Outback or Great Barrier Reef?
 

My husband and I will be in Australia for 2 weeks - first part in Sydney & Melbourne (his meetings) and then we will have 5 days to see another part of Australia. I'm thinking the GBR, the Rainforest and Kurando while staying at Port Douglas, but wonder if we should do the Outback instead? I've widely traveled in Costa Rica so have seen rain forests and cloud forests. Would like some input on which we should do. (Traveling in early Nov.) My concern w/the Outback is length of time getting there and back...I think our flight home will be out of Melbourne.

I went to CR before I ever visited Australia and didn't find the GBR area redundant at all! There's so much there---ok, so you won't see monkeys but you'll see loads. Even if you're not a diver, the GBR is most definately worth visiting. I didn't make it to Uluru but did go up to Darwin and visited Kakadu and Litchfield. If I only had 5 days and had to pick, I'd go back to Queensland!

I recommend doing both. Spend two nights at Ayers Rock and three in or near Cairns. Flying from Ayers Rock to Cairns and Cairns to Sydney takes about 21/2-3 hours.

Hello Victorias_23,

When you say the Outback, I imagine you mean Uluru / Ayers Rock. I haven't been there, so cannot comment from personal experience. However, Paul_S, who lives in Alice Springs, recently has reported here that the weather already is very hot and the summer flies are even worse than usual this year.

If I remember Andrew's previous posts, he visited Australia in the southern hemisphere winter, which reputedly is a great time to visit Uluru / Ayers Rock.

I went to Port Douglas in July and the Whitsunday Islands in September, so don't have experience of Far North Queensland in November. From what I understand from the Fodorites who live there, November is just starting to get into the humid season, but it's not as humid as Jan - Feb - Mar.

I believe it would be a valid choice to spend the available free time in FNQ. If you change planes in Sydney or Brisbane, the flight from Melbourne to Cairns is about 5 hours, but you can find direct flights that take about 3 hr 15 min.

I would allocate time as follows:

Day 1 - GBR (you need a full day for this; schedule it for your first full day in case poor weather forces you to postpone, in which case you'll have time to reschedule)

Day 2 - Daintree Forest

Days 3 & 4 - Overnight trip to Undara Lava Tubes (this will give you an idea of the drier terrain on the Atherton Tableland and how much of a contrast there is with the wet coastal plain -- if you have only 1 day to go inland, then take the Skyrail to Kuranda)

If you have any time left over, there are any number of other interesting activities in FNQ. Probably the next most important one, after the above, is seeing native Australian animals. Since many of them are nocturnal, you can arrange an animal viewing activity in the evening that won't interfere with the above mentioned day trips.

Another option you might consider, which wouldn't involve "wasting" any time flying anywhere, would be to drive along the Great Ocean Road from Melbourne to Adelaide. Three days is considered to be a nice length of time to do that drive. Once you're in Adelaide, you could do a day trip to see the wild life on Kangaroo Island and a day trip touring one of the wine regions, such as the Barossa Valley. Then you could fly back to Melbourne (1 hr 20 min), and connect to your flight back home.

Melbourne's weather is extremely variable. It can be hot one day and cool the next day. I mention that for packing purposes.

Here's a thread in which I've just provided Melbourne sight seeing ideas to another poster. It may give you ideas of activities you can do while your husband is in meetings:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34535944

Word searches here at Fodors will bring up numerous threads about Sydney and Melbourne.

Hope that helps.

Good point, Judy. I was in the Outback there in early August -- the perfect time to be there, I think. It would definitely be tough to hike around there in the middle of the day, I would think. But it seemed like most of the tours were either very early in the morning or in the late afternoon/evening.

Having been to both, I would say the GBR. Take a day trip out with a company that offers helicopter tours over the GBR, one lady I traveled with had tears in her eyes after doing that.

Victorias, If you fly into Alice and drive to Kings Canyon and Uluru the Olgas
you'll pass through a nice swath of emptiness and about 100 kms beyond Alice arrive at Stuart's Well wher you can see Dinky, the world famous singinging and piano playing dingo of Central Australia.

A/D