Australia's East Coast

Our missionI’m guessing that most people opt for the tour operator package that generally gives you the time and opportunity to visit the main tourist sites, but what if you want a little more out of your holiday or you are staying there for a little more time, after all Australia is a big place. Booking flights and accommodation these days is easy, even if you are a novice on the computer, easily accessible web sites can guide you through the processes. So we planned our holiday. I am lucky enough to earn long summer holidays, so to utilise these holidays we planned on a six-week break to make the most of the long flights each way on a plane. I am also fortunate enough to have a brother that emigrated to Sydney over twenty years ago (story in sentinel July/ August 1997) so this is where the holiday began. A little research prior to the flights had given us an idea on what we would like to do. We decided that the east coast had the most appeal to us with the token trip to Ayers Rock. The main places were Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef, the Whitsunday Islands, Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and a multitude of zoos and beaches on route. We booked economy flights form London Heathrow flying to Bahrain, Singapore and finally to Sydney. These flights were one of the shortest routes and costing around £750 each were a good deal for the summer holiday time and we had arranged to be picked up from the airport by my brother and to stay the first few days at his house to acclimatise to the time difference.

No you would be forgiven for thinking, Australia? Rain? But believe it or not we left England in middle of the summer, sizzling at around 30 degrees and touched down in the middle of winter in Sydney in the pouring rain. Not dampening our spirits we took inspiration from the view, donned our jump suits and climbed the Sydney harbour bridge. This activity we had actually booked in England so the date was fixed and so up in the rain it was, but who cares! How many times have you seen one of the most iconic bridges in the world, especially on new years eve and though “I wish I could be there” and we were. The Bridge climb as it is known was £88 for adults and £75 for children midweek at the time and yes you do need a head for heights as the climb takes you 415 feet above the harbour water to the centre of the bridge and and back, you also cross over eight lanes of traffic. We stayed in Sydney (again at my brothers) for a further couple of days and took in some of the sites, and generally got used to the time difference, which to be fair, after the long flight was pretty easy to get accustomed to (we slept for a day). Then we looked forward to our mini adventure around Australia

You may be aware that Australia is a big place, but if I said you could hide the whole of Europe and still have room to spare, it might give you a better idea of just how big. Driving everywhere is out of the question, but fortunately internal flights are easy to book, cheap and frequent enough to be very convenient. We chose to fly to Cairns via Yulara, with a couple of days at the red centre to appreciate the Uluru-Kata Tjuta national park and largest single monolith on earth, Ayers Rock.

Ayers rock resort or Yulara is built on a large circular layout around 20 kilometres form the actual rock and ten minutes from the airstrip. It mainly consists of a selection of expensive hotels, a couple of campsites, one garage and a few bars. The rooms are expensive and need to be booked in advance, so as we had not done this we hired a car at the airport (£60 a day with no insurance for running kangaroos down!) and had a small tent to hand. The campsite cost around £15 pppn. Uluru National park costs around £14 for a three-day ticket with children getting in free of charge. This cost also covers the Kata Tjuta park which is better known as the Olga’s. We visited the Rock and the approach was nothing short of inspiring, all the images you have of how big this place is are dwarfed by the actual size. We wanted to climb to the top, now depending on your point of view this is either a good thing or bad thing. Local people or Aborigines ask that you respect their heritage and folk law by not doing so, but as long as the walk is open you are free to make your own mind up. People have also died attempting what is actually a very strenuous activity, but on the first day the climb was closed so this was academic anyway. We walked all the way round (10 kilometres) a good three hours walk instead and took in the wave cave and several areas of Aboriginal cave drawings . The following day we again visited the rock to find that the summit climb was closed so instead of sulking seized the opportunity to visit the olgas, another long walk in the hot desert sun about an hours drive way.

The Olgas differ from Uluru as they were formed into lots of gravely pieces, Uluru is on large lump. The rest of the day was spent on the rock run, a short helicopter ride from Ayers Rock airstrip to Uluru and back, WOW great views and even more of a reason to get to the top (The rock run cost from £85 per person). the evening was made up with a few beers, and a Kangaroo steak in one of the hotel bars and an hour lying looking at the stars, the most incredible night sky I have ever seen! On the morning of the flight to Cairns we decided to check out the summit climb and to our disbelief it was opened around two hours before our flight was due to take off. Not to be put off by the lack of time as the normal summit clime takes around three hours for a fit adult we set off running up the 65-degree footpath to the summit. We managed the summit and back with a brief but satisfying break at top to take in the view in a staggering 55 mins. We then sped to the airport and were on the plane with only seconds to spare. (don’t try this at home and take plenty of water!) We had decided that our adventure must start with a holiday so we had pre booked two weeks in an apartment in trinity beach, a resort complex 20 minutes drive north of Cairns, this would allow us the pleasure of hitting the beach, sightseeing the local attractions and having a base near the Great Barrier Reef.

The accommodation was a two bedroom self catering apartment at Castaways, 2 minutes from the beach, with usual amenities and a salt water pool, this cost around £950 and again was pre-booked using booking.com from England. The beach was great and even in the winter the temperature reached a healthy 28 degrees. From this base we explored the Daintree river and rainforest where a cruise on the river train (the ecologically friendly option) you get to meet the prehistoric creatures that make this part of Australia so dangerous, crocodiles. The river cruise costs around £15 pp Adult, £7.50 for a child or £38 for a family ticket, but is well worth it, for the interesting commentary on the 90-minute ride. The rainforest is apparently the oldest and most diverse in the world, but in reality unless you are David Bellamy it’s a lot of trees with some great views out to sea

The drive up to the Daintree takes around two hours if you take in the beautiful scenery and beaches, on the way up, the trip also allows you to drop into Port Douglas for dinner if you like. The town is nice in a quant sort of way, but don’t go out of your way to spend any length of time there. We also visited more local attractions to Cairns, we visited Hartleys crocodile park, an extremely good morning out visiting a mini zoo of Australian indigenous wildlife and crocodile farm (adults around £20, children £10 or a family ticket £48) with a few great shows and boat ride in the crock infested lake including crocodile feeding.

And what trip to the north of Australia would be complete without a trip out to the great barrier reef, as a PADI dive instructor I considered this a must and booked a livaboard trip for three days leaving the family behind sunning themselves on the beach. The three day, all-inclusive trip including all equipment and eleven dives booked locally through ProDive Cairns cost around £420. The food is great, the company is great, but the Australian attitude to one of the greatest natural wonders of the world is a little slack to say the least. Divers are briefed about dive sites but are essentially allowed to roam on their own. Inexperienced divers were seen to be damaging the reef system and this takes so long to recover they need to act now to protect their assets (take a tip from the Egyptians, check divers with local dives, only allow guided dives and vary sites to protect and allow to recover). There was a reasonable amount of life, coral growth was abundant, but so was the damage and there were the token white tip reef sharks and turtles seen on most dives. The only thing I will add is that any experienced diver that is going over to diver the Great Barrier Reef keep your expectations low and you will avoid disappointment.

Whilst staying at Trinity beach other attractions included hiring a small car (£25 a day) and touring the Atherton Tablelands, these are a high plateau inland and over the rainforest scattered with small farming communities, a good couple of days out if you fancy a bit of platypus spotting (be realistic with expectations, you will be vary lucky although they are there to be seen), waterfalls as there are many along with the famous cathedral fig tree and the Undara lava tubes. Much of this area had been damaged by a cyclone when we were there so activities available were reduced and some places closed, most should now have re-opened. We also had a half day out horse riding through the rain forest, a great activity for the horsy types although a little expensive at £45 adults and £32 children. The main town of Cairns is also worth a day or two, cairns serves as the main point to island hop the Barrier reef as all day boats to the island leave from here, we opted not to take a day boat as they seemed busy and a little pricey. Cairns the town has all the local amenities and an abundance of outlets (if not to many) to sell you trips to explore other parts of Australia. It has a great harbour area, its own China town and a great free open-air public pool overlooking the sea. Accommodation ranges from travellers hostels to quality hotels and the full range in between.

Cairns to Brisbane was an interesting trek, through my wisdom I decided that it would be a great shame to miss all the places in-between so decided to hire a motor home, a normal everyday activity in Australia. The thought of the open road, beaches, small towns, national parks and freedom really appealed. We booked a six berth Mercedes luxury motor home through Apollo locally for ten days to complete the 1200 mile trip, but at the time motor homes were at a premium so cost a whopping £150 a
day. We had a target of around 120 miles a day with sight seeing and tours en-route. Fortunately Australia is well equipped for touring, almost every few miles there is either a camping ground with electric hook-ups and all the amenities (prices range from £30 to £80 pvpn) or free stopover areas provided by the local councils with the basics like toilets and water. The motor home was easy to drive and all went well, we travelled down the main coastal highway (the No1) which is really our equivalent of an A road with a speed limit of 110kph (68mph). We stopped off at lots of small towns and may beautiful beaches on the way down some more worthy of a mention that others: Mission beach is a nine mile stretch of unspoiled beauty sandwiched between two world heritage areas, the Great Barrier reef and the wet tropics rainforest area, a relaxed town with the minimum in the way of shops and bars is a great place to relax; Tully, the wettest place in Australia and yes it was raining, but a good place to get a photograph against the golden gum boot, a large monument raised to the height of one years rain fall, the Australian record set in 1950 at 7.9 meters; Ingham a small town with local carnivals; Townsville, a lovely colonial style town with a great harbour and beach area perfect for the kids; Mackay and Rockhampton, both larger towns spread across a wider area but both worth a visit and the Glass House Mountains National Park, craggy volcanic peaks that tower above the eucalypt trees and grassy fields ideas for walking or climbing for the more adventurous

Places worth a special mention were the Whitsunday islands, take a day cruise out to Whitehaven beach with Whitehaven Xpress tours and you get a fabulous experience of one of the most unspoilt beaches in the world (and voted by BBC viewers the No1 beach to go to before you die). Costing £100 adults and £50 for children you get a cruise around the islands, with stops for snorkelling and sightseeing, a guided tour to a viewpoint to see the Hill inlet (wow) and you get several hours to sun bathe or swim on Whitehaven beach, dinner served from the barbequed catch of the day, literally and the chance to see whales and dolphins on route. This is a must for anyone passing through this way, cruises leave Airlie beach daily

Hervey bay whale watching, where you sail along the coast of the world heritage Fraser Island National Park and are guaranteed to see migrating humpback whales in season (July to November). We chose to use the Quick Cat 2, a large catamaran well equipped to take a large number of eager whale spotters, it also had good facilities for the disabled passenger. Costing £65 adults and £43 children for a half day cruise we were spoiled by some great displays of large humpback whales breaching, head slapping, rolling and waving their fins and were even privileged enough to encounter at close quarters the whales circling the boat, approaching with their heads out of the water and actually having a look at us, known locally as a “whale mugging”.

And Australia zoo, the place many people say is only famous due to the efforts of one man, Steve Irwin Crocodile Hunter. The zoo is a great place to experience the indigenous wildlife at close range, it has a limited number of animals from outside Australia but does put on a great crocodile, tiger, elephant and giant land turtle feeding shows. The man himself was not at home, we were lead to believe that he had travelled north that morning to film a new documentary, sadly his last (RIP Steve Irwin). The zoo had planned a large expansion programme for 2007 so whether this will continue is anyone’s guess, but with admission prices at £19 adults and £12 children it’s a good day out and well worth a visit.

So we finally arrived at Brisbane, Australia’s third largest city, built on the side of a river by the same name and a city dominated by the Story bridge. City life is close to the river, waterfront markets run several days per week, man made beaches surround a beautiful bathing and shopping area, water taxies and ferries transfer people to and fro until late at night and Brisbane has its own botanical gardens. City centre shopping holds the usual expectations and there is a fair share of restaurants, bars and fast food outlets, but Brisbane is very much a business city. Brisbane is also the northern gateway to the gold cost.

We swapped the motor home for a small hire car (£40 a day for east coast car rentals) and drove to Surfers Paradise, a beach resort famous for the tide, the sky scrapers, theme parks and the never ending golden beach. We neglected to book anywhere before we arrived as we were assured that there were plenty of places to stay so the first few hours were spent finding a place to stay. We settled on a lower end place, the Surfers City Motel, it was clean, in the centre of town, had its own parking and was only £80 per room per night. Surfers paradise is a Mecca for children, its main streets are full of gift and souvenir shops that open until late at night and there is plenty of amusements arcades. The evening comes alive with a multitude of clubs and bars that would satisfy any clubber young or old. We spent three days at surfers paradise before we flew back to Sydney, the place is comfortable and focussed on giving you a good time. If you are the active type try out the surfing lessons on the beach, for around £30 for adults and £22 for children you get two hours from an expert in the basics of staying on the board and hopefully get to the point of standing up. But our main reason heading to surfers paradise was to visit Dreamworld, a large Alton Towers type theme park with white-knuckle rides and a nickelodeon area for smaller children. Dreamworld also has an outback farm show with real farm animals and a tiger show on their own tiger island. Prior leaving my brothers in Sydney he had told us about the tiger experience you could have at Dreamworld so as a surprise I had booked tickets for the three of us. For £255 we were able to have fifteen minutes inside the cage with a 31 stone Bengal tiger named Sultan. It may sound like a lot of money, but stroking such a vast real tiger is a memory that will live in us all forever and included in the price is a set of 24 photos, one in a wooden frame and plaque. Entrance to the park was an extra £50pp for Adult and £45pp child ticket.

We flew back to Sydney on a Quantas red deal ticket, booked locally via the internet only a few days before flying, each seat costing around £85 and again arranged to stay with my brother. We only had a day in Sydney before we set off to explore the Blue Mountains driving my brothers car (as Australian insurance covers any driver) with his family in tow. The mountains in winter are considered out of season so my brother had managed to broker a great deal on a bungalow overlooking Echo Point, the main tourist point in the Blue Mountains the main feature being three large rock formations known as the three sisters. The normal seasonal price should have been anywhere up to £600 per night, we managed to secure it for the whole weekend for a whole lot less as it was a last minute booking and they were running a little empty.

The Blue Mountains mainly consist of several large gorges filled with eucalypt forest, hence the name blue as the eucalypt gives off an oily residue that gives the air a bluish tint. The gorges are spectacular, each of the gorge walls can reach anything up to twelve hundred feet high and become quite dangerous in places through the lack of adequate handrails or barriers so heed advice of staying on sign posted walkways. There is a visitor’s centre, and original inclined railway and two very high cable cars, one with a glass floor (not for the faint hearted) and lots of walks, viewpoints and small towns scattered through the gorges and across the plateau, there is also the originally named Zigzag Railway, a restored steam locomotive that will take you on a zigzag trip to nowhere special for a couple of hours.

From the Blue Mountains we continued on to Canberra, Australia’s capital City around a four-hour drive whilst my brother and his family returned to Sydney. Canberra is a town that was created out of argument, people could not decide whether to have Melbourne or Sydney as the capital so they decided on neither and built a new city instead, around half way between the two. What first strikes you about Canberra is that unlike other Australian cities is quite flat, the buildings are low level and nothing is there to impose itself. As you approach the parliament building the grand layout of the place almost unfolds in front of you. Admission to parliament house is free and worth a visit although there is not much to do other than to look around.

As you exit parliament your eyes are drawn along the large lawned terrace and across the man made lake to the Australia war memorial. We visited the memorial late in the day and were surprised by the accompanying museum and its collection, especially the collection of Australian war medals and Victoria Cross collection (I think in excess of ninety). The museum and memorial stand as a testament to Australia’s contribution to major wars around the world. The walls of the memorial are lined with the names of the dead set in bronze, some marked by living relatives with poppies. At the end of the day the museum and memorial close to a touching recital of the last post by a lone bugler. Canberra also has the museum of Australia, a good morning out and again entry is free, it has a science museum, Questacom, with lots of fun things to do with the children, they do charge a nominal admission fee but by the time you have tested your fear threshold under the guillotine and speed recorded how fast you can throw tennis balls you soon forget this. There is a large lake with grassed areas and a small shopping area with a modern shopping centre. Accommodation in Canberra is again easy to find with no shortage of hotels, motels and cheaper rooms, we stayed just outside ton in an Australian Formule one Hotel, clean but very basic for around £50 prpn.

From Canberra we drove east to the costal town of Batemans Bay, a quiet little fishing town with enough shops on the waterfront to justify stopping for dinner and then north on the costal road through Wollongong back to Sydney for the last three days of our holiday. We spent the last three days exploring Sydney and the surrounding area as the weather had significantly improved. If you buy a day ticket for the Sydney underground it also allows you to use the busses and ferries free. A good day out we found was to catch to tube to Circular key, from there get the Manly ferry across the harbour and you discover a lovely town with great beach and you also get the privilege of the ferry ride around the opera house allowing great views. Darling harbour is home to the Maritime museum complete with replica of cooks ship the HM Bark Endeavour, an Australian naval ship and a naval submarine, it is also home to an Imax 3D cinema and Sydney aquarium, the only place you are likely to see a real duck billed platypus. Paddies market is also just round the corner form the main harbour, a huge warehouse full of small market stalls selling anything from fake clothing brands to tourist souvenirs and crocodile skin hats. Sydney also has great botanical gardens, Go to look at the Opera house up close and then have a wander around the gardens, as the entrance is right there. There is some great flora and fauna, a great little café and a fantastic gathering of fruit bats that hang from the trees flapping and settling themselves in the daylight. Visits around Sydney included Botany Bay; cooks original landing place, somewhat spoiled by the large seaport across the bay, but interesting to see the rock that marks the exact spot of the first landing; Bondi Beach, a little empty in winter with only a token scattering of surfers and no bronzed beauties at all, never the less a must do and whilst there take a trip up to the south head and Hornby Lighthouse where you can, if you have patience, watch the migrating whales crossing the headland of Port Jackson where the Parramatta river meets the sea.

Our final day brought our greatest discovery, we decided to seek out a beach and grab that last minute tan before the return home. So we headed for the closest stretch of sand to where my brother lives in Sutherland, this happened to be in the Royal National Park, a park covering some sixteen thousand hectares with a variety of plant life from rainforest, tall open forest, to swamps, mangroves and deep river gorges, fortunately it also has some great sandy beaches surrounded by soaring costal cliffs. We headed for Wattamolla bay, a strip on the map that looked like it would be ok, but when we got there we discovered a beautiful sandy bay backed up by a freshwater lagoon, river and waterfall you could bathe under. The place was almost deserted, it had clean toilets and free gas powered barbeques, it was a great end to a long holiday and a must see place for anyone with a day to kill around Sydney.

Finally the time had come to return home, the 22 hours on a plane seemed less appealing than the outbound flight, but memories will last long in our minds of the immense size of the country, the friendly people we met and the slower pace of life. Australia is well equipped for the tourist, clean toilets, clean beaches and a youth population that seems happy to see foreigners come and go. All I will pass on is good and will recommend anyone to go, you don’t need a brother living there to get by as accommodation is in abundance, flights and transport are cheap and easy to use, there are a multitude of companies lining up to help out with tours and the memories will last forever.

We took a day out on the Kuranda scenic railway and sky rail, again well worth a visit. The sky rail takes you over pristine rainforest on a ride that takes around an hour and drops you off at Kuranda, a great little town that relies on tourism to survive. Kuranda has several animal attractions, a zoo and lots of souvenir shops and restaurants, the only thing I would say not to miss is the bat sanctuary where admission is free and a thrill of being only inches away from giant fruit bats is guaranteed, you must check opening times and please leave a donation to help out their cause. The return trip is by the Kuranda scenic railway that winds its way down the Barron gorge finally reaching Cairns. The train trip starts off great but after the first few miles gradually becomes a nice calm end to the day (Adult £55, child £27 or a family ticket £135), included is a return transfer from the train station to the beginning of the Skyrail if needed.