I’m about to hit the road again! This time my friend and I are on our way Down Under to Australia! This will be my LAST continent to visit in order to check off my bucket list item of visiting all 7 continents!
Initially when I first started planning this trip, the plan was to visit both Australia and New Zealand. But as the plans evolved, it became impractical given the size of Australia and the amount of time we had to visit. In end we made the painful decision to drop New Zealand (giving me an excuse to make another visit in the future!) and focus on Australia.
With the country settled, there were a few “musts” that were on both our lists to see and experience. They were:
- Visit the Sydney harbour and opera house
- Visit and see Uluru (Ayers rock)
- Drive the Great Ocean Road
- See the Great Barrier Reef
This meant that we’d be covering a great deal of ground and logging a few miles in the air.
Its at this point that I have to say that this trip was by far the most difficult to plan. Given the size of the country (pretty much the size of the United States) and the things we wanted to do, putting together routes, researching accommodations and deciding between the multitude of options was tough! In the end we ended up with the itinerary below:
- Fly from Vancouver to Sydney (Layover in Guangzhou)
- Spend six days in Sydney
- Fly to Uluru
- Start a 3 day camping tour that visits Ayers Rock and Kings Canyon
- Fly to Hobart, Tasmania
- Spend 3 days exploring the area around Hobart
- Fly to Melbourne
- Spend 5 Days in Melbourne
- Take a day tour along the the Great Ocean Road while in Melbourne
- Fly to Airlie Beach
- Take a 3 day 2 night sailing excursion to the Great Barrier Reef and Whitehaven Beach
- Fly back to Sydney
- Fly from Sydney to Guangzhou
- Spend 9 hours in Guangzhou
- Fly home to Vancouver
I’m sure you can see the many different segments this trip includes and how it could have gotten quite complex very quickly. The biggest issue was that we had far too many options available to us. We had the whole country at our finger tips and deciding where to go, and when to go made for very difficult decisions.
For us, the dominoes started falling when we found a great flight deal for Vancouver to Sydney (Return) for under a thousand dollars. Once we booked this flight we knew that we had to start and end in Sydney, and that we had around 24 days to work with.
The next challenge was getting in and out of the red center (Ayers Rock). There are two main airports (Ayers Rock Airport and Alice Springs) that you would either fly into or depart from depending on a number of factors. So the difficulty was finding a good flight segment that would join our other destinations past Sydney. In the end, it made the most sense for us to fly into the area after our Sydney visit, and then depart towards Melbourne and ultimately Tasmania. This allowed us to nail down the 3 day tour that would pick us up at Ayers Rock Airport and drop us off at Alice Springs airport (which had most of the Melbourne bound outgoing flights).
In Tasmania we will be renting a car and driving around to the various spots we’d seen in various travel sites. It looks to be an amazingly scenic area and we’re excited to visit whatever we can to take in the beauty of God’s creation.
From there we’d return to melbourne for a few days. Where we booked a day tour along the Great Ocean road through the recommendation of a friend who had done it just a month before us.
Our final leg was to the North East Coast in and around the Whitsunday Islands. We found a boat tour that worked perfectly for our dates. It allows us to visit the reef, but also an opportunity to SCUBA for the first time! It also makes a stop at Whitehaven beach which was something we really wanted to see.
Our return flight to Vancouver included a 9 hour layover in Guangzhou. One cool thing about flying with China Southern is: if you have a layover in Guangzhou airport over 8 hours. They provide a complimentary hotel stay. We are planning to take advantage of this. Hopefully we have a chance to freshen up and maybe visit the city before returning to the airport.
Overall, we’re satisfied with the itinerary that we’ve put together. It was difficult to cut things due to time or cost constraints. However, we’re able to see everything we wanted to see and more! So, we’re very happy with how everything turned out! Now we just need to get over there! 🙂