
« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2019, 05:06:05 pm »
+8
It's a bloody lengthy trip. Also consider that the most convenient route (e.g. on the Hume) is primarily (at least in Vic) a straight road with 110 km/h as the speed limit.

If you have to drive (rather than conveniently get on a plane), my tips:
- Identify where you will stop and have a break (whether that's for lunch, a quick rest, etc) before you go. I'd say once every couple of hours.
- If you go with someone else, swap over and get them to drive some of the distance so you don't fatigue.
- Make sure phones are fully charged and you have some essentials e.g. a water bottle and some food. Can never be too prepared!

When I was on my L's I used to drive all the way up the Hume to Albury-Wodonga and back and that was a drainer because all it is, is just a stretch of road with nothing really around. That in combination with the speed can really spell danger if you are fatigued. Can't really comment about the second half of the trip in NSW since I haven't done that part.

So to sum up... if you have to drive, it's fairly safe as it's pretty much driving on one stretch of road the entire way... as long as you make the necessary preparations before hand. If you feel yourself getting tired, pull over and rest or swap with someone else to drive. Take regular breaks and obviously don't let your car run out of fuel! get a plane, it's much easier
« Last Edit: December 30, 2019, 05:15:56 pm by Aaron »
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Snow Leopard

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Re: How safe would it be to travel to Sydney by car?
« Reply #2 on: December 30, 2019, 05:18:20 pm »
0
It's a bloody lengthy trip. Also consider that the most convenient route (e.g. on the Hume) is primarily (at least in Vic) a straight road with 110 km/h as the speed limit.

If you have to drive (rather than conveniently get on a plane), my tips:
- Identify where you will stop and have a break (whether that's for lunch, a quick rest, etc) before you go. I'd say once every couple of hours.
- If you go with someone else, swap over and get them to drive some of the distance so you don't fatigue.
- Make sure phones are fully charged and you have some essentials e.g. a water bottle and some food. Can never be too prepared!

When I was on my L's I used to drive all the way up the Hume to Albury-Wodonga and back and that was a drainer because all it is, is just a stretch of road with nothing really around. That in combination with the speed can really spell danger if you are fatigued. Can't really comment about the second half of the trip in NSW since I haven't done that part.

So to sum up... if you have to drive, it's fairly safe as it's pretty much driving on one stretch of road the entire way... as long as you make the necessary preparations before hand. If you feel yourself getting tired, pull over and rest or swap with someone else to drive. Take regular breaks and obviously don't let your car run out of fuel! get a plane, it's much easier
Thanks so much for all the advice Aaron  :)

caffinatedloz

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Re: How safe would it be to travel to Sydney by car?
« Reply #3 on: December 30, 2019, 07:25:40 pm »
+5
If you're planning on driving in the next little while, make sure you keep your eye on the fire danger warnings on roads that you might be travelling along.

LoneWolf

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Re: How safe would it be to travel to Sydney by car?
« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2019, 08:34:32 pm »
+4
If you can spare the time (extra 3/4 hours), and the fire's permit, i would highly recommend heading the longer road up to eden then on the princes hwy to nowra and up the mountain (jamberoo) and through to sydney,
I did it last week (getting my hours up for my l's; i went on the hume to melbourne and the princes hwy home and the latter route was so much more enjoyable.
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PhoenixxFire

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Re: How safe would it be to travel to Sydney by car?
« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2019, 08:59:06 pm »
+5
Would be very wary of road closures due to fires. Both princess highway & Hume just south of Sydney are predicted to be closed at short notice over the next few days and I’m sure continuing through later January.
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Re: How safe would it be to travel to Sydney by car?
« Reply #6 on: January 08, 2020, 09:04:39 pm »
+5
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 :D
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Re: How safe would it be to travel to Sydney by car?
« Reply #7 on: January 20, 2020, 03:33:09 am »
+1
Hey! Probably late as well, but I used to do this 1-3 times a year (and still occasionally do). It's about 9 hours of driving, which means around 10-11 once you add stops. The whole road is a 110 km/h dual carriageway, aside from a short 80 km/h section southbound near Melbourne and the occasional roadworks.

It's much, much easier if you can share the drive with someone - 2 drivers make it quite doable, whereas solo is quite hard. And if you're going solo, unless it's very last-minute, you'll barely pay more for flying (if at all) - so there's no real reason to do it.

You mostly don't need to plan stops as there are fairly frequent service stations, although there are some stretches without them. Even in those cases there are rest areas (for a break) or towns (to buy stuff) to stop at, meaning you can respond to your hunger/thirst/fatigue. There also also some not-terrible lunch options (e.g. Jugoing if coming from Sydney has some good stuff), though usually I just go for Subway to save time.

Snow Leopard

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Re: How safe would it be to travel to Sydney by car?
« Reply #8 on: January 23, 2020, 09:05:13 pm »
+1
Thank you so much for all of the advice everyone! Other than a lot of smoke (especially on the hume highway), the trip was overall quite nice :)
« Last Edit: May 23, 2020, 11:26:45 pm by Snow Leopard »