Colleent

Well, we are in the final stages of planning for our October trip to Australia. Here is our temporary itinerary and I would appreciate any suggestions regarding the length of time in each area.
Sunday, October 10, 2010 Qantas Sydney to Melbourne
Great Ocean Road
Phillips Island
Two days in Melbourne
Sunday, October 18, 2010 Qantas Melbourne to Cairns
Great Barrier Reef
Scenic Railway and Cable Ride Tablelands
Saturday, October 23, 2010 Qantas Cairns to Sydney
Usual tourist things in Sydney
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 Qantas Sydney to LAX

What are your thoughts regarding days in each area-too many or too few? We are flexible as we will be flying standby in Australia since my husband retired from the airlines.

Thanks again for your help.

longhorn55

Looks just fine to me.
If I were going, I'd take a day from the Melbourne portion and add it to the Cairns portion because I prefer Far North Queensland to the Melbourne area. But that's just my personal preference.

peterSale

When you are on the great ocean road be sure to stop at Melba Gully at night.It is part of the Otways National Park. If you do the gully walk at night you will see thousands of Glow Worms on the side of the track. It is a very easy track to walk and any kind of torch will do. Stay at Port Campbell about half an hour drive away.

http://www.parkweb.vic.gov.au/resources05/05_1831.pdf

Also do the Otway Fly. It is a treee top walk. Fantastic.
http://www.otwayfly.com/

What do you want to see in Melbourne and Phillip Island?

In Sydney - The rocks is the old part of the city under the Harbour bridge. Here are some museums.
http://www.therocks.com/sydney-Thing..._Galleries.htm

This one should be great. It was not open when we went.
http://www.therocks.com/sydney-Thing...ace_Museum.htm

If you want to climb the Bridge, good idea to book now.

A cheap way of seeing the Harbour Bridge; Luna Park and the Opera House is to catch the ferry from Darling Harbour to Circular Quay.Darling Harbour has a great maritime museum where you can board a replica of Captain Cook's Endeavour and a submarine. Darling harbour is also full of water side cafes and shops.

Enjoy and keep in touch. Melbourne is/was my home town and the great ocean road was my playground.

Cheers

peterSale

With the Great Ocean Road.How far are you planning to go along it? If you go all the way to Warrnambool there is a good chance you will see whales there. Also just out of Warranambool is Tower Hill a nested caldera ie a volcanic crater with more volcanoes inside. It erupted about 7,000 years ago. You could then come back to Melbourne the inland way, which is a lot faster and view the volcanic lakes around Colac.

Did you consider going to Ballarat and looking at Sovereign Hill? It is a replica of a Gold town and has a great sound and light show at night about the Eureka Stockade. This is where the Police and Army attacked and killed some 30 protesting Miners. The only major violent part of history really.

http://www.sovereignhill.com.au/

It might be worth a detour rather than Melbourne. Melbourne is lovely with great parks, buildings, museums etc. but, is after all just a city. Unless you have some specific reason to visit, of course.

Enjoy. I am on here most days so if you need anything let me know.

Susan7

I'm with Longhorn, I'd also shift the balance to allow more time in Far North Queensland.

Four days is about right for Sydney. You could visit the Opera House, do a tour or take in a show in the evening. The studio has very reasonably priced tickets for more experimental events.

There are nice walks in and around the city, including through the Botanical Gardens. Slightly out of town there are excellent walks around the beaches. Do the Bondi to Bronte walk (easily accessible by bus) or perhaps go to Manly (another beach you can get to by ferry).

The museums I'd recommend visiting on a short trip are the Art Gallery of NSW (and in particular the Aboriginal art collection on display on the lower floor), and the Museum of Sydney (a beautiful museum with interesting temporary exhibitions on Sydney history).

Both the Aquarium and Taronga Park Zoo are worth a visit.

For shopping, the main department stores are in the CBD. Paddington is another good shopping location for fashion and good bars, restaurants and cafes, ditto Surry Hills. There are good free guides to the various shopping areas from this site: http://urbanwalkabout.com/sydney/

Colleent

Awesome! Thank you for all the good suggestions. Great suggestions for Sydney.

peterSale,
Would we be able to go to Waarnambool within the 5 or 6 days allotted? We plan to make a lot of stops-maybe staying in Lorne, Apollo, or Port Campbell.

Thanks.

peterSale

Certainly, Melbourne to Warnnambool via Geelong and the great ocean road is 5 hrs 24 minutes according to google maps.

It is three and a half to get back to Melbourne. So Nine Hours of driving in five days.

If you go back via Ballarat it adds about half an hour to the total. So about 9 and a half hours in 5-6 days.

Whilst Lorne and Angelsea and the beaches in between are lovely they are fairly typical white sand and blue water beaches. The towns are lovely but typical beach towns. The drive in between along the cliffs is what the trip is all aboutand the forest of the Otway Ranges.

The really spectacular coast is around the Twelve Apostles near Port Campbell. A hellicopter ride over them would be money well spent I think. But have we have not done it as yet. We live on the other side of the state.

I would allow at least a FULL day to do the area around Port Campbell and the Bay of Islands. Stay in Port Campbell and do Melba Gully as previously mentioned. It is not getting dark till around 7.30 so you will have a great amount of time to explore. So have dinner then go to Melba Gully.

Have a bit of an explore on the web and then decide.

Have you booked anywhere along the coast? It is a fairly quiet time at present so there should be plenty of options for you to play it by ear.

You will have a great time.

ashleee

Hello......colleent
Great you have trip to amazing places. You are going to enjoy lots.. I had a trip last year Melbourne and Byron bay beach house. These are great place to enjoy.

Bokhara2

That's interesting, Ashlee - how did you get from Melbourne to Byron Bay?