We are looking at going to Australia. Please HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!

deepti_2

HI!
We are planning a holiday in August- September. We are looking at going to Australia.
We definately want to go to Sydney. But can't decide on where else in Australia it will be worth going to. We have been thinking of Adelade, Cairns.........The great barrier reef............What about accomodation. We have got accommodation booked in Sydney already. But what about accomodation elsewhere. To go to the gret barrier reef.......I suppose it is a day trip from.................
We are going for 12 nights in total, excluding the journey time.
Any suggestions are welcome. We are a couple with a child of 4 yrs. of age.
Please HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks in advance.

Counting_Pennies_2

We went to Australia with our 6 month old last October and had a wonderful time.

HongKong - Cairns (Port Douglas) - Sydney - Fiji - LA - Home

We went with BA via HongKong (a fantastic stopover for families with young children they are so welcoming) I wouldn't necessarily say BA were fantastic, middle of the road!

We travelled with Australia Airlines (not Quantas) to Cairns fantastic with children and very friendly, best airline I have travelled with a child. (Word of advice if you are getting a hire car and it is early in the morning make sure they come out with you to the car to show you how to fit the car seat (special bolting system over there that is legal!) We had a nightmare fitting the seat and with Cairns being such a small airport the place fell into a ghost town zone the second we stepped outside, no one was available to help for over an hour!!)

From Cairns we went directly to Port Douglas, a coastal route and we stayed in apartments, part of the Rydges Complex which I have provided a link to. With a bit more web searching you should be able to find details on the Rydges Apartments http://www.port-douglas-hotels.com/Hotel/1682. When you do a search on Trip Advisor people have said they are in urgent need of refurb. I went last October and they seemed fine to me. They weren't top of the range, but for the price you pay you shouldn't expect it. It was clean and perfectly adequate. They can provide you with anything you need and there is a good shop inside the complex to buy food and book trips. There was a lovely shaded pool for the Apartments and being part of the hotel complex it is a five minute walk into the hotel facilities of restaurants and pools and other facilities. It was very central, you could either drive or get a complementary bus into the centre which is wonderful. The good thing about the apartments are there are dishwashers, washing machines, tumble dryers. If you go for a two bedroom place as we did you end up with a mini house. Front drive, garden, two storey building downstairs is an open planned kitchen lounge diner with garden and an additional bathroom and utility room, upstairs two bedrooms with balconies and bathroom. You can book all your great barrier reef activities etc.

The only thing to point out is people really don't tend to go to the beach, so book somewhere that has a nice pool. Port Douglas is very lovely, sort of Australia's equivalent of Cornwall. We stayed there for 6 days and we hardly saw the place, so much to do, we took a day trip to the Rainforest, a day trip to the Reef, a drive to a local resort I forget the name of but it was wonderful and lots of nice walks around Port Douglas and sitting around the pool.

I wouldn't necessarily say to stay in Cairns, as personally I don't think there is much there. Although if you want to I would say to stay in http://www.thelakescairns.com.au/ I think we booked this through Laterooms.com a week before we went (cutting it fine!!) it was incredibly reasonable and stayed the night before we got our plane out of Cairns and wished we had another night there. The apartments are amazing value and onsite are restaurants, a variety of pools and an apartment to take your breath away!

From Cairns we travelled with Virgin Blue to Sydney and stayed in Manly (Manly Seaside Apartments) fairly clean and ok price for the area. Manly is a nice place to base yourself with the ferry going over to Sydney every 20 min or so. There is so much to do there, we spent every day being busy!

Australia is so big that in 12 days you won't be able to spread yourself too thinly otherwise you won't feel you have experienced it (especially with a child!) We have decided Sydney and Queensland were enough for us, and if we come back again we'll do some of the other sites then.

Also, I wanted to reassure you of how wonderful the doctors are out there. It just so happened our baby and I travelled with an illness which followed us the majority of our trip, but it didn't spoil it and it was probably made better by the wonderful medical staff at each point in Australia.

Incidently, on our way back (we had 5 weeks away) we stopped in Fiji and stayed in Castaway Island (the perfect break before flying back via LA). If you can get a few more days to tag on to the holiday I would strongly recommend it.

Have fun organising it, we did and loved the entire holiday.

Sorry for waffling, just brought back memories of the best holiday yet!!! PM me if you want any individual information as there is so much, I am brimming with information at the mo!!

researcher

One thing you've got to consider is the weather - its Australias' late winter in August, so depending on where you go you can choose your climate. We spent some time in Sydney, which we loved, then hired a car and drove to Melbourne along the Hume highway, we stopped for a few days on the NSW/Victoria border, which is wine country, and really lovely, but also very much the 'real' australia rather than a tourist town. You could spend your whole holiday doing a loop, travelling back from Melbourne along the costal highway.

We also visited Uluru (Ayers Rock). I wouldn't bother again although it was interesting. From there we flew to Cairnes and stayed in one of the beach resorts along the coast, it was ok, but nothing special. We visited Port Douglas and it was a very nice resort - very expensive by Aussie standards (and not cheap by our's either), but close to the rainforest and access to the reef. We went on a trip to the Franklin Islands - I was very disappointed, and if I was to go again I'd do a lot more research before I went on the reef. This part of Australia is very humid, so check when they get all their rainfall.

Be careful not to try and visit too many places - consider Australia like America, would you want to go to New York, New England and Florida in one 12 day trip? You'll get more from your 12 days if you do less, especially when you take into account jet-lag. The time difference is about 11 hours, and for most people it hurts!

Also get Lonely Planet from the library and have a look at what they say, but
where-ever you go, you'll have a wonderful time. I bet you'll want to go back!