My mom and I are taking a trip to australia. we will be flying into cairns and are trying to decide whether we should fly from there to sydney or rent a car and drive. I have a few questions:
Does anyone know how many hours the drive would take?
Is the drive pretty?
It looks like Brisbane is a place we would be driving through, what is it like?

Also, it is difficult to find low carb items here in Guam (da vinci syrup, etc.) Anyone know of places in cairns/sydney?
I would appreciate any other advice people could give me.

Hi there!

If you choose to drive from Cairns to Brisbane, be aware it is a long trip. 2713km (1696 miles) & 37 hours - going from Cairns to Brisbane down the Bruce Hwy, then from Brisbane down to Sydney on the New England Hwy. That isn't allowing for you stopping to sleep or look around (the driver misses a lot of the scenery don't forget!). So you could expect to do it much more comfortably breaking the trip into 3 or 4 segments.

Yes, the scenery is pretty. Driving is a good way to see the range of Australian scenery and you will get the range from tropical up at Cairns to the New England tablelands in New South Wales.

Invest in a good touring atlas of Australia before driving anywhere - they have all the main roads plus the smaller roads which might be more picturesque for you both.

Flying is much more time economical however and there are some good cheap flights available. If you get a cheap enough flight, it might be cheaper than driving (rental plus fuel plus accommodation plus food). Just depends how long you have over here. Look at www.virginblue.com.au or wwwjetstar.com.au for cheaper flights. QANTAS (www.qantas.com.au) even has good specials sometimes.

The Da Vinci syrups are available in Sydney from Pine Tea & Coffee (Unit 17/ 8 Gladstone Rd Castle Hill 2154 ph: 02 9680 9117).

Sorry can't help with other product in Cairns or Sydney, I live in Brisbane. I will have a dig around for what is available here. I know a list of what is available where has been posted previously on this forum.

Hope this has helped!

cheers
Rosemary

Thanks so much. We will have to look at those sites you gave. We were thinking that driving would be fun, but also we don't have that much time, so we still haven't made up our minds.

We are leaving tonight for Cairns and ultimately decided that we will just fly from there to Sydney. This is my first trip to Australia, so I'll tell everyone how it went when I get back!

Hello everyone, I'm back. We had a great time and both only gained a pound. We walked so much there, especially in Sydney.
We were surprised at how big the low fat thing is over there. I saw something that was trying to make marshmallows look healthy!
Anyway, we had a lot of fun, thanks for all the help.

I lived over in Sydney for about six months going to Uni at Macquarie and that is where I started LCing. It was just getting big over there at the time I left but I wish all of you the best of luck and to those of you who are traveling over there don't fret, the LCing is great you just have to work it a bit. The roast chickens stands near the beaches are wonderful. I look forward to coming back as soon as I can if they'll take another American!