Am wondering about the logistics of taking several days to go from Melbourne to Sydney (or the other way around) without us driving a car. (We'd fly into one city, spend several days, travel to the other to spend more time and fly home from there.)

Read several posts here, and it sounds like the coastal route would be a nice way to travel between the two. What sort of transportation company/tour company could provide a way to stop in a few interesting places over the course of a few days?

This would be in late July- we're last minute travelers quite often-- I don't know if winter has anything to do with this plan!

There will probably be quite a few companies doing this run, nvl325. Not having any coach/bus experience myself, I just googled and here are a couple that came up.

http://www.travelaust.com.au/adventu...elsewhere.html

http://www.aatkings.com.au/au/

thanks, Bokhara. Looks like those, and others I saw, don't really cover a trip along the coast- they're pretty much inland. And, hostels/tents aren't exactly our thing!

Maybe with the coastal route taking 14 hours if you drive straight through, it's just not long enough for a company to make that into a 3 or 4 day trip?

Unfortunately for you the Sydney - Melbourne train also follows an inland route - it goes via Albury - Wodonga on the NSW / VIc border. The coastal train from Sydney stops at Bomaderry because numerous state governments have been too tight-fisted to finance a rail bridge across the Shoalhaven River (rant over). The rail line from Melbourne up the coast finishes at Bairnsdale. So you could cover part of the way by train, but there's still a lot of coast that isn't covered. The train ride from Sydney - Bomaderry is actually very pretty in sections - I recommend it highly.

Lavandula

Took a look at the map- between Bomaderry and Bairnsdale- yeah, that's a nice long way! Oh well, seemed like a good idea...