In 2010 both my husband and I celebrate a milestone birthday(hopefully!)and we are thinking of visiting Australia rather than having a big party. My birthday is in March and his in June so we are tentatively considering Easter time. So...is that a good time of year to visit? and how can we plan an itinerary which allows us to see as much as possible in 3 weeks?
All ideas welcome as I really have no clue where to start,but I thought if I start early then it would become clearer.!!!
Posts: 1222 | Location: UK | Registered: 12 June 2005
I can't answer to itinerary since our one trip there was limited to New South Wales in 12 days because we were visiting friends - we did see Sydney, Canberra, the coast and wineries in the Hunter Valley.
But we were there at Easter; it was April - this is late summer/early fall in Australia - the weather was very nice, warm and sunny. If you go in June, you are heading into winter, but it depends on where you plan to go.
There are a few aussies here to give you some help. But you will have to tell us a little more of what you like e.g.
Cities
food
wineries
beaches
indigenous culture
The weather at Easter ranges from cold in Hobart, Tasmania to hot and sticky in Darwin and the northern tropics. Byron Bay Shire, where I live, hosts the Blues and Roots festival over Easter, and campers need to be prepared for heavy rains. More often than not it rains overe the festival.
Don't try to do too much or you could spend all your time travelling. Australia is comparable in size to the USA.
We drive on the same side as the UK, so that should not be a problem, and hire cars are generally automatic. The distances are large and we are used to them. Last Monday we drove 100 miles to Brisbane and came back in the afternoon. Just an ordinary trip for us, but our UK visitors often do not expect the distances.
John "There are two types of problems: those that solve themselves, and those which you can do nothing about" Isabel Allende's grandmother
Posts: 1582 | Location: Mullumbimby, NSW, Australia | Registered: 26 March 2003
John, We like all the listed activities(esp wine) so it is difficult to narrow it down....and my husband regularly drives to London and back in a day(100 miles each way) so driving long distances is not too much of an issue although he may not want to do too much of this on holiday!! so where should we base ourselves, for a week at a time( 3 weeks)in order to see the most of Australia.?and (as our name is Byron we need to see Byron Bay!!!!!!!!!)
Posts: 1222 | Location: UK | Registered: 12 June 2005
There are heaps of options, so I'll put forward just one & see what others come up with ...
Fly in to Brisbane, hire a car for a week & explore southern Qld & northern NSW (includes Byron Bay). I'm don't know this area well enough to say where the best "base" is, but others will advise!
Return car & fly south to Melbourne where you can hire another car. I'd spend a few days in & around Melbourne & then head to South Australia along the Great Ocean Road at a leisurely pace & on towards Adelaide via the Coonawarra (great reds!). There are several great wine districts within an hour or so of Adelaide & you can also head over to Kangaroo Island for a few nights or into the Flinders Ranges if you want to visit the "outback".
Fly home from Adelaide - well fed & relaxed!
Easter is a great time to visit - not too hot & (usually) not too cold or wet!
Have fun with the planning & keep asking questions - there're enough Aussies on the board to cover most regions!
Enjoy, Chris
Posts: 459 | Location: Adelaide, South Australia | Registered: 08 May 2005
Chris suggests a good trip. I would fly into the Gold Coast if possible, rather than Brisbane.
Brisbanites will hate me, but I think it's a great city to live in, but I wouldn't want to holiday there.
You should also consider whether you want to go home and have people say, "You went to Australia and you didn't see the Opera House or the Sydney Harbour Bridge!"
More to come later. ....
John "There are two types of problems: those that solve themselves, and those which you can do nothing about" Isabel Allende's grandmother
Posts: 1582 | Location: Mullumbimby, NSW, Australia | Registered: 26 March 2003
John has a point. I know we couldn't visit Australia without a visit to Sydney and a lot had to do with answering just that question. But I don't regret at all succumbing to the pressure. We really enjoyed Sydney.
Since you are coming from the UK, another option is to go through Singapore and visit Western Australia. Perth and SW Australia are easily accessible from Singapore. I really enjoyed the Margaret River area. It is a perfect area for spending time relaxing and exploring. Here is a nice write up from the New Zealand Cuisine Magazine. We stayed at Hilltop Studios which is a lovely private studio on a farm. It is centrally located and you can easily to access all the sites of the region. I have pictures on my website if you want to see more.
From Perth and WA, you could then fly to your next location. One option would be to go to Adelaide and Alice Springs to see Uluru. There is also great wine tasting around Adelaide in the Barossa Valley. From there you could then fly on to Sydney and spend your third week visiting Sydney, Hunter Valley and the Blue Mountains.
We went in the Spring so I don't know what the weather is in Autumn. If it is not too hot, another option would be to go from Perth to Sydney, spend a week and then fly north to Byron Bay and Qld.
So many options ... so little time. You'll just have to plan a second trip.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Marta,
Thanks lots of food for thought,as you say I think we would want to see Sydney,it is a long way to go and not see the Harbour Bridge or the Opera house.
Posts: 1222 | Location: UK | Registered: 12 June 2005
poet, I don't know a thing about this topic! I hope you don't mind but I thought I'd piggy-back and ask a question as we're planning a trip there - sometime. (hopefully sooner than later!)
Marta, What time of year did you go? We're still trying to figure out the best time (with the best air & room rates)
Posts: 383 | Location: Cisco, TX US | Registered: 24 December 2002
We went in late September to mid October. It was a little cool at times since it is early spring. The temperatures in Perth and Margaret River were 65-70. It was a little bit warmer at times when we went north. Kalbarri was nice and warm. We had a fluke heat wave in Sydney that I wasn't prepared for. It was in the 90's and that was too hot for me. It was just the 4 days we were there. It cooled off after and went back to upper 60's to mid 70's.
I think it was starting to warm up in Queensland but I think it was still okay. It was too cool for Tasmania.
September is a nice time since it is a little bit off season. There is a week school holiday and it was a little busy north. We had an easy time booking accomodations and got off season rates.
Airfare was shoulder season. It was 1200RT from Seattle to Sydney through Honolulu on Hawaiian. I can't remember what it was to fly from Sydney to Perth on Virgin Blue. It wasn't particularly cheap but it was the least expensive of the options.
Posts: 7486 | Location: Edmonds, WA | Registered: 25 October 2001
John, You are very clever and hopefully this will put some perspective for travellers on what to scale down when visiting Australia and not cram too much into a short stay.
When we travelled around Australia, it took us almost two years. That's really slow travelling. When we travelled through Italy it took us five weeks and we didn't see it all.
Elly
Posts: 1066 | Location: Western Australia | Registered: 27 March 2005
John,that does indeed give a great perspective of the scale of the"problem" of what to see, where to go,and the realisation that no matter how well you plan,you will never mre than scratch the surface in a short trip.
Thanks for this.
Posts: 1222 | Location: UK | Registered: 12 June 2005
We were in Australia in September - the first time we have visited the country. I loved it - a wonderful destination. I would highly recommend it.
While I did really enjoy the Opera house and Harbour bridge (You know you have overdone the digital pictures when your labelling gets to Opera house41), my personal highlight would be the Great Barrier reef or the rainforest.
We are already thinking of another trip, possibly in 5 years time to celebrate our 25th Anniversary.
I have a set of webpages where I wrote up most of the trip Here
The latter parts are a little disjointed, and I have not yet finished the Singapore segment.
TimW
Posts: 833 | Location: Hampshire, UK | Registered: 28 March 2005
timw, enjoyed your trip report and your pics so much. Loved the birds - well loved them all.
marta, did you happen to post a trip report of your visit?
What a huge country with so much to see. It's truly mind-boggling. I think we'll have 3 weeks, but will still have to focus in on a few places. Not like the holy trinity in Italy for the first visit - Rome, Florence and Venice!
I just need to read and read and get familiar with maps.
Posts: 383 | Location: Cisco, TX US | Registered: 24 December 2002
I also did reviews of several of the places we stayed and restaurants. Here is the Slow Travel section that includes Australia. It also has some great notes from Leslie on Sydney.
Posts: 7486 | Location: Edmonds, WA | Registered: 25 October 2001
Marta, (enjoying the blog) noticed you didn't comment on your airline arrangements? That's primary for us right now. How did you go? Would you change anything? Did you find a "bargain"?
Posts: 383 | Location: Cisco, TX US | Registered: 24 December 2002
Marta, I do realize that you went via Hon and stayed the night in Sydney and then on to Perth. I was wondering more *which* airlines you used? Also would it have been easier to have spent the night in Hon and did you consider that? (we're rather um - old - and with creaky backs and knees and that is a worry for such a long trip - thus all these ????)
Posts: 383 | Location: Cisco, TX US | Registered: 24 December 2002
We used Hawaiian Air as the airline. We didn't consider staying the night because there was only a 1:25 layover. Honolulu is small enough that it was easy to change planes, stretch our legs and even grab a snack before boarding. The flight was 5 hours from Sea-Hon and 10 hours from Hon-Syd. This was less than going through LA which was 3 hours Sea-LA, a 2-3 hour layover, and 13-14 hours LA to Syd. Also if we did the LA route we would have gone on directly to Perth since we would have landed early in the morning and could make the Perth connection. Yech!
I know that we saved at least $200 going via Honolulu because I factored in the cost of the airport as part of the transportation cost and it was still less expensive than Qantas or United. But I don't think it saved enough to cover the cost of a night in Honolulu. I will go back and check my records to see what exactly we paid at the time.
I liked the fact that we left in the morning and arrived in the early evening. The Honolulu flight leaves around 1pm and gets in Sydney around 7pm. We didn't have any jet lag. The LA flight gets in around 7am and you have to deal with trying to stay up for a full day which I find difficult.
Overall, the service is okay on Hawaiian Air. Coach isn't too cramped although I would recommend checking with Seat Guru's layout because we just happened to have one of the smaller leg room seats on the Sea-Hon flight but the Sydney flight had adequate legroom. It does feel a little like a budget carrier but not too bad.
On the ground, Hawaiian did a very good job of handling a crisis. We returned on the day that Hawaii had a major earthquake. We ended up being stuck in the airport for about 12 hours but they got us out as soon as flights were leaving and did not cancel our flight. Which says a lot considering some of the recent winter flight cancellations by Jet Blue and AA. Some people ended up being stuck for 2-3 days due to cancellations by some of the other carriers.
BTW, I just checked and Hawaiian no longer has an option to go from Seattle to Sydney on the same day any longer. They changed the time they leave Seattle from 8am to 9am so it is no longer possible to catch the Sydney flight the same day. I didn't check other US cities. But I did notice that the leg from Oahu to Sydney was pretty inexpensive during the week.
I hope this helps.
marta
Posts: 7486 | Location: Edmonds, WA | Registered: 25 October 2001
Topic Closed
so it is difficult to narrow it down....and my husband regularly drives to London and back in a day(100 miles each way) so driving long distances is not too much of an issue although he may not want to do too much of this on holiday!! so where should we base ourselves, for a week at a time( 3 weeks)in order to see the most of Australia.?and (as our name is Byron we need to see Byron Bay!!!!!!!!!)
