Australia Itinerary
 

My needs are a little different to the average tourist posting itineraries for Australia on this site because I'm Australian and have family there (even though I don't live there any more).

I'm going to be accompanied by two Irish people and will be showing them around.

We will be there from June 15 to July 11 (approx 4 weeks) and for personal reasons we'll need to spend as much time as possible in Brisbane during the second two weeks. So in effect we have 2 weeks to check out the rest of the country and another two to check out Brisbane and south-east queensland.

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Day 1: First port of call is Singapore. We'll be spending 26 hours there before going on to Brisbane

Day 2: Arrive Brisbane in the evening

Day 3: A day of rest in Brisbane

Day 4-7: Fly to Sydney and spend 3 nights there. We have booked a bridge climb; a show at the opera house; will be spending a day at the blue mountains (arriving by train); Sky walk at centre point tower and the gaps will be filled in by sight seeing and shopping. We will be staying at the 4 points by Sheraton at Darling Harbour.

Day 7: Arrive back in Brisbane
Days 8-9: No specific plans. Probably will take it easy and recover

Day 10-15: Drive to Charleville and stay for 4 nights at the Evening star tourist station. We have organised a two bedroom cottage for our stay. We've planned to visit the cosmos centre; flying doctor visitors centre; distance education centre; bilby reserve. We will be taking a day trip to Quilpie to check out the opal museum and hopefully get a glimpse of remote outback life, the opal mines and artesian springs.

We were hoping to do some horse riding in the outback buthave been unable to find a tour operator.

On the way there we'll have a quick stop at Roma and on the way back a quick stop at Dalby.

Day 15: Return to Brisbane

Day 16-18: No specific plan

Day 19: Fly back to Sydney for State of Origin III. Staying at the Bayview boulevard hotel.

Day 20: Return back to Brisbane

Day 21-27: No specific plans but in this time we will probably check out some or all of the following:
-Dream world
-Movie world
-Seaworld
-Underwater world
-Australia Zoo
-Glasshouse mountains
-Horse riding at the gold coast hinterland
-Surfer's Paradise (shopping/eating)
-Queens st Mall (Shopping/eating)
-Gold class cinemas (novelty value because we don't have those in Ireland)

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We seriously considered Melbourne and chose sydney instead due to the lack Melbourne's appeal to the international visitor. While Melbourne is a pleasant city, it really is a city that is trying very hard to be like a european city. If that's what we were looking for we'd just take a short flight to Paris rather than fly half way around the world to visit try-hard Paris. It also lacks the well known monuments of Sydney (or Paris for that matter). Then of course there's the weather. We're leaving a pleasant Irish summer for similar climatic conditions in Qld and NSW. Winters are long enough here without trading a Irish summer weather for melbourne winter weather (temp-wise Irish summers are basically equivalent to winter in Sydney).

I've lived in Melbourne before and if anyone ever asked I'd say it's a great place to live but for a short visit Sydney wins hands down.

If anyone has any suggestions on how this itinerary could be tweeked please let me know.

Hello AZG,

Glad to see your trip is coming together.
From BNE/G.Coast, do consider a day trip to Tamborine Mountain. Maybe even a night there.
I love it - there's lovely rainforest walks, art galleries, interesting restaurants - very different to the G.C. I'm pretty sure someone up there does horseriding, too.
If you're there on the weekend, the markets are excellent.

www.tamborinemountain.net

Ah. of course. I've been to Mt Tamborine. Very nice area.

AZG:A few comments/questions regarding your itinerary:

1) It seems odd not to fly directly to Sydney from Singapore.

2) I would add on a day or two to your Charleville trip for Carnarvon Gorge, which is relatively close to Roma. Carnarvon is superb for wildlife, scenery and easy walking. Shouldn't be missed if you are in the area.

3) Have you considered driving to Sydney from Charleville rather than back-tracking to Brisbane, which is not THAT much closer? Seems that you could save a day or two and maybe also some money. There may be a few attractions to see along the way, including the zoo at Dubbo. And since you approach Sydney from the west, you could see the Blue Mountains en route, saving the trouble of making a separate trip from Sydney.

4) Don't forget about Lamington Nat'l Park while in Brisbane. No visit to Brisbane is complete without seeing O'Reilly's!

Possible partial itinerary:

Day 10: Drive to Carnarvon Gorge via Roma. Stay at the Oasis Lodge 2 nights.

Day 11: Carnarvon Gorge

Day 12: Drive to Charleville. Four nights at Evening Star

Day 13, 14, 15. Evening Star

Day 16: Drive to Dubbo.

Day 17: Drive to Blue Mts, stay overnight in Katoomba or somewhere close. Overnight at Janolan Caves also a possibility.

Day 18: Tour Blue Mts. Drive to Sydney late in the day.

Day 19: State of Origin Match in Sydney.

We're not flying to sydney from Singapore because the purpose of this trip is primarily to visit family in Brisbane and those flights were organised and paid for long before we knew what internal travel we'd be doing or when my family would be able to take their holidays.

Driving from Charleville to Sydney is out of the question because we want to spend all of our weekends in Brisbane (while my friends and family aren't working). It's more important to this trip for us to be in Brisbane on the weekends than to save dollars on flights.

The second trip to Sydney is designed to spend as little time as possible away from Brisbane during the holiday period of the people we're visiting in Brisbane. If we were to coincide our main trip to sydney with the state of origin match we'd lose a lot of valuable holiday time with the family. That's why I said it was important for us to spend as much time as possible of the second two weeks in Brisbane.

Thanks a lot for the other suggestions. I'll certainly consider checking out Carnarvon Gorge and Lamington National park.

The timing for our trip to Charleville is also designed to coincide with late moonrise times. It reduces the amount of light wich would otherwise impair our view of the brilliant Charleville night sky.