Great Barrier Reef, and other things- advice needed!

sad_gills_fan

OH and I spent 4 weeks in Australia during March and April of this year ... Perth, Sydney, Blue Mountains, Port Douglas, Uluru, Perth .. all in 4 weeks.

We spent a whole week in Port Douglas and would recommend it over Cairns by far. It depends what you want though as friends of ours stayed there and loved it. It's touristy, it's backpackerish (!), it's a little tacky but it's fairly cheap. Port Douglas is more up market, cleaner and has better restaurants IMO.

If you are going to do the reef, I would thoroughly recommend going out on Sailaway III .. a catamaran that takes you to the inner reef where we saw Nemo, Dory, Bruce (only a little one though) and Crush (it's a turtle dude)!!
Fabulous, good price, good food and for us, better than our trip to the Agincourt Reef of the day before. We took a heli trip over the reef and the rainforest too but I wouldn't recommend it unless you just love helis like me. Bit expensive to look at the sea (you couldn't really see the reef).

In Sydney, we did the Bridge Climb on a twilight tour which was fabulous. Speaking to others, they all wished they'd done the twilight one as you go up in the light, wait then come back down with the lights of the city in front of you. Good photos too for a good price. Word of warning, don't have a ton of alcohol the night before as they breathtest you before climbing.
For the Blue Mountains, we stayed for 4 days and it was 2 days too many really. Beautiful though they are, there are only so many trees you can look at. The town of Katoomba is a 2 hr train journey from Sydney Central and we found it to be an excellent place to stay .. not much in the town for veggies though apart from the delicious chocolate shop !! Oh well :-)

Back to Sydney, we went to Bondi Beach and found it to be a complete anticlimax. Coogee beach was much nicer. For seeing the Opera House, go to Circular Quay and catch a cheap commuter ferry over to the other side and back (can't remember the name) .. you get a perfect view of the Opera House and the Bridge without paying the tourist prices.

We loved Oz and are now planning on going back for the Melbourne Cup horse race and an Ashes cricket test in November of next year. Failing that, we'll go for Crimbo and New Year and watch the Brisbane and Sydney Ashes tests .. Come on England !!

AussieLass

We loved Oz and are now planning on going back for the Melbourne Cup horse race and an Ashes cricket test in November of next year. Failing that, we'll go for Crimbo and New Year and watch the Brisbane and Sydney Ashes tests .. Come on England



I think you had a typo error there. Shouldn't you meant to say.....Come on Aussies. :whistle:

Luvly.cuppa.T

Thanks to you all. It's incrediably helpful listening to what you all have to say.
Yes, we only have 15 nights in Australia..... even though there are many more included in the travelling to and from.... (that never ceases to amaze me)
I think that we are going to leave Cairns out of this trip, as we don't think that it will have much to offer. we can use that time else where.

We most definatley want to do the Whitsundays and Fraser Island, and of course Sydney. We most definately want to do the harbour bridge walk, and although the twilight sounds very tempting, it does cost that bit more....
The blue mountains will be a day trip, that's for sure, so not too much time gone there.
Also we're thinking now of going straight to Whitsundays and relaxing!! We land in Sydney about 6.30am Monday, so instead of wasting that day bumming about in Sydney, we're going to be nutters and get straight into somewhere else to save time. This is with the hope that Monday night we will be too knackered to do anything but sleep.... then wake up Tuesday in a place we want to explore!! After the whits, then Brisbane to car it to Fraser Isaland for 3 nights. Then car back to Brisbane to Sydney. This is all flying by the way, as it's the quickest we can do it all! Not cheap though. Bah.

As we dropping Cairns, we can either spend more time in Sydney, Brisbane, Whits or even take a trip to Melbourne.

What do ya reckon?

(It's coming together, slowly but surely!)

AussieLass

Sounds good. My back yard is Fraser Island. I live 20 mins drive away from Hervey Bay where you will prob catch the barge over to Fraser Island. You will love it. Beautiful beaches. You might be lucky and spy a few whales. I've never been to the Whitsundays but it's a lovely spot as well. The weather should be just right as well, warm but not too hot. You should go home with a lovely brown tan. :cool: How exciting for you. It' s great to plan holidays hey.

I'm not a big fan of Sydney. But for a tourist it's one of those "must see" things to see the Opera House & the bridge. I'm not overly fond of cities anywhere but that's just me. The worst thing is the plane trip. It takes such a long time. It's a pain in the neck. (being polite there)

researcher

Luvly.cuppa.T wrote:

we only have 15 nights in Australia..... even though there are many more included in the travelling to and from....

Do you have any stop-overs - and if so where?
+
When your in Sydney, take the ferry from the Quay to Watsons Bay, you'll go past the Sydney Opera House and if you come back at sunset you'll get some amazing pictures of the bridge too.

At Watsons Bay you can have something to eat at either Doyles (famous fish restaurant) - or the little cafe on the hill overlooking the sea. Very nice.

sad_gills_fan

I wasn't too keen on Sydney, I found it too fast and as I live near London, I wanted to get away from all of that.
Saying that though, the old part of Sydney (The Rocks) was fabulous, especially The Rocks Cafe which serves the most wonderful veggie burgers and loads for meat eaters too. You can't miss it if you're doing Bridge Climb as it's on your way back to the main city ... they have cakes in the doorway window which will surely draw you in!

I would pay extra for the twilight climb if possible but if you're on a tight budget, then I'm sure all climbs are good.

Have a great time and don't forget your sunnies and your thongs (I'm sure AussieLass will explain). Incidentally, if I wasn't such a money saver, I'd put money on England winning the Ashes this year AussieLass !!!!

td

Hi,

I wouldn't go to Cairns - there's nothing you can do there that you can't do from Airlie Beach and it's not a very pleasant place really - very touristy - bit like Blackpool. Port Douglas is beautiful but nothing special unless you are goinjg further up into the rainforest.

Airlie Beach is lovely - you can also go no holds quad biking from Airlie which was great fun. We snorkelled in Whitsundays and scubad from Cairns and the snorkelling was far superior - we went to Reefworld pontoon and the fish were fab. You can fly direct to Airlie on certain days of the week.

We loved Sydney - stayed in Manly which meant that you can get a ferry every day with the amazing views of Sydney but without the business of a big city.

We also went to Melbourne but were too tired to enjoy it after all the travelling!

td

markmat

td wrote:

I wouldn't go to Cairns - there's nothing you can do there that you can't do from Airlie Beach

One thing I did forget that I did around Cairns was the Skyrail cablecar which basically takes you across the top of the rainforest. It's all a bit touristy when you get to Kuranda at the other end, but hey you're a tourist There is also the Kuranda railway which does the same route, so you can go one way on the train, and one way up in the air.

Probably not enough to make a special journey to Cairns, but worth a look if you do end up there (or are passing through).

markmat

For the last few years I've been a big fan of the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness guides for city breaks in Europe, however these don't really work when you get to somewhere really big, like Canada or Australia (I've tried both).

For Australia we ended it up with a Fodors guide, and although it looks a bit dull when you open it (small print and no pictures!) it turned out to be very useful. It's particularly useful if you happen to be driving at any point, as in the description of each town/city it tells you how far they are from other 'nearby' towns, very handy in Australia where you an easily look at a map and think "yeah, we can drive that in a day"

One tip for Fodors (or any other big fat guidebook), get yourself a pad of mini Post-It notes as you can use these to mark specific pages. Much easier than continually referring to the index, and they don't fall out!

Luvly.cuppa.T

Right- we've got pretty much every sorted and reserved etc. The iternary is looking good....but am at a loss with the insurance.

Am I right in thinking that I need backpackers, rather than normal? Also as we want to incorpaorate a skydive (tandem), that seems to be excluded on a lot.

Any tips/advice with insurance would be glady appreciated!