Originally Posted by dmak
Thanks all for your assistance... the thoughts and ideas are invaluable...
The plan for those who are interested is pretty busy, but who knows when we will get back!
Arrive in Sydney and spend three days touring. Take two days to drive down to melbourne and hopefully see the "little penguins" along the way. spend two days touring in the melbourne area then fly virgin blue to hobart ($49 all in!). Two days in hobart (which from what I have heard from friends is as close as one can get to going to New Zealand without going there) fly virgin to adelaide (another $59 all in) and spend one day in adelaide and two getting sloshed in the Barossa Valley.
Fly to Cairns and then spend ten to twelve days slowly making our way back down the coast on the wrong side of the road. Maybe taking two or three days at a resort in the Whitsundays, visiting that little reef they have over there etc...
And then fly back to sydney for a day or two!
It is a lot to pack into three weeks but I would hate to go all that way and not get a flavour of a large part of the country.
New Zealand will have to wait for my reward mile trip!
D.
Wicked itinerary! My wife and lived in Brisbane (Bris Vegas) last year and on our two week holiday we did the opposite and drove up to Cairns over two weeks (flying back to Brizzie).
Drove to Fraser Island and did a day tour there. Stayed in a nice B&B in Airlie Beach (overlooking the Whitsundays;
http://www.whitsundaybb.com.au/). Hamilton Island is nice and most of the tour companies cater for 3 day sailing expeditions (did that 3 years ago; wow!).
If you get a chance to go to Cape Tribulation, try to stay at least 2 nights at the Coconut Beach Resort (
http://www.coconutbeach.com.au/). Stayed there as well 3 years ago and still an amazing place to see the oldest rainforest in the world (older than the Amazon).
When done working in Brizzie, we drove down to Melbourne/Great Ocean Road area while taking up Sydney and the Hunter Valley on the way (got a speeding ticket outside Surfer's Paradise also
). Canberra is OK.
You'll love Melbourne and the drive on the GOR (if you decide to see the 12 Apostles) is well worth it! Don't know if you'll see penguins on the route to MEL - thought they were notorious with other wildlife on Kangaroo Island?
The rest of which we did not do, but we hope to go back in the next year to finish some other aspects Australia. It is fantastic to read all of the other additions on this thread - brings back wonderful memories!
Australia is beautiful, but just wait till you see the south Island of NZ with your reward ticket ...