My husband and I would like to travel to Australia with our 6 year old daughter in October from Denver, CO. We have never been to Australia and would like some help on itinerary & lodging advice. We would like to spend two weeks exploring with a budget of approximately $300/day (lodging, food, and activities). We think Sydney and the Great Barrier Reef area are two destinations we would like to see, but would love any advice!

If possible, we would prefer lodging with a kitchenette due to my daughter's gluten free diet restrictions.

We enjoy "family friendly" activities (zoos, beach, hikes). My daughter has become quite the little snorkler so we would like to visit some good snorkling locations that would be "kid" friendly.

Thanks in advance for the help!

For snorkellinng, Heron Island is great for children, they can swim straight out from the beach. Also the island has a daily "Junior Rangers" program that has activities specifically catered for children. The island is a national park so that a lot of the activities are about the habitat.

The program of activities is more intensive during Australia school holidays. If you google "Australian school holidays" you can find a site that compares the dates for the different states.

Is your budget $300 AUD or USD? As Heron Island might be more than you want to spend, but the rates vary greatly according to the season, we got a very good deal in August once. So it might be worth checking.

October is one of the best months to visit the GBR from Far North Queensland (Cairns, Port Douglas, etc), and there's frequent flights from Sydney-Cairns at low prices - see Virgin Blue, Jetstar. October in FNQ is before marine stinger season and weather usually lovely as its after the SE trade winds of winter and before humidity starts to build for wet season. So a good time for a beach stay, Trinity Beach, a northern Cairns suburb is popular with families and has a wide range of self-contained apartments.

Trinity Beach isn't far from Cairns Tropical Zoo where you can have photo taken holding koala (not allowed in NSW), easy access to Kuranda via Skyrail/Scenic Train, at Kuranda there's Koala Gardens (more koala holding photo ops), Birdworld (large walk-through aviary with native birds including cassowary as well as exotics) and a butterfly sanctuary.

If your little girl is happy about snorkelling in deep water, Reef Magic out of Cairns is a good trip for kids, it has a stable pontoon with snorkelling off the edge, and a small kid's pool on edge of pontoon. This would more than blow your budget for the day, a cheaper option which kids always enjoy is Green Island out of Cairns, where there's plenty of room for them to run about.

Trinity Beach is on public bus service to Cairns city where Muddies Playground on Esplanade is a huge hit with kids, with free entrance to all.

Serviced apartments, of which there are many, are your best shot if you want a kitchenette. If you check www.wotif.com, even if you don't want to take advantage of their "last-minute" discounts (from memory, actually "last 3 weeks"), you'll see quite a few suitable properties along with location information.

wotif pricing however is not inevitably the cheapest - some travellers have done better by negotiating direct. If you find some apartments that appeal you could try phoning them direct and see what rates they can do for you.

Note that rates will be expressed in AU$, as of course will anything else you buy in Australia. As of yesterday AU$1.00 = $US0.71. Thus, if your budget is US$300.day, that would (currently) equal about AU$423.

If needed the national online phone directories are www.whitepages.com.au and www.yellowpages.com.au.

As always I recommend investing in a guidebook (e.g. Fodors/Lonely Planet/Rough Guide/Frommers). The cost will be trivial in relation to the cost of your visit.

Thanks for all your helpful suggestions. There is so much to learn about!