1 month in Australia - tour plan
 

Hi everybody,

we'll be in Australia for the whole month of September in honeymoon.
We are trying to plan or trip. We are mainly interested in the landscape/naturalistic opportunities, but we also love snorkeling.

After the initial "we gotta see everything" moment, we see now that, even if 1 month is a lot of time, Australia is really too big. Therefore we have excluded the West and Uluru's area (we hope to visit them on our next visit).

This is a tour plan draft. We would land and leave from Melbourne to save some money on international flights (it takes 200/300 € more if you want to arrive and leave from different cities).

2/9 Arrive in Melbourne
3/9 Melbourne
4/9 Melbourne
5/9 Great Ocean Road by car
6/9 Great Ocean Road by car
7/9 Car transfer to Adelaide
8/9 Adelaide
9/9 Kangaroo Island
10/9 Kangaroo Island
11/9 Flight Adelaide to Darwin
12/9 Darwin (Kakadu, Katherine Gorge, Litchfield Park)
13/9 Darwin (Kakadu, Katherine Gorge, Litchfield Park)
14/9 Darwin (Kakadu, Katherine Gorge, Litchfield Park)
15/9 Darwin (Kakadu, Katherine Gorge, Litchfield Park)
16/9 Flight Darwin to Cairns
17/9 Cairns and Cape Tribulation
18/9 Cairns and Cape Tribulation
19/9 Cairns and Cape Tribulation
20/9 Car transfer from Cairns to Airlie Beach
21/9 Whitsundays Islands Cruise
22/9 Whitsundays Islands Cruise
23/9 Cruise + night bus Airlie Beach to Hervey Bay
24/9 Fraser Island
25/9 Flight Hervey Bay to Sydney
26/9 Sydney
27/9 Sydney
28/9 Flight Sydney to Melbourne
29/9 Phillip Island
30/9 Return

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

It's certainly busy but doable, I think. You have a very long drive from Cairns to Airlie Beach. And you'll need an afternoon/evening flight to Darwin as it's a fair way from Kangaroo Island to Adelaide. Are you staying in Melbourne before your flight home? If you need to crib an extra day, I'd ditch Phillip Island.

Are you flying to Kangaroo Island on the 9th? Then flying back on the 10th? The flight with Qantas to DRW leaves before 9am, so you would want to be back the night of the 10th, to get the flight on the 11th.

I have just returned from Oz, we spent a month in a campervan travelling from Sydney to Cape Trib. Best time of my life!!!

Regarding the Whitsundays, we did a day trip visiting Hamilton Island and Whitehaven Beach with Cruise Whitsundays. On reflection we would have chosen the island hopper option which gives you more freedom on where you would like to go. Also, depending what you are into, Hamilton Island is lovely but touristy. We preferred Magnetic Island to the Whitsundays. If you do visit Magnetic Island, Balding Bay is well worth a walk to! Amazing beach, views, total secluded with no one else but ouselves there.

Fraser Island - Highly recommend Fraser Experience Tours (http://www.fraserexperience.com/guid...ay-hummer-tour), we payed slightly extra to travel in a hummer, our tour guide Garry was awesome! His family live on the island so he was very knowledgeable and had a great sense of humour! Defo ask for him if you decide to do this tour!!

Cairns - I really wouldnt spend much time here at all, Brisbane and Sydney are far more interesting places to visit. Good base point for snorkelling (although you could do this from Port Douglas or Airlie Beach I think) and thats about it, in my view. If I was to do the trip again I would spend time in Cape Trib then down to Port Douglas (Lovely place!)and spend my time there and skip Cairns completely.

Cape Trib - Walk out from the rainforest straight onto the beach...perfect :)

You will have an amazing time!!

(Dont forget to pack some motion sickness pills as it can be rough on the boats! Also lots of bug spray! Avoid driving dawn/dusk when the Kangaroos can be on the road)

Forgot to mention....couple of other highlights of our holiday were the Blue Mountains (AMAZING) and Dorrigo Rainforest! We also loved Port Stephens just up from Sydney and a little place called South West Rocks!

Here's another vote for Port Douglas; we only saw Cairns driving from and to the airport but there wasn't really any reason to stop there, so far as we could stay. " Port" OTOH was a really great place - big enough to have plenty to do by way of trips, restaurants, & shops, but small enough to get to know in a few days.

and a terrific beach.