Crowne Plaza Norwest Sydney, Baulkham Hills

Advantages: All the food & drink
Disadvantages: none that i know of

...- stays open very late for drunken kebabs Patee Thai - Brunswick St - good thai food, not the best but consistently nice with great freindly service. Others: Alyassya - Sydney Rd - Turkish Friends Kebabs - Northcote Plaza Alphabet City - High St Northcote Narai Thai - St Georges Rd Rainbow Hotel - off Brunswick St Tai Tai - Victoria St Joe's Garage - Acland St Melbourne Oyster Rooms - King St There are hundreds of great restaurants in Melbourne, with some of them serving the same home made food for generations. If you stay in the areas outlined above you are sure to find something good. Drink... There are a wealth of good drinking holes in and around the city. Generally they seperate into three main types: Pub, Bar & Club Pubs can be anything from a dodgy local type to a neon lit slot machinists heaven. Again all the streets mentioned... Read review

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Advantages: Lovely beaches, easy to reach, cheap, chilled
Disadvantages: Best accessible by bus or train...but a car is useful once there

...destination in the area, there is a good selection of accommodation, including hotel chains such as Ibis and Crowne Plaza, motels and B&Bs and a couple of backpacker hostels. We stayed in the YHA Newcastle Beach and the standard of accommodation was incredible. This cost the two of us 43 GBP in total for 2 nights. The beaches in Newcastle are beautiful, and there are several coves and longer stretches nestled at every turn as you walk along the coast. The Ocean Baths, a gigantic, open air swimming complex opened in 1922, include a lap pool and a huge general pool, plus diving board. Here and on the beaches on either side of this were where we spent a lot of our time, swimming, body boarding (badly) and soaking up the sun. Heading out of town slightly you come across the Bogey Hole. Not as hysterically funny to Australians as it is to us (they... Read review

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Advantages: Lovely for a Short Stay, Good for day Trips
Disadvantages: Very Cold in Winter, Very Quiet in evenings

...I have one tip if you are intending on visiting Australia and that is "Come to Melbourne before you visit Sydney". We visited Melbourne in July (the middle of winter in Oz) having flown from Sydney which we had been living in for the past 7 months. Our first day in Melbourne, we froze and ended up in shops buying gloves and scarves. It is so much further south than Sydney, that it gets very cold in Winter with winds which cut through you, so be prepared if you are going between June and September. Accommodation in Melbourne is not great for the budget traveller. We found a place called 'The Lords Lodge' in the Rough Guide, it got 4 stars and they said it was very nice with clean facilities - they were very wrong. We ended up staying one night and found a really nice place called 'Toad Hall Hotel' {441 Elizabeth St., Melbourne (03... Read review

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