Make the most of the journey...

We were offered a few nights free accommodation in a lovely house. The hitch? It was a six and a half hour drive away. So the long weekend was basically 2 days driving for two days in Thredbo, out of ski season.

While we've been to Thredbo before, it was always to ski, and so the drive down was usually leaving at night, sleeping in Canberra and up at dawn to hit the slopes. This time there was no rush, so to make the drive seem more leisurely, I decided we would stop for lunch instead of racing through a McChain.

One of the benefits of all these blogs is there is now a plethora of great information on new restaurants and activities available at your finger times. While I have a few favourites around the world - I swear by The Honeycombers for Singapore and The Yumlist for Malaysia, I have no special resource for Canberra, even though I've been many times. (So feel free to post your faves in the comments, as I'll be back at Christmas). I did stumble upon an article that listed the top places to eat, as recommended by the HerCanberra blogger.




The upside of deciding where you will stop to eat before setting out is that you can make a reservation if necessary and you can choose restaurants that are open. I'd been recommended Brodburger by a friend many years ago, and the article prompted me to investigate. Discovering it was closed on Mondays, meant it was the pit stop for Friday! After an easy morning drive, we arrived about 1.30 for lunch. It's close enough to the main road through Canberra but you wouldn't find it unless you were looking for it. It was a great way to break up the drive, and even the kids were happy when we reloaded the car and continued the journey.







After a fabulous weekend, the kids were not pleased about the pending long drive home but it helped to have the carrot of the lovely lunch we'd be stopping for in Canberra. About an hour out, I rang to make a reservation, as I didn't want to wait around for a table. Monster Kitchen & Bar was fabulous, and it felt like a luxury to be stopping for a real restaurant meal on a road trip (we had self-catered while away, so this was the only meal expenses of the trip). The only downside was, because of the remaining three hour drive, we couldn't get a bottle of wine to go with the superb meal!

 

While this all seems obvious, I've never done it before - we head to the destination and grab whatever is handy on the way. By building a destination or activity into the drive, it makes the journey seem like part of the holiday, rather than a wasted day. It doesn't have to be a restaurant - bring your own picnic but find a great location (The National Arboretum would be my pick for that in Canberra). Look for a zoo or museum, a gallery or some other point of interest, so it's not just a day wasted in the car.

Any trip, driving anywhere, can be made more pleasurable with a stop along the way. Just because you don't need a guide book, doesn't mean you shouldn't do a little research. Who knows what you might be missing out on? Sometimes it's these little things that are the highlight of the journey.

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