Townsville to Newcastle NSW

We live 3.5 hours north of Newcastle in Tamworth, we have done the trip to Townsville a couple of times, in two days, stopping off at Emerald overnight.

If you want to do it over 3 days, perhaps make it Goondi and Emerald, or Moree and Emerald?

It thought the route via Emerald was shorter and quicker, certainly good road surface a couple of years ago. Though it would be hot, if you are into visiting National Parks, Carnarvon Gorge is always special to visit if you had a full extra day

Hi Tate,
It would depend om the weather and the forecasts around that time of year, I would imagine, as to what would be the best route to take.

We were up in that part of the world a few weeks back and the temperatures were a little warm then virtually anywhere inland and it is only going to get warmer between now and New Years.

If traveling with kids I imagine it will get fairly uncomfortable for them as well as yourselves in that case. We headed for the ranges around Toowoomba where it was cooler and were glad we did.

Plenty of places to see and things to do along the range if needed.

Cheers, Bruce.

largely a personal preference but I would go Emerald, Springsure, Roma, Nindigully, Moree - all of which are worthy of a stop. Lovely run down the Caernarvon Hwy to Roma too. Either way should be a good run, though. We live on the Central Coast and use both routes depending on destination.

That remote area through Charters Towers to Emerald would make for a quicker more relaxed trip than down the coast to Rocky in the Christmas traffic.

After suffering a multitude of "stop-n-go's" on the Bruce H'way, about 18 months ago, I came back along the Burnett H'way, through Gayndah, Monto & Eidsvold, to Biloela, then across through Moura, Rolleston & Springsure, and up to Emerald.

It was a pleasant, quiet drive, with plenty to see(if you have the time), and only got a bit busy once we got near the mining areas, near Moura & Emerald. Was such an easy drive that we went that way again this year, when going down to Hervey Bay & Brisbane.

Just be aware that while Emerald has heaps of motels, most, if not all are booked out much of the time, and at times accommodation can be very scarce!!!

You could always go Goondiwindi, Dalby, up the Bunya H'way to Kingaroy, Murgon etc.
This might be a cooler option too, if it's particularly hot next week. One other thing.......decided to buy fuel in Gayndah, last year and went to the Choice servo, thinking it would be cheap(as Choice in Barcaldine is) and ended up paying as much as we do here in Winton!

Enjoy your drive,

Bob.