thanks so much for the guidance!

we have decided on Austrailia, and we are planning on two weeks instead of one. we would probably spend 3-5 days in each of 3 cities.

with that in mind (and based in part on what i have read here), we would like to visit:

sydney

cairns and/or port douglas

melbourne or brisbane or hobart as third city

any advice on choosing between the three?

i guess we would prefer someplace that we can include in an AA (Qantas) F award ticket from LAX, but since i don't have any idea how routings work, we might need to book flight(s) separately.