Our journey back to United States from New Zealand had quite an interesting flight itinerary with an overnight layover in Sydney, Australia before finally heading back home. Before we even arrived in Sydney we had a long layover in Wellington with just enough time to go out and explore the city which was totally worth it. When we finally landed in Sydney at 5:45 PM we had exactly 16 hours and 45 minutes to wander the city before the long flight back to the United States.

To recap this was the final city on our trip down under. We had spent a wonderful week in Melbourne with some of the most welcoming people I have ever met. After that Beth and I had a go at driving on the left side of the road on the Great Ocean Road. From there we said a temporary goodbye to Australia and landed in Queenstown, New Zealand to hike in one of the most beautiful areas in the world.

One of the highlights of our trip to Australia was driving the Great Ocean Road for  three days. We were lucky enough to stay with friends in Melbourne, Australia the majority of time but in the middle of the week we headed out to tour one of the most scenic drives in the world! Our friends thought we were somewhat crazy as three days really isn’t that much time but we think it was just about perfect. Granted we didn’t have time to relax too much but we love being active and busy anyway.

For our journey we started on the southeast side of Melbourne at Noble Park so please keep that in mind if you want to use our trip as a basis for your travels on the Great Ocean Road. The itinerary I will outline below worked very well for us and I would only suggest a couple tweaks based on our experience. I will note those at the end of each section. Bolded items are key stops or activities that we did.

One of the most exciting aspects of our trip to Australia was we already had friends in Melbourne! Well Beth did at least… She had the amazing opportunity to student teach for a semester in Melbourne three years ago. It was an amazing experience for her and I have to admit I was jealous. I was stuck back in Indiana finishing up my undergrad. We had been dating for two years when she visited. Anyway, now I know why she had such a great experience. All the people she stayed with and met were so welcoming and fun! Now I have some Australian friends too!

One of the families was even nice enough to let us stay with them. Thank you Margot and Wayne! It was a really great experience to get a local view of the area and extremely fun chatting with them. I learned a lot of things that I would have not on a typical vacation, like inside scoop on the city, politics, daily life, and so much more. They even made me a fan of Australian Rules Football, (footy). It is a fun sport to watch and I will have to figure out a way to watch it back in the USA.

Beth and I just finished up our amazing trip to Australia and New Zealand! Our journey took us to Melbourne where Beth student taught at and made some wonderful friends. From there we tried driving on the left side on the amazing Great Ocean Road. On a final stint we hiked and explored Queenstown, New Zealand, the adventure capital of the world. We also somehow managed to squeeze in a night in Sydney and 5 hours in Wellington. More on our adventures in future posts but first I would like to detail out how we got there!