The Big Three, Plus One

After watching the Penguin Parade, our guide Steve told us that we had just seen one of the top three attractions in Australia. People asked what the others were, of course, and he named the Great Barrier Reef and the Rock as numbers one and two. Fortunately, we had already seen the other two. It was our last day in Australia, and I think we would have been really bummed to find out that we had missed something big.

I was surprised, though, that no mention was made of the Sydney Opera House. Other people told us that it was the most photographed building in the Southern Hemisphere, so that makes it kind of an attraction, right? So I think that needs to be the plus one.

Here is an itinerary that will get you all of the "Big" ones, with some room to work in others:

We start out in Sydney. It is worthwhile to grab a performance inside, and there is plenty of variety available, with eight different performance halls. Check out schedules online:

http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/homepage.aspx

Even if you decide not to, you can tour the house during the day as well. That won't take an entire day, so think about working in another activity. You may wish to check out the Royal Botanical Garden, and get a picture at Mrs. MacQuarie's Chair. For more of a sense of history, tour the Rocks. It's kind of like Colonial Williamsburg, but with more pubs! (Well, I'm kind of assuming that; I've never been to Colonial Williamsburg). Or, to see the broadest selection of animals, head on over to Taronga Zoo. You can also get a great view of Sydney Harbor on your way up. Get your access to any of those points from the Circular Quay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs_Macquarie%27s_Chair
http://www.therocks.com/
http://taronga.org.au/taronga-zoo.aspx
http://www.sydney.com.au/quay.htm

Your next stop will be to fly up to Cairns. Although the Great Barrier Reef stretches for about 2600 kilometers, most people get to it from Cairns. At Cairns, it is only three miles from shore, and that is as close as you get unless you go to one of the resort islands.

Your big decision will need to be how you want to experience the reef, with the most common options being by snorkel, scuba, or glass-bottomed boat. We were very pleased with Ocean Free tours, and they offer all of those options, but you will see that there are many companies providing those services. It's the main reason tourists come to Cairns. Just remember to put on lots of sunscreen and keep reapplying--that sun is fierce!

http://www.oceanfree.com.au/

If you want to add in here, you may wish to consider driving an hour up to Port Douglas. Here you have easy access to the Daintree Rainforest (a world heritage site), the Rainforest Habitat (the only place where we were able to hold koalas, and also where we first pet kangaroos), and Kuranda, the rainforest village.

http://www.daintreerainforest.com/
http://www.rainforesthabitat.com.au/
http://www.kuranda.org/

Once you are done with Cairns, it is off to the Red Center for Ayers Rock, also known as Uluru. I don't necessarily suggest that you climb the Rock, but you can look at it. Because of the vibrant reds, a lot of people like to watch the sunrise or sunset there. There are many different touring options, not just for Uluru, but also for Kata Tjuta and Mt. Connor.

You will pretty much have to end up staying at the resort. There is camping at the cattle station, but those people have their own transportation, and you will be driving for miles of desert to get there. Take the plane and stay at the resort. There's some gouging, but it could be worse, and you don't need to stay long. Unless you want to spend time exploring hiking and exploring all three formations, you can arrive one day, see what you want, and leave the next.

http://www.ayersrockresort.com.au/

On leaving Ayers Rock, you will head to Melbourne. Now, any where there are fairy penguins (also known as little penguins and blue penguins), there will be a parade where they will cross the beach in groups at sundown, trying to get safely ashore. This spot is the best known, and they have bleachers and park rangers, and you know that you will see plenty of penguins. This actually happens on Phillip Island, not in Melbourne proper.

There is a lot you can do on the island. We were actually not impressed by the Nobbies. Yes, there are seals out on that rock, but you can't see them without a telescope. However, there is also a koala area, farm area, and a racetrack. The penguins don't start coming ashore until dusk, so even though you do need to get there and find your seat, they are a nighttime activity and you have the whole day.

We went with adventure tours, which picked us up in Melbourne and drove us to the island, stopping at Maru along the way. Maru is a nature park just before you hit the bridge to Phillip Island. If you have not seen a kangaroo or koala at this point, Maru is a good choice. You can pet and feed the roos and wallabies, and feed the emus as well, and you can see many of the other animals even if you cannot touch them. They also had a good selection of birds.

Remember, this tour is the one where you are making sure to cover the basics, and you will feel silly if you have not seen the main marsupials. Fortunately, your odds are good. We saw kangaroos in Port Douglas, at Taronga, and in the wild at Mt. Connor, and then at Maru. Koala do not spread quite as far in terms of natural habitat, but every zoo and wildlife park has some. Just remember to get them in.

The adventure tour did not visit the koala conservation center or Churchill Island for the Phillip Island trip, and I had not realized they would not, so if you book with a tour, make sure you understand the complete itinerary.

http://www.penguins.org.au/

Since you are going to be in Melbourne, you may also want to visit the Victoria Market. Everyone said this was the best place to get souvenirs. I wish they had mentioned that it was closed on Wednesdays. Because we tried going on a Wednesday, we can't really vouch for it. Keep that in mind.

Melbourne does have an international airport, so you can arrange your departure home from there, without needing to go back to Sydney. You can easily cover the basics within a week, adding more time if you want to do more of the add-ins mentioned, but you know, there is always more to do.

The Temple Tour of Australia

One challenge of our trip was that we were trying to cram so many things into such a short amount of time (well, a month is not short, but for what we wanted to do, it was), that you do have to give some things up. One of those was that we did not make it to any temples.

Part of that was transportation, because temples generally are in suburbs and don't have tour buses going to them, and part of that was that at the time Julie and Maria were not endowed yet, so it just made sense. Still, I thought it would be fun to concoct an itinerary based on temple locations. This will get you to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth--sort of. Actually, you will need to get to Carlingford, Kangaroo Point, Wantirna, Marsden, and Yokine. Bet you haven't heard of any of those yet. Don't worry--we have a plan.

It may be unfair, but for this particular itinerary I am picturing the travelers as an older LDS couple, or maybe two such couples. In each city they will want to do a temple session, but they will also want to see some of the local color, without it involving any really strenuous activities or wild parties.

We start off in Sydney.

On your first day, it is reasonable to worry about how the air travel will affect you, and whether you will need a rest day. It may vary by individual, but our experience, and that of friends who have gone at different times, is that the flight was not nearly as tiring as you would expect. We were certainly stiff after all of our time aboard the plane, but we came out alert, and functioned normally during the day. It may be helpful to stay somewhat active and out in the fresh air just to be safe. Put yourself in an environment conducive to drowsiness, and it just might win out.

Exploring the Royal Botanic Gardens may be the perfect solution. It involves fresh air and exercise, and you can catch a guided walk at the visitor's center. You will also be in the right area to catch a photo opportunity at Mrs. Macquaries chair, one of the most popular picture spots for tourists.

You are also close to the most photographed building in the Southern Hemisphere, the Sydney Opera House, and must pay it a visit. Tours are available, and not a bad idea, but you should really treat yourself to a performance there. There are eight performance halls with extensive offerings, so on any given night you should be able to find something that works. This should fit in well after your temple session, so you have one day for touring, one day for the temple and evening entertainment, and the you will head to Brisbane.

http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/
http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/

Sydney to Brisbane is doable as a drive (about 11 hours), and you will need the car, so you may want to consider driving. There will be another stop where the long drive is more important, so flying is perfectly acceptable.

The obvious choice for sightseeing is the Australia Zoo. The Crocodile Hunter is gone, but this was his place, and you will get to see the main Australian animals, plus several from Asia and the Galapagos. Naturally, there are crocodiles.

However, if you are worried that it is a bit too commercial, and maybe want to explore the town at your own pace, consider the Brisbane City Sights tour. With tours like this, I like to go around the full circuit first, hearing everything, and then decided where to get off. They will give you the lay of the land, and get you access to local buses and ferries. They might even be able to give you some tips about making your way to Kangaroo Point, so take the city tour on your first day, and then go to the temple the next, or maybe even that evening.

http://www.australiazoo.com.au/
http://www.citysights.com.au/home/default.asp

Driving from Sydney to Brisbane is okay, and driving from Adelaide to Melbourne is recommended, but from Brisbane to Perth, you will definitely want to fly (plan on about a four hour flight). You are heading all the way across the country, to the far West end. Many visitors never make it to the West Coast at all, let alone Perth--the world's most isolated capital city.

Our tourist side is going to visit the Perth Mint. Although the area was isolated, a gold rush made it reasonable to build the mint in 1899. You can take a historical walk, watch a gold pour, and view the world's largest display of gold bars.

It won't hurt to spend a little time exploring the outdoors as well, so you may want to wander by the Swan Bells. This is a glass spire bell tower on the Swan River. Stop by at the right time and you can hear them play, or get a bell handling demonstration.

http://www.perthmint.com.au/
http://swanbells.com.au/

Adelaide is next. If you are going through a guidebook, you will see that pretty much every major city has a zoo, botanical gardens, a candy factory, a museum, and often an aquarium and an arctic exploration center. Obviously going to each one in each town would be overkill. For chocolate, the Haigh's tour may not be the best known (that would probably be the Cadbury tour near Hobart, Tasmania), Haigh's is the oldest chocolate maker in Australia, since 1915, and they offer free tastings. Since Adelaide is known for it's food and drink, partaking of something local makes sense.

This is also a good place to take in some more history, especially in regard to the Aboriginal people. The South Australian Museum has the largest collection of Aboriginal artifacts in the world, and gives a straightforward account of their interactions with white colonists. Just round the corner is the library and the Migration Museum, and next door is the Art Gallery. Nearby in the other direction is the War Memorial and Parliament House, so a lot can be seen and learned in a small space.

http://haighschocolates.com.au/
http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/

Now, between Adelaide and Melbourne is where we are going to make the big exception to flying between cities. You are going to keep your rental for the rest of your time in Australia, and get to Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road.

Well, actually, you may not want to keep your rental, because this is also an area where you do have the option of several coach tours. Several different companies offer options of one or three day tours, either going one way between Melbourne and Adelaide, or doing a round trip loop.

Assuming that you have used rental cars in each city to this point, you have had a chance to get comfortable driving on the other side of the road. However, you will be going through an amazingly scenic area, and there may be some advantages to letting an experienced driver take the wheel and point out attractions. At the same time, by going with a tour you are letting someone else call the shots, choosing where and when to stop and how long to stay.

The first thing that comes to mind at the mention of the Great Ocean Road is the Twelve Apostles, and you do want to see those, but there are many things worth viewing. The limestone coastline has been sculpted by wind and waves coming straight from Antarctica, and there is a lot to see. Pay specific attention along Bay of Islands Coastal Park, where features include the Arch, the Grotto, London Bridge, the Bay of Martyrs, the Bay of Islands, and Worm Bay. You may want to stop off in Loch Ard Gorge and see the Blowhole.

Not every attraction is a coastal formation. You will also be traveling near Otway State Park and National Forest, and Grampians National Park. There are some rugged hikes to be had, but you can just take a leisurely drive nearby and soak up the scenery.

Having just sampled local chocolates in Adelaide, consider stopping for some local organic cheese at the Mousetrap. Also, stop off in Geelong for the Wool Museum. Sheep have been an important part of Australian history, and you can learn all about the sheep and wool here, and see fun things like a knitted tea party.

(We would have a tendency to also try and swing by the Condah Pub, because we met the proprietor and we liked him a lot.)

http://touristnews.standard.net.au/timboon/ti_eat.html
http://www.geelongaustralia.com.au/nwm/
http://www.greatoceanrd.org.au/
(This site has some information, but I recommend adding to it with a guidebook, or checking sites like wikitravel, lonelyplanet, or viator.)

The last stop is in Melbourne, and if you are in Melbourne than you really do need to head over to Phillip Island and see the Penguin Parade. There are tours that will pick you up in Melbourne and take you here, but simply getting the 3 park pass will give you plenty to do, and you should find exploring the island on your own to be fun. Remember that the penguins start coming ashore at dusk, so however early you get there will be more about how much time you want to spend at the other attractions, but you will definitely be coming back after dark.

In Melbourne itself, I do recommend Piazza Navona, Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria, on Toorak Road. It was good food, and not terribly expensive, which could not be said about the other restaurants in that area.

There are two big things to remember about this kind of a tour. One, you need to check ahead to see when temple closures are. You're not going to feel good about going halfway around the world to visit a temple and then not being able to get in. Sure, you wouldn't miss all of them, but there's no reason to miss any with some advance planning.

Also, it is reasonable to assume that you are going to want to go to church on Sundays. Don't just take the meeting time and address from the web pages--call and ask! We learned this by sad experience.

Now you may be wondering if this temple tour can be expanded at all. Well, you can easily fly from Melbourne to Auckland, and get yourself to the Hamilton Temple. This would not add too much additional cost or time. You can refer back to my overall guide for the North Island for ideas on what to do, but the Kiwi House in Otorohanga is certainly close by, and would be an easy stop. Adding New Zealand would make perfect sense.


What about the Pacific Islands? Well, that is going to add to the time and money considerably. Also, you are increasing the temperature range, so it may make packing more of a challenge. But if you are looking at that, your other options are Suva Fiji, Apia Samoa, Nuku'alofa Tonga, and Papeete Tahiti.

Have a great trip.

Places we missed

With such a vast trip, it’s hard to feel like you have covered everything. I liked working out the itinerary for someone else going to the North Island, and reviewing the South Island as a whole made sense after that. It also feels like it makes sense to do a nice blog summing up Australia. It’s just so much harder.

I’ve decided the way to do it is to create a few itineraries with different themes, rather than trying to do it so much by region. If you are planning your own trip it would probably make more sense to pick a few items from each itinerary, rather than having one that is all animals or all geographic marvels and hiking, but that will vary by taste. You can’t see it all without being gone a long time. Yes, Australia is the smallest continent, but it is still a pretty big country, and you will miss some things. That actually leads to two good points.

One thing that became clear as we spent time in New Zealand was that it would be totally worth getting a car. Things are close to each other, and you can see a lot more that way. This does not hold true for Australia. There are some places where driving can be good if the area is scenic and the distance not too bad (the Great Ocean Road comes to mind), but overall you will just spend hours and days driving. That’s not to say that it won’t be beautiful or interesting, but it may not be the best use of your time.

The other point was that we did miss things, so before stringing together itineraries including things we saw and things we didn’t, I wanted to go over some of the places that we missed.

First of all, we did not make it to the West Coast at all, or really any of the Western half. Most of what we did centered along the East Coast, though Adelaide and Uluru are central. Now, part of that is because when I was going over the places that we wanted to see, there were just more places in the East, and a several hours flight without a real objective didn’t make much sense. However, I can’t help but feel that we were missing something, because I am sure there are differences between the two coasts and I know nothing about them. Given a chance, I wouldn’t mind spending some time in Perth, Darwin, and Shark Bay.

Also more in the Northwest, the Bungle Bungles (Purnululu). They are rather like enormous orange and black striped beehives made out of rock. People didn’t even know they were there until the 80’s, so it’s almost still frontier out here, but basically I would want to go because they look cool.

Coober Pedy: Coober Pedy is fairly central. One attraction is that if you wanted to do a camping trip on camelback, most of those tours start from here. Also, the guy who inspired Crocodile Dundee lived here, and you can see his house, and it’s the opal capital of the world, so you can buy opals and learn about the mining.

Kakadu National Park: This place has it all— waterfalls and gorges, biodiversity, rock art—just tons to see and do. Actually, there’s a uranium mine too, though I’m not sure that you really visit that part, or should. However, it is fairly primitive. You will be hiking in and camping, and you have a long drive in.

Kuranda: The sad thing is we did have easy access, and could have easily gotten transportation from our Port Douglas lodgings, but there was just too much to do, and we had already scheduled other things. There is a sky rail and gondola for transportation, and then when you get to the village you can watch Aboriginal performances and view art, and we heard good things about it.

Brisbane/Gold Coast: Actually, I’m not sure that we would have wanted to go here so much. We looked at this area because there were a couple of big park/zoo things, including Steve Irwin’s. Ultimately I guess we decided that they seemed too touristy. I mean, we ended up seeing plenty of crocodiles in other places, and sure, seeing tigers is cool, but Australia is not really the place to look for them.

Fraser Island: This is a world heritage site off the Southern coast of Queensland. You can spot a lot of sharks, and explore dunes and really beautiful terrain.

Lady Elliott Island: This seems like a nice spot to stay and get in some good snorkeling. When I wrote about the Great Barrier Reef I think I mentioned that I didn’t really like snorkeling off a boat, but the Great Barrier Reef is too far off shore for you to wade in anywhere off the mainland. Still, there are several smaller islands where you can wade in, and I think that’s the way to go. And you’d be crazy to wade in off of Fraser Island.

Hanging Rock: Again, this is a place where we were nearby, but we just didn’t have the time to make it happen. But, you know, I’ve seen the movie now, and I want to go even more.

Launceston: Now that we know that there is both a platypus place and a sea horse place, how can we not want to go?

Sydney: Yes, we went to Sydney, and we saw some things, but we missed the Royal Botanical Gardens, and I think a stop at the Rocks would have been good. Honestly, I don’t feel at all drawn to the bridge climb.

I’m sure there are other things that I’m not even thinking about, but those are at least some.