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Hi folks.
My wife and I are thinking about taking a trip to Australia this year for our tenth anniversary. We have some ideas on where to go, but would love to get suggestions from people who know the area better (ie, at all
). We haven't set exact dates, but we're limited by a conference I need to go to in the middle of July and the school year starting up in the middle of August, so something like 14-20 days between July 20-ish and August 12-ish.
Here's what we have so far:
1) Sydney, of course. Since the flight arrives there and it's about 6000 hours long, we'll want to rest up a bit. We've heard of a couple of things there - mainly the Opera house and the Harbour tour / bridge walk (if that's still being done). We're interested in "real" things, not "tourist attractions", so some museums would be cool, but not things like Madame Tussaud's ...
2) Snorkeling / diving the Great Barrier Reef. We're not big divers, but the reef is a big draw for us. Snorkeling, glass-bottomed boats, some of the other excursion things - they all look awesome. If anyone knows of places to go that the tourists don't usually get to, places where the whales / turtles / other beasties are more plentiful, or less glitzy / more authentic tours, that would be great.
3) A few days driving in the countryside with a 4 wheel drive camper. Maybe in the northern area near Townsville / Cairns. We'd love to see the stars in the (mostly) wilderness. Are there are natural wonders to definitely see, or "badlands" to avoid?
We're also interested in doing some sort of volunteer thing while we're there, from picking up trash on the reef to helping build houses or something. I haven't done any research on this aspect yet, but if there are places to do something good for someone, we're game. As long as it doesn't take the whole vacation of course
Any other travel tips would be great also - which towns are better to fly into (near the reef), which car rental places are better, restaurants to use / avoid, bus / train travel, ...
Of course, money is an issue. The less we spend, the more we get to keep.
Just getting there is pretty expensive, so the further we can stretch our funds the better.
Thanks for any suggestions
- Steve
My wife and I are thinking about taking a trip to Australia this year for our tenth anniversary. We have some ideas on where to go, but would love to get suggestions from people who know the area better (ie, at all
). We haven't set exact dates, but we're limited by a conference I need to go to in the middle of July and the school year starting up in the middle of August, so something like 14-20 days between July 20-ish and August 12-ish.Here's what we have so far:
1) Sydney, of course. Since the flight arrives there and it's about 6000 hours long, we'll want to rest up a bit. We've heard of a couple of things there - mainly the Opera house and the Harbour tour / bridge walk (if that's still being done). We're interested in "real" things, not "tourist attractions", so some museums would be cool, but not things like Madame Tussaud's ...
2) Snorkeling / diving the Great Barrier Reef. We're not big divers, but the reef is a big draw for us. Snorkeling, glass-bottomed boats, some of the other excursion things - they all look awesome. If anyone knows of places to go that the tourists don't usually get to, places where the whales / turtles / other beasties are more plentiful, or less glitzy / more authentic tours, that would be great.
3) A few days driving in the countryside with a 4 wheel drive camper. Maybe in the northern area near Townsville / Cairns. We'd love to see the stars in the (mostly) wilderness. Are there are natural wonders to definitely see, or "badlands" to avoid?
We're also interested in doing some sort of volunteer thing while we're there, from picking up trash on the reef to helping build houses or something. I haven't done any research on this aspect yet, but if there are places to do something good for someone, we're game. As long as it doesn't take the whole vacation of course
Any other travel tips would be great also - which towns are better to fly into (near the reef), which car rental places are better, restaurants to use / avoid, bus / train travel, ...
Of course, money is an issue. The less we spend, the more we get to keep.
Just getting there is pretty expensive, so the further we can stretch our funds the better.Thanks for any suggestions
- Steve
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