...Australia?

ButtermilkJack

Heading to Oz in February. Anyone got any suggestions for the following...

Sydney
Melbourne
Brisbane
Cairns

Anything at all... what did you do that you would love to do again?

BrianD

How long you going for and how do you plan to travel around?

Sydney/Melbourne - Sydney is the place to visit but Melbourne is the place to live. Food is great in Melbourne.

Sydney - city sights, opera house, take the ferry to Manley returning at sunset, harbour bridge walk, coast walk, northern beaches, visit Blue Mountains, hunter valley, nightlife ...

Melbourne - city sights, Crown casino, great ocean road, the grampians, Philip Island, yarra valley, mortnington penisula, murray river. Common wealth games are on this yearas well.

Brisbane - Didn't really fancy it at all. AVoid Surfers Paradise or whatever you call it.

Cairns - Reef trips, diving etc. Worth while going north up to Port Douglas and then onto Daintree (where rainforest meets the reef).

ButtermilkJack

Cheers Brian, only going for 3 weeks so looking to pack in as much as possible!

Only gonna be in Melbourne for 2 days and Brisbane for 1 so if we could catch a day trip or something that would give us a good impression of the city and then head out for the night that would do us fine. Casino sounds the business!!

We've got about 7 days in Cairns (and surrounds), about 5-6 days travelling down from Cairns to Brisbane (Whit Sundays etc) and about 5 in Sydney!

Gonna be in Sydney for Paddy's Day. Anyone ever been there for that. What kinda stuff do they do for the day?

The Bollox

go to Wolf Creek, but watch out for any suspicious looking jeeps following you...

techguy

why look out for the jeeps.?

The Bollox

watch Wolf Creek and you'll find out...

daiixi

There's a pub called Scruffy Murphy's on George Street in Sydney.. they probably do something for Paddy's .. umm

Don't forget Darling Harbour and the Northern Beaches are gorgeous (they film Summer Bay along the Northern Beaches - Collaroy Beach is where they film all the "boat shed" scenes). There's the Botanical Gardens, numerous museums and art galleries. Stroll along Pitt Street Mall & do a bit of shopping. Check out the rather small but occasionally interesting Kings Cross.
Taronga Zoo is awesome.
Definitely head out to the Blue Mountains and the Hunter Valley. Up and down the coast is great as well.

ButtermilkJack

Fantastic. Sounds like we'll have plenty to keep us going for the trip. Excellent. Cheers!

daveg

I'm just back from Oz. Been up all night with jetlag... anyway.

Cairns:
Great Barrier reef obviously. If you dive book a livaboard as the good stuff is way off the coast. If you don't dive get some snorkeling in. Cairns itself is nice. We stayed in the Lakes. Superb place. Would recommend skyrail tour which was excellent. Also trips to green Island.

Sydney:
What a superb city. Spent 4 days here. Would recommend the hop on hop off bus tour. Obviously the Sydney bridge and the opera house. If you don't have a fear of heights try the Sydney bridge climb. Also the water taxis were cool. Blue mountains are a must (although the day we went there was heavy misty rain. Couldn't see 10 feet in front of our face. Missed the 3 sisters. What a waste). Taranga Zoo, imo, is overrated. The aquarium was good. And a visit to the fish market is worth while. Sydney is very cool. Dinner in the rocks area is a must. We went to a restaurant where you cook your own meat on the barbie. Great place. Unfortunatly we didn't get out to Manley which is supposed to be really nice.

Melbourne:
Good for shopping but we weren't overly impressed with Melbourne. Much more laid back than Sydney. Not as many "sights" to see. However we drove the great ocean drive. It was magnificent. We stopped at some beaches on the way. Most amazing I've ever seen (and we also stopped in Hawaii and LA). Some great surfing spots as well.

Hope this helps.

SexeeAussie

Sydney
Melbourne
Brisbane
Cairns

Ok, I agree with most of what other people have said.

When you are in Cairns, take a day trip up to the Daintree.....Totally beautiful scenery. I also agree that a trip over to Green Island is great. Also west of Cairns is the Atherton Tablelands, well worth a look. Millaa Millaa Falls is pretty http://www.millaa.com/millaafalls.htm

A trip on to Kuranda on the train is cool. If you are into extreme sports etc you can bungy jump up there. Also recommend the Tjapukai Aboriginal Theatre..... http://www.kuranda.au.com/Kuranda_tours/tjapukai/Tjapukai-Kuranda-Rail-Skyrail-Kuranda-BIG3.htm

Brisbane is a pretty city, I like it a lot. I would recommend (as you only have a little while there) http://www.conrad.com.au/treasury/default.htm

You will def have to go down here http://www.south-bank.net.au/

If you had time, and the inclination, south of Brisbane on the Gold Coast there is Dreamworld, Sea World and Movie World theme parks.

http://www.reflections.com.au/GoldCoast/ThemeParksAndAttractions/

As for Sydney and Melbourne, well there are STACKS of things to do there.

Personally I like Sydney better than Melbourne, but they both have their own charm!!!

Have a great time

:-)

*Edited to add, Sydney on St Pat's day is fun. You will no doubt be able to find a ****e load of Irish pubs esp in and around Bondi and the city that will be celebrating madly. You will find everyone wearing horrid green outfits and speaking in REALLY bead Irish accents saying "To be sure, to be sure"...LOL

And you say you are travelling from Cairns to Brisbane by road. Stop in at Airlie Beach (gateway to the Whitsunday's).......go over to Whitehaven Beach.....the whitest sand in the world!!!!!

Funkstard

I got back from 3 weeks in Sydney, Melbourne & Cairns a few weeks ago.

Melbourne: We spent about a week there in St.Kilda, the young peoples area cum seaside resort of Melbourne. Full of little weird shops, gorgeous restaurants and bars with great atmosphere. My sister has been living there for about 6 months. I cycled the Melbourne F1 track which is just down the road, and the set for Ramsay Street is close if you're that way inclined!

In Melbourne we went on a wine trip to the Yarra Valley, good if you're into wines obviously. The city is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to; it's obviously getting money pumped into it judging by the sheer amount of new buildings going up. Everywhere is clean, sunny, brand new and beautiful. As earlier said, the commonwealth games are on there this year too.

Cairns: We spent a week in Port Douglas which is an hour or so north of Cairns. It was a small enough place which seemed quite exclusive and wealthy. Amazing restaurants there too (that pretty much goes for anywhere I went tbh). At this time of year it is quiet enough, my brother stayed there for 3 months during our summer and couldn't believe the difference. However, there are backpacker resorts which still have people staying there.

I really liked Port Douglas because of the ability to just chill out there. When I flew into Cairns it felt like I was flying into the set of Jurassic Park, I never nuch such tropical places existed in Oz. From Port Douglas we went out to the great barrier reef (obviously something you have to do), and up to Daintree Forest for a day which was absolutely amazing. I would definitely, definitely recommend that.

Also, we went to a place called 'Breakfast with the birds' in Port Douglas. It's this wildlife sanctuary, and when eating there are apparantly oblivious-to-humans birds flying around your head, landing on your table, drinking your orange juice and robbing your food. Hilarious stuff, and a great way to see some of the unique wildlife in Oz. You can walk around and feed kangaroos, ducks, there are huge varieties of birds, casowaries (sp?), emus, hold a python, see koala bears and such. If you're up near Port Douglas I would definitely recommend it.

Sydney: Then we flew down to Sydney for 5 days. Needless to say it's a brilliant city with too much things to do to list here. We saw the opera house, went on a cruise around the harbours, got the boat over to Manly (The Australian OC), walked around the city and saw Darling Harbour etc, took the monorail around.

At night you have to go to Darling Harbour to eat. There's one area of it with loads of restaurants, and the one we were was full of, I mean FULL of the hottest Australian girls I'd seen (and that's quite an achievement considering the standard of Oz girls). I sat there with my mouth open for two hours with my brothers in awe. I don't know what it is, but that area is really trendy for some reason. So hot!

Then, just to see it, get over to Kings Cross for a while at night. It's basically crack whore, strip club, prostitute, dodgy bouncer, stripclub, stripclub, stripclub, prostitute. I didn't find it dangerous at all, just hilarious to see the red light district of Sydney!

We went out a bit in Sydney but I can't really remember the names of places, I was just kind of brought there. We went to a place in Oxford street or somewhere called the.........no, it's gone. Great nightlife in Sydney though.

This is how I pretty much summed up the places I was:

Melbourne: Beautiful
Cairns: Chilled Out
Sydney: A proper 'city'

Sheera

My number one recommendation for Sydney would be Taronga zoo... can't go to Australia and not see koala bears and kangaroos

Sheera

Oh also check out the Opera Bar - its an outdoor bar at the harbour, just walk towards the opera house & you'll see it... great craic & a stunning location

www.operabar.com.au

Funkstard

I was at the Opera Bar too. A bit down the wharf there's an Ice Bar too. Except you have to book in advance, and are only allowed one drink in there

d-arke

Melbourne F1 Grand Prix, not sure when it is, I think its around Feb/March