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[irishman66]

Hi All
I am heading to Oz with my new wife in october and will be taking a rented car from Brisbane and heading north to Cairns. We will have about 16 days to travel and quite frankly am a bit overwhelmed with all the options available. Can anyone sugeest mmust see items and perhaps a suggested tour or two.
Also whats accomodation like along the way something bit better than hostel but not mad expensive

Any help would be gratefully accepted


Thanks
Irishman

[starlagurl]

Hellooooooooo, have you perused through the blogs yet, Mr. Irishman?

Here are a couple good ones:
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entri...06940/tpod.html

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entri...02600/tpod.html

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entri...14720/tpod.html

[purplebuggy]

Hi All
I am heading to Oz with my new wife in october and will be taking a rented car from Brisbane and heading north to Cairns. We will have about 16 days to travel and quite frankly am a bit overwhelmed with all the options available. Can anyone sugeest mmust see items and perhaps a suggested tour or two.
Also whats accomodation like along the way something bit better than hostel but not mad expensive

Any help would be gratefully accepted


Thanks
Irishman

Hey Irishman,

I guess congrats to you and your new wife - is this your honeymoon?
What sort of things are you interested in? Wildlife/ adventure/ relaxation/ beaches/ etc?

*Off the top of my head I would say the first must see is the Great Barrier Reef. You've got heaps of options - sail it, scuba, snorkle... the list goes on. Just get out there and see the biggest living organism in the world. You can do this from many different places, Cairns is probably the biggest base for it but anywhere in the Whitsundays you should be good.
The Whitsundays have all sorts of little islands too that you can explore (national parks, inhabited, and not...)

*Magnetic Island is somewhere my friends have always enjoyed going (I've always missed out unfortunately...) You can do day trips from Townsville.

*Fraser Island. It's the world's biggest sand island and is also known for its dingos (Australia's only native dog). Ypu can visit through Hervey Bay and while you're here Hervey Bay is known for it's whale sightings too.

*If you like theme parks, the Gold Coast has Sea World (aquatic themed with many animals), Wet and Wild (water park, slides, etc) and WB Movie World (WB themed). Very touristy from what I hear but a theme park is supposed to be I guess

*There's plenty of opportunities for visiting rainforests, mountains and wildlife parks along the route you're travelling. You'll also pass a few 'big things' and as we Aussies are very proud of our 'big things' I'd head for those if you find one. (eg. Tully has the 'big gumboot' on the way to white water rafting and a swimming hole at Tully Gorge.)

Accomodation wise check out these sites and you might find something you're after -
http://www.lastminute.com.au/home.html
http://www.wotif.com/
http://www.expedia.com.au/

pb

[starlagurl]

Thanks pb for the personal recommendations!

[sianeth]

I can definitely second these recommendations!

Fraser Island and the Whitsundays are absolutely must sees. Magnetic Island is also absolutely beautiful and has lots of walks/wildlife there.

As for the Barrier Reef, the visibility was a bit poor around the Whitsundays area when I went, and I was told the best of the reef was up by Cairns, so I'd do a daytrip/live-aboard from Cairns if I was you - snorkelling and/or diving.

16 days is quite a lot of time, so I wouldn't rush anything - just chill and enjoy the awesome experience

[irishman66]

Hi All
thanks a million for all your replies, theres a lot of ideas here and will get back as soon as we go through the blogs suggested,The two of us are fairly active, like to see and do rather than lie on beach all day.

This is what we have planned so far
Hong Kong 1 day stopover

Sydney 6 days

Brisbane 2 days

2 weeks to go from brisbane to cairns

cairns to ayers rock for 2 days and then back via cairns to Darwin for 1 day

Darwin to singapore with 1.5 days singapore

We will be back with questions i am sure, as you can see we want to cover a lot of ground at start and end ,but in the middle i.e 2 weeks we want to take it easy and see things.

Thanks for all help , will be back in touch
Irishman

[purplebuggy]

cairns to ayers rock for 2 days and then back via cairns to Darwin for 1 day

I hope that isn't driving time!! Are you staying at Uluru for 2 days, then staying in Darwin for a day?

pb

[irishman66]

Hi
no not driving a good bit of flying, I have looked at blogs, very useful. We doing uluru, flin afternoon, that night there, fly out next day at 3pm -package tour .On to darwin and have whole day there before flying to singapore.

Can anyone tell me is there much to do between mckay and roockhampton, does not seem to be a lot on tour guides etc


Also whats the best place to do bunjee jump and skydiving along east coast
Thanks