First time trip to Australia
Discussion
As per title, have been considering a trip to Australia. Other than that though, I have no idea when or where exactly, so hoped I may be able to get some opinions / experience. As a middle aged couple back packing isn't appealing, but we do like the thought of a road trip by camper. I guess we would be looking to spend 2 or 3 weeks there? Possibly a month if our budget could stretch far enough.
We are here at the moment doing a road trip, well three really, 2 using a car and one with a camper. We have so far got to Adelaide from Melbourne, staying in motels we pre-booked. It really is so easy, drive on left, easy navigation, great food, lovely people and loads to do. The driving is a bit boring but we don't mind that. When we get back to Melbourne we fly to Tasmania and a week road trip there. We are then going to fly Hobart to Cairns and then hire a camper staying in big4 campsites down to Brisbane. We then have a week in Sydney with friends. 7 weeks all together.
Few main tips
Don't try and drive for at least 4 days - Melbourne is ideal before driving off. Emirates A380 is good for sleeping!
Camper versus car/motel looks about the same price but we think small SUV and motels is probably going to be easier.
Take cash due to credit card exchange rates.
Keep drives under 500km/day
Don't drive everyday - see the place you have arrived at.
Pm me if you need more info HTH
Few main tips
Don't try and drive for at least 4 days - Melbourne is ideal before driving off. Emirates A380 is good for sleeping!
Camper versus car/motel looks about the same price but we think small SUV and motels is probably going to be easier.
Take cash due to credit card exchange rates.
Keep drives under 500km/day
Don't drive everyday - see the place you have arrived at.
Pm me if you need more info HTH
1) Australia is BIG. Don't think you'll drive around it. In between the interesting places there is a huge amount of absolutely f
k all. Fly.
2) Just two weeks? Fly. Three weeks? Fly.
3) Sydney is a fantastic city. You could spend two weeks there alone!
4) You have to go to Cairns and Port Douglas.See the Great Barrier Reef. Helicopter over the top, snorkelling or glass bottomed boat (if you don't swim) on it.
5) Don't just see Ayers Rock. The Olgas are even better.
You will have a great time.
The other thing to enjoy is the 'stralians themselves. Straight talking, no bullst people. That's entertaining by itself.
k all. Fly.2) Just two weeks? Fly. Three weeks? Fly.
3) Sydney is a fantastic city. You could spend two weeks there alone!
4) You have to go to Cairns and Port Douglas.See the Great Barrier Reef. Helicopter over the top, snorkelling or glass bottomed boat (if you don't swim) on it.
5) Don't just see Ayers Rock. The Olgas are even better.
You will have a great time.
The other thing to enjoy is the 'stralians themselves. Straight talking, no bulls
t people. That's entertaining by itself.Don said:
1) Australia is BIG. Don't think you'll drive around it. In between the interesting places there is a huge amount of absolutely fk all. Fly.
2) Just two weeks? Fly. Three weeks? Fly.
3) Sydney is a fantastic city. You could spend two weeks there alone!
4) You have to go to Cairns and Port Douglas.See the Great Barrier Reef. Helicopter over the top, snorkelling or glass bottomed boat (if you don't swim) on it.
5) Don't just see Ayers Rock. The Olgas are even better.
You will have a great time.
The other thing to enjoy is the 'stralians themselves. Straight talking, no bullst people. That's entertaining by itself.
Agree with most of this except number 2. Was so bored in Sydney I sacked it off and flew to the barrier reef after 3 days.k all. Fly.2) Just two weeks? Fly. Three weeks? Fly.
3) Sydney is a fantastic city. You could spend two weeks there alone!
4) You have to go to Cairns and Port Douglas.See the Great Barrier Reef. Helicopter over the top, snorkelling or glass bottomed boat (if you don't swim) on it.
5) Don't just see Ayers Rock. The Olgas are even better.
You will have a great time.
The other thing to enjoy is the 'stralians themselves. Straight talking, no bulls
t people. That's entertaining by itself.We're of too Melbourne in a week or so, via Singapore. There for a week then we drive up to Sydney for a week before coming home via a few days in San Fransisco.
Was not expecting it too feel too expensive with the exchange rate around 1.90, it was 1.45 the last time we were out there three years ago!
As for credit cards, try a Post Office one. We've had one for a few years and always use it abroad. No charges on purchases and very good exchange rates.
Been to Perth, Cairns, Ayers Rock in the past but always preferred Melbourne or Sydney, though Perth used to have a small city feel that was nice. Not sure any more.
Understand the earlier comment about the reef, which is nice and the rainforest north of cairns is interesting but Sydney has lots to do. Get out on the harbour, seaplane trip up the coast, Blue Mountains, climb the bridge........
Was not expecting it too feel too expensive with the exchange rate around 1.90, it was 1.45 the last time we were out there three years ago!
As for credit cards, try a Post Office one. We've had one for a few years and always use it abroad. No charges on purchases and very good exchange rates.
Been to Perth, Cairns, Ayers Rock in the past but always preferred Melbourne or Sydney, though Perth used to have a small city feel that was nice. Not sure any more.
Understand the earlier comment about the reef, which is nice and the rainforest north of cairns is interesting but Sydney has lots to do. Get out on the harbour, seaplane trip up the coast, Blue Mountains, climb the bridge........
Went in December for 2 weeks for the 1st time.
We spent a few days in Sydney, then up to Port Douglas for a week, then back down to Sydney for another few days over Christmas. Plenty to see & do in Sydney. Port Douglas was just chilled. Diving the Barrier Reef, up into the Daintree rainforest, or just chilling around town.
Great trip. Not the cheapest, but not horrifically expensive.
We spent a few days in Sydney, then up to Port Douglas for a week, then back down to Sydney for another few days over Christmas. Plenty to see & do in Sydney. Port Douglas was just chilled. Diving the Barrier Reef, up into the Daintree rainforest, or just chilling around town.
Great trip. Not the cheapest, but not horrifically expensive.
If you want a good flavour of the different bits, definitely fly around. Internal flights are regular and cheap, Australia is a really big place.
We spent nearly a month there and flew straight to Cairns, did a few days dive liveaboard on the Great Barrier Reef, picked up our campervan and headed up to Port Douglas then a few days meandering inland before heading to the coast and down. Arrived in Sydney with about 4 days left to look around there. You could probably do it in 2-3 weeks but you'd be spending more time driving than seeing things.
The drive was OK, as others say there's some huge gaps with very little (the maps in the guides keep changing scale - you can do 400 miles in a day and see nothing of real interest!). Lots of days we'd do something for half a day then head on, find somewhere to stop and camp then repeat. Only stayed 2 nights in a couple of places.
Obviously we didn't see much else of Australia (and I'd love to see places like Melbourne one day) and it was pretty expensive. We'd spent the previous few months in India then SE Asia and our time in Australia was about twice the cost of the rest of the trip. Even a cheap camper (and ours was) is expensive, fuel is expensive, food is expensive even if you're stopped at a supermarket and cooking it yourself, campsites are expensive.
We spent nearly a month there and flew straight to Cairns, did a few days dive liveaboard on the Great Barrier Reef, picked up our campervan and headed up to Port Douglas then a few days meandering inland before heading to the coast and down. Arrived in Sydney with about 4 days left to look around there. You could probably do it in 2-3 weeks but you'd be spending more time driving than seeing things.
The drive was OK, as others say there's some huge gaps with very little (the maps in the guides keep changing scale - you can do 400 miles in a day and see nothing of real interest!). Lots of days we'd do something for half a day then head on, find somewhere to stop and camp then repeat. Only stayed 2 nights in a couple of places.
Obviously we didn't see much else of Australia (and I'd love to see places like Melbourne one day) and it was pretty expensive. We'd spent the previous few months in India then SE Asia and our time in Australia was about twice the cost of the rest of the trip. Even a cheap camper (and ours was) is expensive, fuel is expensive, food is expensive even if you're stopped at a supermarket and cooking it yourself, campsites are expensive.
We did 3 weeks in Cairns a couple of years back and did about 300 miles in each direction in the hire car. When you look on a map we did nothing the country is massive! Cairns was stunning. I've also done Sydney and Melbourne and would go back to cairns before them.
We also did a 24 hour stop over in Shanghai which I can highly recommend it certainly added another dimension onto the trip and helped with the jet lag.
We also did a 24 hour stop over in Shanghai which I can highly recommend it certainly added another dimension onto the trip and helped with the jet lag.
Pick one of the coasts and cover as much of it as you can. If you try to do too much then you end up spending more time travelling than anything else. We have found that in 3 weeks it's best to spend around 5 or 6 days in each of 3 different base camps and day trip from each one to take in the local attractions. Balances out the travelling a bit.
If you go to Sydney then think about staying in Manly. It's cheaper than the city centre but easily accessible on the ferry.
If you go to Sydney then think about staying in Manly. It's cheaper than the city centre but easily accessible on the ferry.
Kenty said:
Take cash due to credit card exchange rates.
Just to add, the card charge is much higher if you use it to buy stuff, so just take max per time at the ATM, the card charge is a lot less, and doesn't depend on how much you take out.It's a fantastic place, lovely people, clean and HOT. Have a fantastic holiday. Oh and if you have a sat nav, take it, the hire depos charge an arm and a leg to hire one. From memory, to download Australia map to my Tom Tom was about £50. And don't forget the charging lead for the socket in the car.
I'd echo he comment about the Post Office credit card, very handy for purchases. I now use a Caxton FX reload able card tor cash withdrawals which has saved me hundreds in transaction fees over the last few years. Very easy to use- you link it to a bank account and can reload it by SMS or via the very good app if you need to.
Was considering Aus last year since there were some good flight deals- seems the pound is very weak against the Oz dollar at the moment though so couldn't afford the bit I between the flights!
Was considering Aus last year since there were some good flight deals- seems the pound is very weak against the Oz dollar at the moment though so couldn't afford the bit I between the flights!
The problem with flying everywhere is you lose chunks of your holiday going nowhere in departure lounges. Driving is very easy over there and you see more of the little things that make a trip memorable, rather than just the big tourist draws.
Personally I would pick an area and concentrate on that. It's so vast that you can easily treat it as a bunch of individual countries, and try and see all the things in one particular area rather than cover the whole place.
What sort of things are you looking for out there? Things are easiest and most familiar in the south east, and get more rural and extreme as you head north and west. It's an easy place to travel around even in the bush.
Sydney: Very pretty but basically like a modern European city - think London
Melbourne: As Sydney but less business and more art and culture - think Liverpool
Adelaide: Much smaller and more old-fashioned - think Norwich
Brisbane: The destination for Aussie holidaymakers - think Blackpool
Darwin: Extreme (my favourite Australian city)
Uluru: It and the Olgas are impressive but it's a long way to go and look at rocks
South East: Very pretty but not a million miles away from being in Europe tbh
South West: Stunningly beautiful place and much quieter than the SE
Central east coast: easy with lots of things closer together (in Australian terms)
West coast > hundreds of miles of nothing, punctuated by utterly fantastic stops
Middle > desert
Great beaches are everywhere, but you can only swim safely in the southern half.
Weather on the south coast often isn't far off the UK except the cold isn't quite as cold and the hot is much hotter.
Weather in the far north is either wet or dry. The wet season up there is very hot and humid but brings some of the most spectacular storms you can imagine.
So it really depends what you enjoy and what sort of trip you want to do.
Personally I would pick an area and concentrate on that. It's so vast that you can easily treat it as a bunch of individual countries, and try and see all the things in one particular area rather than cover the whole place.
What sort of things are you looking for out there? Things are easiest and most familiar in the south east, and get more rural and extreme as you head north and west. It's an easy place to travel around even in the bush.
Sydney: Very pretty but basically like a modern European city - think London
Melbourne: As Sydney but less business and more art and culture - think Liverpool
Adelaide: Much smaller and more old-fashioned - think Norwich
Brisbane: The destination for Aussie holidaymakers - think Blackpool
Darwin: Extreme (my favourite Australian city)
Uluru: It and the Olgas are impressive but it's a long way to go and look at rocks
South East: Very pretty but not a million miles away from being in Europe tbh
South West: Stunningly beautiful place and much quieter than the SE
Central east coast: easy with lots of things closer together (in Australian terms)
West coast > hundreds of miles of nothing, punctuated by utterly fantastic stops
Middle > desert
Great beaches are everywhere, but you can only swim safely in the southern half.
Weather on the south coast often isn't far off the UK except the cold isn't quite as cold and the hot is much hotter.
Weather in the far north is either wet or dry. The wet season up there is very hot and humid but brings some of the most spectacular storms you can imagine.
So it really depends what you enjoy and what sort of trip you want to do.
carreauchompeur said:
I'd echo he comment about the Post Office credit card, very handy for purchases. I now use a Caxton FX reload able card tor cash withdrawals which has saved me hundreds in transaction fees over the last few years. Very easy to use- you link it to a bank account and can reload it by SMS or via the very good app if you need to.
Was considering Aus last year since there were some good flight deals- seems the pound is very weak against the Oz dollar at the moment though so couldn't afford the bit I between the flights!
Got to go back a few years to get a better exchange rate than right now. Was considering Aus last year since there were some good flight deals- seems the pound is very weak against the Oz dollar at the moment though so couldn't afford the bit I between the flights!
durbster said:
Sydney: Very pretty but basically like a modern European city - think London
Melbourne: As Sydney but less business and more art and culture - think Liverpool
Adelaide: Much smaller and more old-fashioned - think Norwich
Brisbane: The destination for Aussie holidaymakers - think Blackpool
Darwin: Extreme (my favourite Australian city)
I'd say:Melbourne: As Sydney but less business and more art and culture - think Liverpool
Adelaide: Much smaller and more old-fashioned - think Norwich
Brisbane: The destination for Aussie holidaymakers - think Blackpool
Darwin: Extreme (my favourite Australian city)
Sydney = wannabe USA city
Melbourne = European city
Adelaide = stuck in the 80s, full of caryards and sex shops (not churches as they'd like you to believe).
Brisbane = quite nice really, the city itself that is. South of it is the Gold Coast which is like Spain, north is the Sunshine Coast which is fantastic.
Darwin = never been but I believe it is full of nutters. I'd like to go (in winter).
I'd suggest you pick one or two cities as centres and work out what to see round about them. You could spend 3 weeks in Melbourne and just see some of Victoria (it is about the same size as the UK).
As an example, when my parents come to visit us they fly to Perth, spend a week there, then fly to Melb and spend 2 weeks with us. They've also done the 1 week in Tas and another time did a few days in Adelaide (and hated it).
Friends of ours just flew to Perth and then hired a camper to drive back to Melb. While they enjoyed bits of the trip I get the feeling that overall it was a bit of a nightmare.
You could fly to Perth and get the train across to Sydney if you really wanted to see some countryside.
One thing to be aware of this that the luggage allowance on internal flights is less than on international flights.
I think the cities are just like cities, you need to get out and drive round, look at the smaller places, see the real OZ,
I did like Melboune though, really got lots going for it but travelling is when you see real Aussies and have enjoyed that immensely. The wine areas are interesting with small towns that have big characters.
The people are friendly, laid back and somewhere between Americans and New Zealanders, a lot like Brits really with a great attitude and with a sense of friendly!
I did like Melboune though, really got lots going for it but travelling is when you see real Aussies and have enjoyed that immensely. The wine areas are interesting with small towns that have big characters.
The people are friendly, laid back and somewhere between Americans and New Zealanders, a lot like Brits really with a great attitude and with a sense of friendly!
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