6 weeks- I'd love to have that amount of travelling time at one go

We spent 4 weeks there in November, flying with Emirates and no stopovers.
4 nights on Fraser Island just off the Sunshine Coast, 4 nights in Sdney staying near Pyrmont Bridge and about 5 minutes from Darling Harbour, then the highlight or one of them was Heron Island.
That place is an absolute must if you're wanting to see the Great Barrier Reef, swim with sharks and totally chill out.

I've posted a couple of photos of Fraser Island with more to follow of Heron Island.

Another of the highlights of the trip was the feeding the dolphins in Tin Can Bay, on Cooloola Beach area. The dolphins come in at about 7 0'clock every morning to be fed. Basically, MAGIC.

We,re quite lucky in that our son has been in Australia for the last 20 years, He is a shipping agent and before his elevation to running things in the head office in Sydney he was located in several places round Australia We have had holidays in Perth, Karratha, Cairns and Brisbane We've travelled from Cairns right down to Melbourne and from Perth right up to Broome. Highlights ? too numerous to mention. The Barrier Reef, The Bridge Walk, The Great Ocian Highway south from Melbourne, and sunset camel rides along Cable Beach in Broome, are just a few that spring to mind
We've travelled there with B.A. ( once was quiet enough), Qantas, Malaysian, and now we go with Emirates. It's a great boon leaving from Glasgow and not having the dreaded trek to Manchester or London to start your journey.
We've done it direct,and with stopovers, our stopovers, usually three days have been in K.L, Penang, Lankawi, Kutching in Borneo, Hongkong and Singapore.
Whatever we do we always get jet lag, my wife worse than me and it's always much worse on the return home, I think the buzz of getting there seems to lessen it a lot going out..
Cant wait for our next visit when hopefully we'll get to Alice, the Rock and Darwin. It's a wonderfull country, my biggest regret in life is that I was'nt one of the £10 Poms
Alan

My parents were all set to go back in the fifties and most of the arrangements were made.

Then they found out my father had a record.

I still hate him, more so now that I've seen what I missed out on.

We went via Singapore... flew business class with Singapore Airlines.. stayed three nights at Raffles.. then on to Brisbane where we were met by some old friends.. stayed at the Quay west suites 6 nights- fantastic views over the botanical gardens...

did days out to gold coast, sunshine coast, Steve Irvine's zoo........

then flew Quantas business class to Sydney, stayed 7 nights on the 28th floor of the Shangri-La with huge panoramic window view of the bridge and harbour...did Manley, Bondi, blue mountains, river trip, tourist bus...

Flew back with Singapore (two hour stopover at Changi) business class...

All in all the trip of a lifetime!!

ATB,J.

We are in Oz at the moment - 8th visit. First time for Bi-Centenary in 1988 and at different times over the years. Have been here for 8 - 12 weeks for the last 5 years and have done different things. AAT Kings tour from Sydney to Cairns which took 2 weeks visiting different Islands and places on the way then did our own things. Same again from Sydney to Melbourne and back. All the way up the West coast on a coach tour. Having done these things we became confident and now DIY, this year stayed in YHA in Sydney, Melbourne and Ballarat. With relatives for 4 days in Adelaide then upto Brisbane - 4 weeks in an apartment in Surfers Paradise, a few days in YHA in Brisbane then have not decided about the rest. Booked internal flights with Jetstar before we left UK and got good deals on all or flights e.g. buy one get one free. Flew into Sydney from Heathrow with a stop over of 5 months in Mumbai then we fly out of Brisbane via Melbourne and Singapore to Heathrow. Came with BA and Qantas and have nothing detrimental to say about them - got the special meals we ordered, checked in on line 24 hours before departure and got the seats we wanted and the cabin crew on both flights could not be faulted. Flown with Emirates, Singapore Airlines etc and have never had a bad journey.

That's some holiday

Planning on going back to Oz next Jan ,this will be our 4th time ,stopovers in different places
each time,have stopped in Hong Kong ,Singapore,Joburg,Capetown,Perth, Cairns,Brisbane,Sydney
and Melbourne where we have family in Frankston and Mornington,next time stopping in Mumbai for
Goa and cruise from Sydney to Auckland New Zealand and maybe Capetown once more as its a fab
place
Ann
PS forgot to mention Bangkok great place,did a river cruise on New Years Eve something special

We are off to Australia again next month just one week in Melbourne then flying down to Perth for 3nights
before boarding The Rhapsody of the Seas for 18 night cruise around Australia and New Zealand, ending
up in Sydney for 4 nights and 2 nights Hong Kong for our flight home
annx

Nice to see this thread re-appear. Did get back to Oz for a 2nd time in February/March of last year. This time, after a couple of days in Sydney, Melbourne and Alice Springs (did the Desert Park which was amazing) we concentrated on the west coast. We went with our friends again and hired a car to drive south through Margaret River, where we visited wineries, chocolate factories and cheese factories - it's a thankless task but someone has to do it We then drove north as far as Monkey Mia, stopping off at The Pinnacles on the way. We flew Quantas/BA again as they have the biggest choice of stopovers and we stayed in Hong Kong on the way there and Singapore on the way back.

Amazingly, we visited Oz again in November. I had seen an extremely reasonable cruise with Royal Caribbean which sailed out of Freemantle (Perth), round the south coast of Oz, Tasmania and South Island, New Zealand. This was a complete bonus as I had actually been looking for a Panama Canal cruise for April this year - but that's a different story

Hubby and I absolutely love Australia and if only we were 40 years younger I might have even thought of settling there. We have found the people just so friendly - it almost gets to a point where you daren't stop to get your bearings because someone will come and offer their help

Rosalyn

going again this coming Sept/Oct for our 3rd trip down under

Off again to Sydney for five weeks next March, It'll be our tenth visit downunder. Plan to drive up to Mullimbimby, a lovely little spot near the border with Queensland, to visit old friends for a few days, and we might also take the train down to Melbourne, we normally fly down with Virgin Blue, but thought we'd try the train for a change. Flying out buisness class with Qantas ( a Golden Wedding present from our son) and back with Malaysian,(cattle class), but 34" leg room. It's been a long time since we visited KL so we'll stop over there for a couple of days.
Alan

Hi Fiona, I have just booked for Hong kong (4 days), Australia - sydney (6 days) - Alice Springs to Ayers Rock( 3 day camping) - Melbourne ( 2 days) then drive to Adelaide - Singapore (4 days) then home :-( all booked through my local Travel agent and I got a big reduction because I used British Airways then Quantas (as they are part of British Airways) on other routes, and I paid less then some people I have spoke to for just flying to Australia and back home.

I went 4 years ago for about 2 weeks, just stayed around Syndey mainly. Went to the toronga Zoo, bridge walk and just living Sydney life!

I had the best time ever!

Phil wrote:

I went 4 years ago for about 2 weeks, just stayed around Syndey mainly. Went to the toronga Zoo, bridge walk and just living Sydney life!

I had the best time ever! :)

It's a pity the Media Gallery is no more, I lost a lot of links to the videos I'd made in the thread of my visit to OZ,
I've put them on You Tube and I had to change all the music behind every video because of You Tube's copyright policy....this resulted in a loss of definition.
This might cheer you up Phil.

http://youtu.be/wL9A38Eyju0

You can find all my vids and my tale of OZ on my little site ( until BT force me to move it because they are closing down the free webspace I had with my account)
It's reminded me that I must get around to spending some time on expanding and updating the site, and finding another host.

http://www.sanji-uk.co.uk

Sanji

Sanji,

The media gallery is an upcoming discussion in the Lab stay tuned!

Nice video you made there

Off on 14th March for what is our 10th visit . We'll be based at our sons house in the inner west of Sydney in Wareemba. We're there for four weeks during which time we'll fly down to Melbourne for a couple of days, and up to Mullimbimby close to the border with Queensland, to visit friends and family.
We love everything about Oz and deeply regret chickening out in the 60s, when wev had the chance to emigrate there
The one thing we dont enjoy is the Exchage Rate, our first visit it was 2 Aus$ to the £, and the best we managed was 2.50 to the £ a few years ago, today it's about 1.46 or so, which makes what once was a great value for money visit, into a pretty expensive one, especially when one adds on the vastly incressed air fares with our goverments punitive taxes on them.
Alan