christmas in GBR
 

Hi there

Me and my hubby are doing a 5 month round trip of Australia in a campervan commencing 30th september. Starting off with a wedding in Melbourne, then on to Adelaide...Perth... Darwin...Cairns...Brisbaine...Sydney...Tasmania. We expect to be at the GBR for Christmas and would like to do something special and maybe book into a hotel or go somewhere special. Any ideas?? Can you take a campervan over to any of the whitsunday islands for example. Look forward to any advice you might be able to give me.
Cheers
Louy

Louy, you defintely can't take a campervan, or any other vehicle over to the Whitsunday Islands. Why don't you just "base" yourself in Airlie Beach, and take "day trips" out to various islands, or to the GBR.

Louy - many hotels in Cairns provide a traditional Christmas lunch, but you will need to book quite well in advance as its very popular with local families. Understandbly, Mum isn't too keen on producing the traditional roast thing in her sweltering kitchen. Do a google search a bit later in Sept when the hotels start Christmas promotions. Apart from the hotels, a lot of restaurants (except for Asian) will be closed on Christmas Day.

Louy
You may not be around Brisbane, on xmas day, however, Moreton Island Tangalooma provided us with a fantastic lunch on xmas day last year.

Muck

Louy, the only Qld islands I can think of that you can take a car to are Fraser Island - and that's only 4WD vehicles, not a campervan - or the islands closer to Brisbane like North Stradbroke (maybe South Stradbroke?), Moreton Island too I think. The Whitsundays are fabulous, day trips are easy to do from Airlie Beach/Shute Harbour. There is a secure lock up garage at Shute Harbour if you want to go to an island for a few days and are concerned about the campervan. For Christmas lunch on one of the islands I would make enquiries well ahead. Some of the Whitsunday Islands you could enquire at are Hamilton, Daydream or South Molle. We were on holiday last Christmas on the NSW coast and everything - I mean everything - was closed Christmas Day and lots of places also closed Boxing Day so do any food shopping, petrol etc in plenty of time. The supermarket on Christmas Eve was jam packed.
Kay

What *is* a "traditional" Christmas lunch in Cairns? Can't imagine it's the same as a "traditional" holiday meal here in the colder parts of the US.

Kimbis, a traditional Christmas lunch in Australia, can still consist of roast turkey/or chicken, ham, christmas pudding, etc. (it all relates back to our ties in mother England)
However, a lot of people in Australia, have broken away, from the "heavy" english style Christmas lunches, because heavy hot food doesn't seem to go with our hot Christmas weather, so people are now having things like, seafood/including cooked prawns, ham, tropical fruits, etc. However, if your parents are still "traditional" over Christmas, then its hard to escape, those big hot meals, on a hot day.

You better believe it Kim, in a lot of cases it is. There are still some that feel "Christmas isn't Christmas" without the roast turkey and pum pud - despite the heat. I belong to the group which sit in the pool all day eating prawns and mangoes and drinking cold white but I think we're still in the minority. Some folks are seriously into European style Christmas home decoration - many around Cairns would rival the Griswalds, except here you see Santa and his friends strung between palm trees!