Going to Aussie land, need some advise

[Willito]

My wife and I will visit the land under for about 3 weeks and would like to get some thoughts on what to do, see, and experience from people who has done it. We're starting off in Sydney for new years eve celebration and going from there. Obvisiosly, the reef and beach is a must, but which one?? I don't know if we'll be able to learn scuba in time, but are experienced snorklers. Where are some good shallow beaches with close by reefs to go snorkle in?

[atcguy]

been twice , second time for the olympics and 7 months after. So in short here are the points that I recommend. if you have 3 weeks. Sydney 4-5 days-bondi beach a must and manly beach, take the ferry. Never went to Melbourne but the great ocean road is amazing. could drive to melbourne. 6-7 hours I think?? . Get a bus pass up the east coast. good for a month. take as many stops as you want. 2-3 days in Byron Bay.!!! the best trip of all was Fraser Island 4x4 on the largest sand island in the world, world heritage site. Lakes as clear as you can imagine. Google names for links to pictures. Then Surfers paradise for a few days, Cairns -great barrier reef. Cape tribulation. Awesome trip

[Delphinus]

Australia is a big country. It's a little like ... , well, actually, it's a *lot* like, if not *exactly* like saying, "I'm going to Canada. What should I see?"

Decide on what parts of the country you want to see, no way you're going to do all that you want to do in 3 weeks. Budget accordingly. Flying from Sydney to, say, Cairns will set you back several hundred dollars per seat. It's a 3 hour flight IIRC.

Sydney is a really neat city. The harbor is amazing. Sydney is worth a few days stay. This is probably where you will have the best "beach" time this time of year. Watch out for the great white sharks though

The Sydney Aquarium is really well done and worth a see IMHO.

Queen Elizabeth park is one of the most amazing gardens I've ever visited. Watch out for the flying foxes. They roost in the trees there during the day. They number in the thousands if not millions. At night they fly across the harbor and fly in the spotlights illuminating the Harbor Bridge.

But to be honest, expect Sydney to suck a lot of your funds. When I stayed in Sydney (my sisters family lives near Sydney, they used to live IN Sydney but not anymore - so we had to hotel it). And yeah, um.. $300 a night. It was a really cool condo right on the water across from Luna Park, but yikes that was a pretty penny.

The reef is a must see, but bear in mind that you cannot just walk off the beach and expect to see reef. In fact, this time of year, you can't go to the beach in Queensland, the box jellies are in season. Plus, the water is poo brown for several kilometres off shore. Don't plan on any beach time if you go to Queensland. Well, you can sit on the beach if nothing else, and I guess technically you can still go for a swim and just hope that the jelly nets hold. But they do get holes. And technically they can drift down south quite a ways. My nephew was stung by a box jelly near Ulladulla (NSW, south of Sydney). It looked like 3rd degree burns starting from his neck/shoulder, through his torso down to almost his knee. Pretty nasty stuff.

Anyhow my point being, if you want to see the reef, you have to go on a boat and they will take you out on a daytrip. Or do a liveaboard, if your budget allows, do a 2-3 day trip out to the reef.

Any real reef you might have seen, is chump change once you see the GBR and other South Pacific reefs. In terms of reefing in the South Pacific, Papua New Guinea ("PNG") is roughly "ground zero", the further you get away from it, the less diverse the reef gets. So PNG, Indonesia, Australia, etc. reefs are really the pinnacle.

I myself would not go to Australia and not go plan on spending at least a week in North Queensland. When I was last there, I stayed between Cairns and Port Douglas, and actually planned my reef excursions out of Port Douglas. However, I'm told that nowadays Port Douglas has become quite trendy among the rich set and the famous of Australia and so has become priced accordingly. Think Banff but worse. Soooo ... I suggest looking into it, but if you indeed find it a bit too pricey, look at Cairns (you'd be flying in and out of Cairns anyhow), or Townsville.

Townsville also has an aquarium, the Great Barrier Reef Aquarium. It's probably worth seeing although I haven't seen it myself. But it's referenced in a couple of my reefing books (can't remember if I saw it in Fossa and Nilsen, or Delbeek and Sprung, but those kinds of reefing books).

What else can I tell you ?? Man, I've already written a novel.

Other things to consider seeing: Kangaroo Island, Fraser Island, Heron Island, if your budget allows. These are all on my "places I have to go see one day" list. Uluru (formerly known as "Ayers Rock"), The Twelve Apostles ... also neat to see, but probably unrealistic to get to if you plan on spending any time already in Sydney and Queensland.

Adelaide and Brisbane areas also offer spectacular beaches. And spectacular surfing, if you're into surfing.

Melbourne is a pretty neat city. Like Adelaide though, these cities are sort of on the wrong side of Sydney if you want to go north from Sydney. You can do it but it depends on how rushed you want to be.

Hope I've given you some fodder for thought. Enjoy your stay, it will be great.

[ed99]

Just a quick note to back up what Tony had to say about the reefs. The diving (and snorkeling) is fantastic on the Barrier Reef, but it is no where close to shore except way up in the north. North of Port Douglas the reef starts to get near land, but I don't know if water clarity is better up there. Probably not since they get tons of rain north of Cairns. Myself, I did a three day live-aboard dive trip out of Airlie Beach and it was well worth it.

There were lots of dive-sail trips out of that area back in 1995 so I'm sure there are still lots of operators, and there would be some snorkeling trips as well. Once you get to Cairns and north I expect that you could probably get to the reef and back on a day trip.

[atcguy]

I worked on reef-jet out of airlie beach for a bit. 2 hours by high powered jet boast/ferry/ So reefs are not close to land. Live aboard if I were to do it again. you would also go to the coral sea . further off the coast equals better diving less impact from tourists than closer sites.

[Delphinus]

If you haven't seen this thread over at RC, give it a look. I guarantee after seeing these pictures you won't pass over going on a dive trip there.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=980833

It took me a solid hour to go through all 15 pages and that was averaging 2 to 5 seconds per photo. This guy is a prolific photog But so much the better for crack, er, reef addicts like us.

[Willito]

Man!! That guy's living the live...if he wasn't a student.

Thanks everyone for the great info. I had no idea the reef was that far off shore. I guess the northeast coast is where the reef is most accessible, so I'll plan my trip there. If snorkling was my only option, what would you recommend? A day trip out or a live-aboard? Can you explain what a live-aboard is and how much would I be looking at?

There seems to be way too many things to do/see on one visit, we will have a tough time deciding. I was browsing online and came across a load of tour companies, each varying in location, duration, price etc. My dilema is, are they worth the money and time? Has anyone been on one, what did you think of it?

Also, driving, did anyone rent a car while they were there?

[Delphinus]

Well, not to further complicate things for you, but I hear the snorkeling off the shore is better on the west coast (ie. Perth area). I've never been so I can't speak from experience, but from what I'm told, the west coast is not mountainous so there's no rain run off like there is on the east coast (which makes the water brownish). (Unfortunately this is where places like Samoa, Fiji, Tahiti, Vanuatu, etc. have the "edge" - those places you CAN just snorkel off the beach and see South Pacific reef. It's just that generally speaking you pay dearly for that extra.) But the west coast is definitely a hard thing to fit in, I would think, it's like spending 3 weeks in Canada and planning on seeing Halifax AND Vancouver.

Anyhow, back to the GBR.

I'm not a diver (no certification - I want to get it "some day" but I don't yet have it), but the dive companies can still take you out to areas where you can snorkel. The place I used (I used them twice), one was out the "Low Isles" (sadly that's basically the spot where Steve Irwin met his match), and the other was just to some random reef spots. Both trips you could either dive, or snorkel. In fact the outer reefs trip took us to 3 different locations, and you could either dive for real (if you had your certification), dive with an instructor (even if you've never dived before - they give you a cursory lesson and you're in a group of no more than 4 people to an individual instructor and you don't go deeper than about 15 feet), or you could snorkel. I ended up trying the dive thing once, then snorkeled at the next, and then decided I would dive again on the third outing. The water was 26 degrees, to a Canadian this might have been a nice warm bath. But they give you wetsuits if you want (to the Aussies it was cold).

Anyhow the lack of depth on the rudimentary dive isn't really an issue because most of the most colourful stuff is up there right at the surface anyhow.

A liveaboard dive trip simply means they take you out there on the boat ... and you stay out there for a couple of days. Meals and sleeping is all on the boat. It'd probably be a wicked cool adventure and I have some friends who just did a few days sail trip around the Whitsundays (oh. Right. The Whitsundays. Add that too to the list of "places I have to go see"). They weren't divers either (no certifications) but were able to do some diving on the GBR on this trip.

So generally speaking, even if don't dive, it's not a showstopper, it just means you can't go out and do some of the more advanced things offered.

I think the company I used was "Quicksilver". I don't know if they still exist, I was there in 2001 and I guess that was a long time ago now.

.. Oh, Ok, I see they still operate. Here's their website. I see that the two trips I did with them are still offered: Low Isles and Agincourt Reef. Here's their website: http://www.quicksilver-cruises.com




(Oh man, looking at the pictures on their website, I sooooo want to go again. Sigh, set up a new tank, or go traveling??? What to do, what to do..)

... Anyhow, we did rent a car for the time we were in Queensland. When I was in NSW, I just kinda stole one of my sisters family's cars since we were crashing at their place anyhow. Right-hand driving isn't too bad, it doesn't take that long to get used to, the pedals are the same and if you have a stick shift, it's still mapped out the same and everything. The biggest thing I found was that some brands of cars switch the turn signals and window wiper levers (but not all makers, so it's inconsistent). I found I was *constantly* turning on the wipers everytime I went to do a turn... Oh, and roundabouts. They're pretty big on roundabouts down there (much like any British-ish place, I guess). The only real scary moment I ever had was when I was on a bus coming back from Port Douglas back down to Cairns (the Quicksilver company sends a bus to pick you from where you're staying), there was a moment where we rounded a bend on the highway and there was a a car on the wrong side of the highway coming up towards us. The driver slammed on the brakes and the bus fishtailed a bit, but other than a lot of people needing new shorts, an incident was averted.

Anyhow I found a trick to help you remember what side to be on, is that, if you're driving, you're on the side of the car that should be nearest the centre of the road.

Cairns also has other things to do, there's Tjapukai (an Aborginal cultural centre), there's a steam train and a gondola that goes up into the mountains (the tropical rainforest there is really worth seeing, it's like everything you ever imagined what a jungle looks like.. except it's a real jungle, not your imagination). Check it out, they offer package deals to do the train, gondola, and Tjapukai as a day trip: http://www.skyrail.com.au/

Sorry for the long winded reply. I guess I could go on and on about this place. As far as cities go, Cairns may as well be Okotoks or Airdrie, or Brooks, or maybe Red Deer. (I'm not knocking those cities, but I guess what I'm saying it's not a sophisticated large urban centre, it's very much a small town. But it just happens to be in the tropics and near to perhaps the most awesome reef there ever was, sooooooo.... really, how can you go wrong?? )

[Willito]

Westcoast seems intriguing, maybe next time.
Getting certified is something I am sure is a must do after returning from a trip like this, I got the details just not the time right now. That's good to hear that snorkling is still a consulation option but I will definately try diving wherever possible. Did you book with Quicksilver in advance or while you were there? By the way, thank you for spending your time sharing your experience, much appreciate.

[Delphinus]

We did book in advance. Seems to me there are plenty of operators so you could probably find something when you're there too, but I was paranoid that with only 1 week to work with that I was going to find that they were all booked or something. I had heard about this Quicksilver through ANZA travel, we booked our flights from Sydney to Cairns through ANZA and booked the two boat trips through them.

Anyhow that might be worth looking into, they're in Kensington, they might have info/brochures on other companies too. I do sort of regret not having done a liveaboard trip, although my wife wasn't too keen on that and we were sort of on a shoestring budget, so I guess it wasn't really an option, but boy do I want to go spend a few days out on the reef. I guess one ought probably think about getting their dive ticket done first though.. Ok, I think I know what my 2008 New Years Resolution is. Anyone want to come take diving lessons with me??

I can't seem to find a webpage for ANZA but here's something I did find for them: http://www.profilecanada.com/company...Ltd_Calgary_AB