pfd104

We are planning a five week vacation to Australia for our 25th wedding Anniversary, but can not decide dates? Any help would be appricated. Our trip will follow this route: Fly direct to Cairns - Fly to Alice Springs - Ghan railway to Adelaide - Railway to Melbourne - Fly to Sydney. As I said this will be a four/five week vacation. I was looking at Oct/Nov 07 as my first choice and Feb/Mar 08 as my second choice. Any suggestons......Please. Also any tips on my locations, we are looking at renting a camper for our stay at Uluru as the price of accomadation seems VERY high, any advice. Thanks

lizF

Yes Uluru prices are very expensive as is Kakadu because it is out of the way and they have a monopoly I guess - that is the reason and not an excuse.
October/Nov is a great time throughout Australia but it is getting a tad hot in the centre but you cannot get away from that though whether you go then or in Feb/March but I do think that the second option would be worse actually. You are doing the tourist trail though and I think perhap you could adjust your travels to include some really interesting areas and not just the Capital cities which as far as cities go are OK but they are not really the real Australia. Firstly I trust that you are a fan of train travel as the Ghan goes though some of the most boring country in the world. Over those areas I prefer to fly both to save time and to save boredom. Why not fly from Cairns to Darwin and "do" the Top End which is different from anywhere else in Australia then perhaps you can get to Ayers Rock one way or another and see that area then fly to Adelaide if that is where you want to go ( Adelaide is a nice enough place but not high on International tourist destinations - although the Barossa Valley with the wine is BUT Kangaroo Island in my view is not that special either)
Perhaps then fly from Adelaide to Tasmania and give yourself about 10 days to do that area which will be at the best time of year before going to Sydney via Melbourne.
Anyway those are my thoughts at the present moment for what they are worth and I am sure you will get more information and formulate your plans better over the coming days - then perhaps we can all hone in on your ideas for destinations and travel methods.

Betsy

I sure hope that Oct-Nov is a good time to go, because that's when we'll be there! A suggestion: type "Australia school holidays" (without the quotes) into Google, and plan your trip when all the little Aussie children are in school and not traveling in droves with their parents.

pfd104

LizE: Thanks for your advice, You have made me re-think some of my plans. All I Know for sure is that we will be going to Australia but have not locked into anything concrete. I was looking at a trip to Kangeroo Island? Tasmania, I had not really thought about visiting. Anyone else with ideas. Thanks.

pat_woolford

Another vote for Oct/Nov; in tropical north Qld (Cairns etc) it's about the best time of year for reef and rainforest wildlife. If there's a wet season, and there was a whopper this year, it'll probably be Feb/Mar/April and even if there's no wet, Feb is the most humid month of year in tropical north which includes Darwin. In April this year Cyclone Monica drenched the area for weeks, caused widespread floods and trashed the town of Jabiru, NT and many outback and rural roads were cut off for weeks.

Summer school holidays are Dec/Jan, so either period would work to avoid these.

TreeRoo

Once again I go with Pat's suggestion. If you are worried about the heat in Cairns, base yourself on the Tablelands. See www.yungaburra.com for ideas on places to stay and things to do. I should add that Cairns will nearly always be pleasant at that time of year.

fuzzylogic

Hello,
Oct-Nov is a brilliant time to visit - much better I think than your other option.

And I love the fact that you are not trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot!

I'm the last person to say you should squeeze in this or that place - but taking your itinerary at face value it does seem like you are skipping from city to city (with the exception of Alice Springs) and you have the time to visit a much wider variety of the places Australia has to offer.

I'm just going to throw out some random comments and some random suggestions and hope they will be of use.

It would be shame to fly from ADL to MLB - it's a popular journey on this board by selfdrive. But you would see so much more with these guys:

www.waywardbus.com.au

If you are adventurous types you can also travel overland from Cairns to Alice. These guys don't have the multiplicty of accommodation options that Wayward do, but anyway:

www.desertventurer.com.au

You can also travel overland from Cairns to Darwin.

You didn't mention Darwin - but if I were you I would consider flying Cairns to Darwin and checking out Kakadu. You can train it from there to the Alice these days.

Huge numbers of other possibilities - but perhaps it would be good if you gave us some idea of what your interests are. And whether you need lux.

25 years of marriage - congrats!! - but if you are 45-50 you may still be interested in doing something a little out of the ordinary (50+ as well, of course!!). But maybe you aren't.

Your comment about hiring a camper made me think you might be up for something a little different.

All the bsst.