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Wife and I bought some error fare tickets (that are now confirmed) so it looks like we're going to Australia in August! Looking for just a little bit of advice: We are leaving from LAX and we arrive in Brisbane Sunday Aug. 7 at 7am. On Sunday Aug. 14 we fly from Brisbane to Syndey at 9pm, then leave Syndey --> LAX 12 hours later at 9am on Mon. Aug 15. That gives us about 7 days to see as much as we can. We'd like to see a couple major cities (obviously Brisbane and Sydney make sense with our flights) and the some outback if possible. Also the Great Barrier Reef. We're hiking/outdoorsy types. Any sort of itinerary recommendations?
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May 19, 2016 21:53
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 23:05 |
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Thank you all for the advice. Will definitely start looking into it and doing some planning. Also am going to cancel that stupid Brisbane --> Sydney leg... I don't imagine it will be a problem??
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May 20, 2016 21:59
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Thanks for the trip feedback a few weeks ago. Checking in with an updated itinerary... still trying to figure out what to do with a couple of ours days: Aug 7 we land in Brisbane and we plan to fly ASAP to Cairns to start our adventure. We'll be renting a car so we can do Cairns/Port Douglas stuff, and plan to spend several days here doing Daintree, Kurumba, Great Barrier Reef etc. Aug 7th-10th or 11th - Cairns/surrounding areas (Daintree, Kurumba, Great Barrier Reef, other nature recommendations? Should we do 3 or 4 days?) Aug 10th/11th-13th - Still searching for something to do with this 2 or 3 days. My wife really wants to check out the outback but we looked at flights into Ayres Rock and it will just be too expensive to add that onto our trip. Is there any way to get an "outback experience" closer to Cairns or without paying as much as a flight to Ayres Rock costs? We'll have a rental car if that helps. If we can't figure out a good outdoorsy/outback thing to do, is it worth going to Melbourne for a couple days? Really open to ideas here with this block of time. Aug 13th-15th - Sydney before flight home (early on the 15th). 1.5 - 2 days should be enough? Let me know what we're doing right/wrong Australia goons!
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Jun 27, 2016 21:26
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A couple of misc questions: 1- Renting a car. I know I should book this ahead of time (in Cairns, and also likely Sydney). Do I need to do any sort of licensing beyond my American Driver's License? Any companies to avoid? 2- Visa. Do I need to do anything other than show up at the airport as an American? Apply online first? 3- Cell phone. I have a Moto G (2015). Pretty sure it is a GSM phone. Can I pick up a sim card or something like that while we're there for the week in order to use google maps and such to get around without relying on wifi? 4- Cairns/GBR/Scuba. Any recommendations on which company to go with? We definitely want to scuba but we are not PADI certified or whatever it is. How early do we need to book? Thanks!
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Jul 7, 2016 16:50
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Thanks again for all the advice so far, this thread has been incredibly helpful in planning our first trip to Australia. Got our visas handled, booked our Brisbane <--> Cairns flights, looking for just a little bit more advice. When we get back to Brisbane we are entertaining a few ideas: 1) Stay in Brisbane area and rent a car for a day or two. See what the city has to offer and make a day trip or two to somewhere nearby. 2) Rent a car right away and immediately start a 2-3 day drive (with stops at interesting places [if they exist and are worth going to] to Sydney ($400ish to rent the car in Brisbane and drop it off in Sydney when we fly out, +fuel costs). 3) Fly to Sydney right away ($200 total for both of us) and screw Brisbane/everything in between. Either way we will be leaving ourselves with 2-4 days for Sydney/surrounding day trips. Thoughts?
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Jul 14, 2016 20:19
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Got back from our Australia trip yesterday, thanks everyone for all the advice and tips. This is what we ended up doing: Flew LAX --> Brisbane and immediately hopped on another plane to Cairns. Hung out in Cairns/Port Douglas area for 4 days doing Daintree National Park, diving the Great Barrier Reef, etc. Flew back to Brisbane and immediately rented a car and set off. Met up with a friend in Gold Coast, bought weed in Nimbin, stayed for a night in Byron Bay. Hung out in Byron the next morning before hitting the road again. Drove down the coast with a few hours rest stop in Port Macquarie, then continued on to Newcastle for the night. The next morning we drove into Sydney and spent the day wandering around the city. Next day we drove out to Blue Mountains National Park and saw the sights before heading back into the city for a final night of rest before the brutal flight back home. All things considered it ended up working out pretty well for the short amount of time we had. Also everyone we met was incredibly nice and helpful. Triple J radio was the best station we found for all the driving hours.
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Aug 16, 2016 18:57
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Yea 1 day for Daintree is ambitious. We started the morning in Cairns and drove to Daintree early. Saw most of what we wanted to see and did a hike, but was thankful to be spending that night in Port Douglas instead of making the drive all the way back to Cairns.
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Sep 7, 2016 22:06
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Someone recommended Optus to me when I was in the country and that's what I ended up going with. Had good enough coverage all over Cairns / Port Douglas, and then throughout our road trip from Brisbane --> Sydney. Can't give any details for anything south of there though.
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Oct 7, 2016 19:46
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Kommando posted:Basically yeah that's an enormous amount of Territory and best time is rather subjective if you aim to snorkel on the reef you should probably be doing it not in winter but Cairns is pretty warm year round. Went to Cairns/the reef in August (winter for Australia, right?) and it was still warm enough and fun.
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Apr 14, 2017 19:42
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Based on what you guys like to do, definitely spend a good chunk of time up north in the Cairns area. It's a great jumping off point for a lot of outdoorsy stuff. Get a rental car and drive up north to Port Douglas and check out Mossman Gorge and Daintree National Park (oldest rainforest in the world). My wife and I spent about 5 days up there and then flew back to Brisbane. From there we rented a car and drove down the coast to Sydney, spending one night in Byron Bay and another in Newcastle along the way. You can probably do it in just one night but we stopped along the way for exploring. When you're down in Sydney, again grab a rental car and drive west to Blue Mountains National Park. You can do most of Sydney in 2-3 days. khysanth fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jun 12, 2017 |
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Jun 5, 2017 19:53
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underage at the vape shop posted:If you are travelling, I'd recommend picking a city, renting a car, and exploring as much of the countrysode as you can. I've only been through queensland and nsw as an adult, and victoria growing up, but all the interesting stuff is spread out in Australia. Its definitely a country where you want to pick an area and explore. Our landmass is nearly the size of the usa with 1/15 the population and a teeny fraction of the history. I've only visited Australia once, but this advice rings true. Spent some time in Cairns and Port Douglas/Daintree National Park with a rental car and explored the surrounding areas. Then flew to Brisbane and rented another car for a road trip down to Sydney, exploring places along the way (mostly wilderness areas/national parks, but also little towns and random restaurants, etc). Was a really great trip.
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May 9, 2018 21:31
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queef anxiety posted:medical marijuana is in some states but its hard as poo poo to get from what I hear. Still, weeds everywhere you just can't smoke it in public. I drove through Nimbin and managed to score some decent weed from a shady group of people in a public park. Was good fun, and only slightly sketchy. Was enough for my wife and I for the rest of our vacation.
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Sep 12, 2018 20:30
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 23:05 |
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Loucks posted:I'll miss being able to get good coffee almost anywhere. This is what I miss the most as well
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Sep 23, 2019 19:33
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