This great story is courtesy of our Reservations Consultant Julian, who recently took a Hippie trip around Aus: When one of my mates from Germany told me that he’s coming to Australia for a visit we agreed in the most important point: We have to do a road trip!
Some months later and just a short taxi ride from the airport we finally picked up our Hippie Camper in Sydney, needless to say how excited we were to finally hit the road. Our first destination were the impressive Blue Mountains just a one drive out of the city. If you are heading there, get a map from the info centre and drive to some of the remote spots away from the mayor tourist bus stops. The landscape is beautiful, you can go for different walks or a swim in a creek and there is hardly anyone else around.
After our relaxed start, we drove south to Canberra visiting some of the cities free museums and the Australian parliament. Overall the city was worth stopping over, but it’s not a place you would like to spend all your holidays in. So we continued our journey towards Melbourne, stopping for lunch in the country town of Albury. Our Hippie Camper scored some brownie points with a local shop owner and some entertaining stories about road tripping and a free meal later we departed to Melbourne.
Unfortunately we underestimated the caravan park situation in the city and had to make some phone calls before finding a nice park in Coburg not too far out of the CBD. The following day we left our Coburg base by public transport to discover one of Australia’s most amazing cities, and trust me there is a lot to discover. Within the city centre, it is the most convenient to take a walking tour or hop on the free tram which takes you from the CBD to all the big sports facilities, the Docklands and lots of other good places. My personal recommendation for the city is the Eureka Skydesk, a skyscraper lookout with memorable views over the whole city.
Two days later we left Victoria’s capital with many new friends, photos and big city impressions to spend a day in Phillip Island. Even though the island is populated, it still seems to be a place with a lot of nature and some great wildlife (wallabies, penguins, koalas, wombats and all kinds of birds), some of it in nice wildlife parks. Having ticked off some island 
fun off our list, we spend the night in Geelong to start one of the must dos in Down Under on the next day: The Great Ocean Road.
If you have been in Australia and haven’t done it, come back and make sure you do it self driving! We took two days for our experience of a road, I would rate the most attractive I have ever travelled. There are so many places to stop (almost every car park is worth it), go down to the ocean, or hike/drive up a mountain (Apollo Bay is quite awesome for that), the possibilities are numerous. We felt the biggest advantage in having our own camper was to be able to take the roads less travelled (e. g. Cape Otway Lighthouse or Triplet Falls Park).
From the ocean we went inland to the mountain ranges of the Grampians National Park. Just the drive to Halls Gap, where we made camp, would have been worth it as we were driving 
through the most original Australian towns with just a couple of hundred inhabitants.
All the driving made us want to go for some serious hiking and you bet the Grampians are the right place for that. Impressive rock formations, breathtaking views until the horizon and pure natural pools inviting for a swim, in other words we had a stunning time.
As time is flying by when you are having a good time, we started to make our way back east towards the coast, driving past Melbourne and spending the night in the chilled out coastal town of Lakes Entrance. Two days later which were packed with some nice national parks and sunny hours at beaches we arrived back into Sydney. At the start and end point of our journey we put the icing on the cake by visiting the Sydney icons Bondi Beach, Botanic Gardens, Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. And after precisely 3,512 kilometres it was time to waive our loyal and fun loving companion goodbye: Thank you Hippie Camper we will take you for another journey soon!
