Chauffeur service across Oceania

BlaakLane.com serves 20 cities across Oceania.

How Oceania travels

Oceania is a region of long distances between few, well-spaced cities. Most visitors arrive on a long-haul flight into Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth or Auckland, and then either stay in that city for business or fly on to a resort town, a wine region or an island. Chauffeur work follows that shape: arrival transfers after a long flight, corporate days in the central business districts, and road trips of one to three hours to the coast, the vineyards or the mountains.

Gateway airports and drive times

Popular road trips from the gateways

• Sydney to Canberra: about 285 km, usually three hours.
• Brisbane to the Gold Coast: about an hour; to the Sunshine Coast, usually 60-90 minutes.
• Gold Coast Airport to Byron Bay: usually 45-60 minutes across the New South Wales border.
• Melbourne to the Yarra Valley or the Mornington Peninsula: usually 60-90 minutes for a winery day on an hourly booking.
• Auckland to the Matakana coast or the Waikato: planned as day trips with the car on hand.

Seasons are reversed

The Southern Hemisphere summer runs from December to February, and that is peak season for beaches, harbour cruises and the islands. Winter, from June to August, is ski season around Queenstown and on the Australian alps, usually running into September or October. Northern Australia, around Cairns and Darwin, has a wet season roughly from November to April and a dry season in the middle of the year.

Events that fill the calendar

• Australian Open tennis in Melbourne, usually in the second half of January.
• Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park, Melbourne, usually in March.
• Vivid Sydney, the light festival, usually from late May into June.
• Melbourne Cup, held on the first Tuesday in November.
• New Year's Eve fireworks on Sydney Harbour, with extensive road closures around the foreshore.

Book early for all of them; the Tourism Australia site lists current dates.

Arrivals, biosecurity and driving side

Australia and New Zealand run some of the strictest biosecurity controls in the world: food, plant material, soil on footwear and animal products must be declared on arrival, and inspection queues can add time after a long-haul landing. The 60 minutes of included waiting on international arrivals is counted from actual landing, and the flight is tracked, so a slow clearance does not start the clock early. The Australian Border Force publishes the rules for Australia. Australia, New Zealand and Fiji drive on the left; French Polynesia and New Caledonia drive on the right.

Islands in the Pacific

In Fiji, French Polynesia and New Caledonia, the car journey is usually the short leg of a longer trip. In Bora Bora, the airport is on an outlying islet and most resorts meet guests by boat. In Noumea, La Tontouta airport is roughly 45-60 minutes from the city by road. Tell dispatch the resort's boat time or ferry schedule when you book, so the car is timed to the connection.

Which vehicle suits Oceania

Executives in Sydney and Melbourne usually book a Luxury Executive Sedan; families landing with surfboards, golf bags or ski gear are better served by a Standard Black SUV or a Sprinter Van with its 12-bag capacity. For a winery or coastal day, the hourly service has a three-hour minimum. Browse Australia and New Zealand for every city we serve, and see the cruise terminals in Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland.