Ideas for a 3 week itinerary for Australia in March/April ish?

Question

I know this is a vague question but I really don't know where to begin planning this one! There are 2 of us, and we have 3 weeks. We hope to have in the region of £6000, this is to include our flights. We want to stay in b&bs or hotels, cheap but not hostels. We want to take in Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru, and possibly the Great Ocean Road. We'd like to do some adventurous stuff too, like skydiving and rafting, quad biking etc. Basically the absolute most we can with the time and money we have. We don't want to waste a minute as this is taking all our savings (its going to be March 09, not 08, so we can save!) and 2 loans and is a once in a lifetime trip! Any help/advice/ideas at all would be appreciated. Things like internal flights etc all seem a bit baffling, and although I've read the travel guides I'm more confused than before I knew a thing!!!

Answer 1

the great barrier reef is a good start it has the largest population of great white sharks in the world some people go in shark cages in the water but for the real adventurous do it without a cage and if you want the full experience don't forget to wear your lucky ham hock just kidding I would like to go myself sometime, say why don't you dump your husband and take me instead lol I'm sure you'll have a great time what ever you do have fun :)

Answer 2

Why not do
Melbourne 4 nights and drive to Sydney using great ocean Road. Get an Australian to give you a good route!
Sydney 4 nights (do the bridge climb, visit blue mountains, bondi beach and Manley beach, use the ferries, do a harbour lunch cruise.
Uluru 3 nights (do the sounds of silence dinner which is amazing dining under the stars!, also do the uluru base walk and breakfast in which you see the sun rise, then on your last day do the valley of the winds walk aroubnd the Olgas with sunset BBQ...stunning!
Alice Springs- Kings Canyon trip (2 - 3 nights)
Cairns- do 4 nights and stay in Port Douglas as most trips leave from there. Be sure to do an outer reef day cruise in which you can snorkle and go in the glass bottomed boat.
Then you could consider a 2-3 night stop in either Brisbane or maybe hamilton island?
Hope you have a fantastic trip.
Myself and my family saved hard and went in 2005 and loved it. Australia is a fabulous contry with great people.
Some useful travel companies you may want to look up are:
travelbag
Austravel
Qantas holidays
freedom Australia
Travelmood
We booked with Qantas holidays via Thomas cook. Flew qantas. supurb airline. No lost luggage and no late arrivals or departures.

Answer 3

Lucky you!!! I have been to Oz twice now and absolutely loved it. I would recommend you look at a company called Mercury Direct. They offer very reasonable prices for holidays and often give a 3rd week free. We travelled for two weeks, stayed in the Phoenician in Broadbeach (Surfers Paradise) and had a 2 night stay in Singapore for around £1500 each.

Firstly I would choose your flights wisely. JAL (Japanese) will probably be the cheapest but their planes are cramped and you will have a 6 hour stopover in Osaka Airport and there is absolutely nothing there. Quantas were fantastic and had a 2 hour stopover in Singapore which was fantastic.

I would recommend you go straight to Oz and have a couple of days stopover on your way home. It breaks up the flight and you have something to look forward to after you leave Oz and not a horrifically long flight.

Sydney was great but I wouldn't spend a long time there, it's like a smaller, cleaner London with a great vibe, but four days there is too long if you only have 3 weeks. We never visited Uluru and that is a big regret, and if you do, try and arrange a hot air balloon over it at dawn. There are some great eco lodges around that area.

The Great Barrier Reef is absolutely amazing, we visited Lady Elliot Island and I snorkelled with a giant turtle - one massive highlight of my life. There sealife there is amazing.

I loved the Gold Coast, but staying in Surfers was a little too 'busy'. We stayed in Broadbeach which was quieter and more upmarket. We also took a trip into the mountains which were absolutely stunning. The beaches along the Gold Coast are amazing, they have great surf and miles and miles and miles of golden sand and the beaches are relatively empty. That time of the year is perfect weather too.

You also must visit Australia Zoo, it's an eye opener and just the work that they carry out there is brilliant.

Driving out there is fine, the roads are great and not filled with traffic but they do not like speeders and the police are pretty hot on that.

Oz is a lot cheaper than the UK and your money will go a long way.

I would also recommend Frazer Island, you can go 4 wheel jeep driving and do loads of sporty stuff. I have loads of photo's of our last visit, if you want me to send you the link to see them please email me.

:-)

Answer 4

I would start in Sydney, Australia's biggest and oldest city. It is stunningly beautiful. There is plenty to do and if you want to go to a zoo, Taronga Park is one of the two top zoos in the country. The other is Melbourne zoo. (The Australia Zoo is an expensive tourist trap). There is a web site, What's on in Sydney at
http://www.whatsoninsydney.com.au
that would be worth looking through to see just how much is on offer.

Take the day train to Melbourne via Canberra. Spend a day or two in the national capital. It is close to the Snowy Mountains and there is a great deal in the way of adventure holidays up there even out of the snow season -which you will be. Melbourne is a lovely city, very different from Sydney. Don't miss the penguin parade at Philip Island.

From Melbourne fly to Alice Springs and spend a few days exploring the magnificent scenery around Alice and go to Uluru. There are regular tours to all the favourite spots at a variety of prices.

Fly up to Darwin. It is the start of the dry season and there is much to see. Hire a car and explore or take a guided tour.

Fly to Cairns for the Barrier Reef, Daintree rainforest and Atherton Tablelands.

Fit in other delights if you can. Northeast NSW has marvellous unspoilt beaches and magnificent national parks. It is like the Gold Coast before the developers moved in. Western Australia has magical areas in the southwest and the northwest. South Australia is worth a few days as is Tasmania. There is so much to do and see.

You will find activities such as skydiving, hang gliding, hot air ballooning, snorkelling, scuba diving, rock climbing, etc etc everywhere. Just ask in any tourist information office. In season there is whale watching - humpback whales off the NSW, Qld and WA coasts; southern right whales in the Great Australian Bight; sperm whales around Tasmania and blue whales off the south coast of South Australia.

I would recommend you read Bill Bryson's book "Down Under". Bryson is an American writer who is very fond of Australia and you will get many ideas from his account.

Answer 5

Australia is a big country. You really can't see everything in 3 weeks.
I would suggest you book yourself on a bus tour if you want to go up to Central Australia. Anywhere else you can drive around yourself, providing you have an international licence of course! If I were you, I'd do a bus trip from Melbourne or Adelaide to Central Australia, it's unlike anything you have at home. No B&B's out there, but the tents are fine :) You're there for the scenery not the sleeping arrangements. Or hire a car and road trip down the east coast. I'd skip on the adventurous stuff since you can do that at home too. Going overland to anywhere is not going to give you a jam packed tourist place holiday, but you will see far more than if you fly around. To give you an idea, Brisbane to Melbourne in the car is about 3 days, if you don't stop more then necessary. I don't know about Central Australian tour companies, but if you plan things carefully, you might be able to drive down from Brisbane (go see the Barrier Reef first,) down to Melbourne (a much nicer city than Sydney), along Great Ocean Road and to Adelaide, then take a tour up to Alice Springs and fly back to one of the major cities for a flight home. If you can wrangle that, that's what you should do. Hiring a campervan is a possibility, that would be cheaper than staying in motels. To enjoy a trip like the one I'm suggesting, you have to ban from your mind that staring out of the car window is "doing/seeing nothing." Road tripping is a popular Australian style holiday :) Retirees hire campervans and go around the country, young people who can't afford to do that just get in their car and go as far as their money and time off work allow. In fact, my brother and I plonked my daughter in her car seat last Sunday and went road tripping for the day!
If you'd like any more info, email and I'll do my best to help. I've travelled around a bit, not up to Queensland though, so I can't help with the Barrier Reef or the Islands. I'm from Victoria.

Answer 6

Go to jetstar Qantas and virgin blue web sites. there's many flights a day to all parts of australia you usually pay more with qantas. also wotif.com is a great site for bargain accomadation. they have some super last minute deals.once you get to uluru [ayers rock] you can do a helicopter ride same over the Barrier Reef but many boats go out to the reef for snorkling diving or just viewing from a glass bottom boat. The whitsundays is beautiful you would fly to Proserpine then have a choice of many island boat trips or fly to Hamilton Island, Daydream island just to mention 2 of them. Take a look at whitsundays on the computer.

Answer 7

I went to Australia for 3 weeks in February and i arrived in Melbourne for 4 days, flew to Uluru, drove to Kings Canyon then drove to Alice Springs. From there flew to Cairns for a week (skydiving, barrier reef etc), flew to Brisbane for a couple of days, then to Sydney for the remainder. Enjoyed every bit of it.

Answer 8

Affectionately named "Marvellous Melbourne" throughout the silver dash of the 1850s, the title continues to be used nowadays for Australia's 2nd largest city Melbourne, a town that you could visited with hotelbye . Located on the banks of the Yarra River, nearby the entrance to Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne is a modern area steeped in history. With large wealth created from the nearby goldfields, beautiful buildings were constructed through the city. Several houses still stand today, and Melbourne is considered as having more samples of Victorian architecture than any other town in Australia. One place you cannot miss in your visit to Melbourne may be the Southbank and Arts Centre Melbourne. Located on the banks of the Yarra River that area is a culturally rich interest for visitors. Southbank promenade is filled with indoor/outdoor cafés, restaurants, and live entertainment. Easily familiar by its spire, the Arts Centre includes a variety of theaters and rooms including the State Theatre, Playhouse, Fairfax Theatre, and Hamer Hall, the premier efficiency space for the recognized Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Answer 9

The trip from Perth to Cairns by road will take you a couple of weeks by itself. Australia is huge. The only way to get around in the time available is to fly and that will make quite a dent in your budget. It is a pity Perth is definite, it is so far from anywhere else. To put things into perspective, Perth to Sydney is the same distance as London to Baghdad. Sydney to Cairns is similar to London to Moscow.