Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific - 3rd trip to Oz. Going Nov 20-28. Already been to SYD,MEL,BRE,PER,ADL.

Flying into SYD on Nov 20. Looking to stay a week someplace nice. Already been to MEL, BRE, PER, SYD, Gold Coast, Adaleide, etc. Going with cousin Dave and it's our 3rd time to Oz.

We were thinking of going to Tasmania, Cairns, Ayres Rock, or Darwin. Cairns, Ayres Rock, & Darwin may be a bit warm. Tasmania may be a bit cool.

What about Fraser Island, Hamilton Island, Mission Beach, etc? Is there any place that is not overly touristed but very nice?

Thank you for any ideas you may have. :p

I like Mission Beach, but keep in mind there's not a lot to do there. You can take a water taxi over to Dunk Island and do some hiking around there, and enjoy the 14km beach, but a week would be too much for me. I think it's good for 2-3 full days of relaxing.

You'd certainly be close enough to Cairns to get back up there by bus (if you didn't want to rent a car). Cairns doesn't have any beach itself (just mudflats, with a mile or more walkway along it), but if you're going to the Reef there's all sorts of boats to take you out there. Plenty of small shops in Cairns. There's a nice Irish pub on the pier there with a small shopping mall and hotel.

If you wanted to head down to the Sunshine Coast you'd probably enjoy it there. You could combine big city (Brisbane), with some of the smaller surf towns up the coast (Noosa, Maroochydore, Mooloolaba). There's hiking trails in Noosa, an aquarium in Mooloolaba, and free bus service from Maroochydore to Steve Irwins (Crocodile Hunter) zoo, though I haven't done that.

With pretty reasonable fares on Virgin Blue, often matched by Qantas, you might consider hitting two different regions.

Have you ever done the Great Ocean Road between Adelaide and Melbourne? You could do that leisurely in 2-3 days, and get some winery touring in outside Adelaide in the Barossa Valley, or outside Melbourne in the Yarra Valley. If you get down here, look for the herdes of kangaroos sitting on the golf course at Anglesea.

I presume you meant BNE (Brisbane) not BRE (Bremen, Germany)!!

How about visiting NZ?

I presume you meant BNE (Brisbane) not BRE (Bremen, Germany)!!

How about visiting NZ?

I only have a limited amount of time on this trip. I visited NZ last October. I loved traveling in the North Island. Next time, I'll go see the South Island. :)

Tom911, I'd be interested in hearing any comparisons you can make about staying in Noosa vs. Mooloolaba or Maroochydore... We are looking to stay four weeks & I'm thinking that Noosa may be a little too rural for a four week stay, but I don't want to stay in the other two towns if they are just overbuilt tourist areas....

Any suggestions or firsthand experience would be greatly appreciated!

I think all of those cater to tourists, but probably Noosa and Mooloolaba more because of the easy beach access. Maroochydore has a nice shopping mall with a multi-screen cinema, but it's still small town Australia. There's a free bus from the RSL out to Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo (saw that when I was over last year). I actually walked one day from Maroochydore over to Mooloolaba on city streets (and came back by bus). There's a long stretch of beach before getting into Mooloolaba.

I'd say tourists were much more visible in Mooloolaba because of their instant access to the beach there, and certainly all lined up visiting shops along the beach. There's also an aquarium there.

I've gone between all of these using local transit, and it's always worked out fine. I've always liked Noosa because you have the hiking trails there and you're not just left with the beach. As you head out of town, you'll see caravan parks and lots of holiday accomodations, and some nice restaurants with water views.

This last time I stayed in Maroochydore because I flew into the airport there and it was the most convenient. I had stayed both in Maroochydore and Noosa before.

I think I'd go crazy doing 4 weeks up in this area, though, no matter where you stay.

Here (http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tom911@pacbell.net/album?.dir=a856&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tom911@pacbell.net/my_photos) are the photos from the Sunshine Coast I took last visit. Not too many "city" pictures, though, as much as beach and trail.
89-93 Maroochydore, near where I stayed (no city photos)
94-130 beach heading into Mooloolaba (walked in from Maroochydore)
132-158 Noosa, mostly trails
160-165 Mooloolaba (photos from bus as I was heading to Brisbane)

We are flying from SYD to PPP (Proserpine). Flying on Virgin Blue on a $99 each way special. (in Australian Dollars). Booked 7 nights at the YHA Airlie Beach hostel.

We will decide when we get there what boats/packages we will take. We may rent a car for a few days & drive up to Townsville, etc.

We went up to Noosa & the sunshine beach two years ago when we were last in Australia.

I did a one day island trip from Airlie Beach (might have been Daydream Island) with the intent of hiking there, but we had monsoonal rail which hept me at one of the hotels most of the day (outdoors, in a covered area). You'll find the main street there full of backpackers partying, as the pubs all open up to the sidewalk. Of course, there's happy hours and meal deals, making it quite inexpensive.

If you're going as far as Townsville, I liked Magnetic Island. The hostel I stayed at was surrounded by lorikeets.
http://www.geocities.com/tom911/magnetic.html
(Disregard the one photo of Darling Harbour in SYD that somehow got on that page.)