Greetings once again from Florida in the 'states.

We are planning our 5th holiday down under and are in need of a little advice once again from our friends

We will arrive in Cairns on 26 Sept 07 and will be out on the Spirit of Freedom again and plan on departing Cairns on the 10th or 11th of Oct.

Andrea really wants to see Coober Pedy and we both want to spend a few days in Tasmania. As always we plan our last week to be in Sydney.

We have about 16 days to get Coober Pedy and Tasmania toured. We would also enjoy spending a couple of days in Adelaide to visit the wine country one more time, but are not sure if that would be too much.

The advice you have given us in the past has always been nothing short of magical!

Looking forward to hearing from you all!

Cheers

Steve and Andrea

Ha Steve/Andrea, I do not wish to railroad the thread here but we were in Coober Peddy for a day and a half which we thought was plenty of time.

From what we could see the best place to seek lodgings was the place we stayed at called the desert cave hotel.
This hotel was half underground and half above ground.The restaurant at the hotel was worh the visit to Coober Peddy alone as the food and selection of South Australian wines was very good. The little pizza place across the road was exceptional for breakfast.

The main street has many small shops for the purchase of opals. Not a lot of vegetation about any where in the town.
We did meet lots of local indidgenous folk wandering about the town.
We could not find a cab anywhere, some one said the local cab driver does not want to drive as it's too much work in the heat. Anyhow it's not that big you can not just walk from shop to shop.

Thanks for the tips ThirdEdition99

We welcome ideas from everyone. Guess we have been in this section for too many years and have just been spoiled with all of the friendly advice

Cheers

As ever, visitors to opur country see more than the natives do.

I've never been to Coober Pedy - but.....

Hi stevew,
I would certainly recommend popping into Coober Pedy. I doubt you'll see anywhere else quite like it. Where else in the world can you 'noodle' for opals. There are noodling pits out front of a number of opal stores - my son (who was 9 at the time) couldn't pass one without having a good look and a noodle to see if he might not have some luck and find a good opal. (He never did but he had fun trying)

Do try to get a car and take a short trip out to The Breakaways. This is the area where Mad Max was filmed. Quite a lunar landscape but very beautiful just the same.

Allowing 16 days for Coober Pedy and Tasmania would be a good length of time to achieve your travel wishes. You would certainly see a great deal of Tassie in that time.

Here's a link to the trip report that inspired us to alter our itinerary to see Tasmania. We just returned from our trip and my trip report, including Tasmania, will be posted soon if I can stay awake long enough to continue working on it. We loved the Tasmania part of our trip!

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34825064

Steve and Andrea, I'm flattered to be included but unfortunately I'm out of my comfort zone when it comes to Tasmania (have only been there on business, will remedy that one day) and Coober Pedy (have never been there). I hope the tips keep coming, though. Have a great time.

Tasmania is worth as much time as you can allow - here are two more Tas trip reports if you're interested:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34790967

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34540728

Looking forward to your trip report Betsy.

Haven't been to Coober Pedy yet, but it's on my short list.

Hello Steve and Andrea! Another trip on Spirit of Freedom - do envy you.

Alan seems to have fled the forum, which is a crying shame. Like Neil have only been to Hobart on business so far, have been to opal mining towns in NSW, but not SA, so am not much use here.

LizF has moved from Queensland to live in Tasmania, am sure she'd be happy to give you tips for there as well.

cheers and have a great trip

Pat

Thanks to all for the suggestions and links for trip reports - much to read

Pat you should take a trip on Spirit one of these days! If we could only afford to live in Cairns! Oh and we will be bringing you more of your favorites from Southern Calif again next year

Would love to hear from LizF as well. Sorry to hear that Alan isn't a regular these days. His tips were fantastic. I have an old email address for him - we will drop him a note and see if that works. Or maybe we will see him at his favorite spot in Sydney

Cheers

Steve and Andrea

Steve and Andrea, since you are old hands on the Spirit of Freedom, could you give me a little info on it? I seem to think you wrote to me before, but if so, I forgot it, so please forgive me asking again. We are going to Oz in Oct. 2007 (and have the tickets to prove it this time!!!) and want to do the Spirit of Freedom, too. However, we are snorkelers and although we read on their site that the tour we are looking at is good for snorkelers, it would be good to hear from you, too. Are they kind to snorkelers or just tolerate them? Which cabin did you go for? It looks like one of their doubles is in the front away from the engine and not as pricey as the deluxe ones. Do you think we could specify since we are booking almost a year in advance? When did you book them? Well, that's enough questions, but feel free to add any other info that occurs to you. How about stability for jumpy tummies? I am determined to NOT be sea sick, but a good report would be nice!
Thanks--it looks like our paths will cross since we are getting to Cairns just after you leave.
Sally in Seattle

Salley

Snorklers on SOF would have a great time on the GBR portion of the trip. Many of the reefs are shallow with little to no current. You can see amazing things over shallow reefs, often you will see things that scuba divers do not. There are also reefs in the Coral Sea that are shallow enough for snorklers, but I think it better in the GBR. Send a note to SOF and ask them.

The SOF team are kind to everyone. You may find you are the only snorklers on board, that said there will be 26 scuba divers in addition to your family. If you are willing to get into the water and swim to the reef you will do fine with the scuba divers. If you get nervous and hang around the dive platform - which makes it difficult for divers to enter or exit the water, then you may not find many friends.

Cabins - we always book the deluxe ocean view cabin. I am retired from the US Coast Guard and prefer a cabin above deck these days. Cabins below deck make me feel like I am back at work. The cabins are nice, and you will book a certain class of cabin, and in some instances you can book a specific cabin. If you book a share cabin - SOF does not guarantee same gender for all bunks - scuba diving isn't a shy sport so this doesnt bother most folks in the sport.

October 2007 is almost completely sold out, so if you want to go book it now.

We have been in touch with SOF for many months tracking our cabin's availability. We really wanted to go later in the month, but those dates dissapeared.

Also early Oct may be windier than the latter half of the month. SOF is the largest liveaboard in Australia and has fin stabalizers which keeps the rolling down when the ship is moving through the water. If you are prone to seasickness talk to your Dr about the Transderm patches - they work very well and have few side affects. Might make you feel like you have had a few drinks, or give you that cotton mouth feeling.

When going out on any liveaboard, there are no guarantees on what mother nature will dish out in the way of weather.

If you get really seasick, then consider day trips instead. You can try and move your booking around to days with better weather and you will have more snorklers to buddy up with.

Regardless, you will enjoy the underwater opera that takes place in the GBR. Snorklers and divers alike will find things there that you cannot see in the Northern hemispere.

I am a scuba diving gorilla. I rarely miss a dive opportunity. If something ever happened to me and I could no longer dive, but could snorkel. I would go out on SOF again and do just that. - But thats me

Cheers

Steve

thanks, Steve, for your encouraging post. Except for the "already booked" part! Yikes! Will contact them immediately! Thanks for the heads-up about that. We have excellent fins and are not afraid to swim distances, so not hanging around the dive platform is not a problem! Thanks for the advice, also the info about the cabins. I look forward to your trip report about Coober Pedy as well as Tasmania. Both places we are interested in--if the GBR didn't have such a pull for us this trip.
Sally in Seattle, it's official--we have the wettest Nov. on record. Already.

Just got out of hospital after 10 days ( I went in for one night) and still feel a bit frightful so will answer some of your questions or give you some ideas about Tassie in the next few days when I am somewhat back to normal.

I've been walking in a total black-out and dust and small stones storm in Coober Pedy, back from the Pub to the Motel - a very scary experience, with all the loose tin covering mine airholes at the time, but fun. Forty years ago, we met a man there with a set of opal teeth!! He told us he put them in to impress, when he made trips to Adelaide. It's a great place, but there's lots more to see in Tasie.

We lived in Georgetown, on the north coast of Tasmania, for six years. October can be very cold and windy, but who knows? It could also be perfect! Tasie has got a lot more touristy since we were there, but perhaps that's a good thing. There's a flourishing wine industry on the Tamar now, and a quaint faux-Swiss village called Grindelwald, built by a supermarket entrepreneur when he sold out to Woolworths.Don't miss
looking at Mt Rowland on the way to Cradle Mountain, Cataract Gorge at Launceston (walk around from Pennyroyal Inn to the Swimming Pool), the Japanese swimming monkeys in the park in Launceston(not sure if they are still there) and there's lots more. There's a great Tasmanian Tourism site on the web.

As someone who's been to the Tasmanian version of Grindelwald, I'd suggest giving it a pass unless you're into pure kitsch and hotels that feel the need to nail down the lamps. Faux sums it up nicely.

If you ever get the chance to visit the real Grindelwald however, do.

DH and I saw the sign for Grindelwald from the road, looked at each other, and said "huh?" Glad we skipped it, Melnq8.

Hope you feel better soon, Liz!

Trip report is in progress, and will be finalized after our Thanksgiving trip to see DS and family

Hi Betsy et al - bed helped the healing last night and to be able to wake up to the view this morning with the birds and the flowers must be aiding my recovery. It will be a miracle if anyone can ever get me near another surgeon ever - will have to be in a coma I think.
Anyway for stevew here is a couple of links to websites that could be a starter on his quest to find out a bit about Tasmania
The first is a fairly amataurish one but gives better information about places that cannot pay big $$$ for advertising http://tww.id.au/tas/index.html but the photos leave a lot to be desired in places and the other one is the Official one with better photos but following the more standard tourist destinations other than really charming ones http://www.discovertasmania.com.au/home/index.cfm
Between the two and with the information that Betsy gave you on a trip report I think you can get some idea of where you would like to go and then we can upgrade your ideas to get the best possible deal/accommodation out of those choices. Hope that sounds helpful.
Although Coober Pedy would be interesting I really think that a bit of something different in Tassie would be far more rewarding and memorable.

Hi LizF, Betsy, Melng8, and Carrabella

Thanks for all of the wonderful information. We do have a lot to think about and will spend at least a weak in Tassie

Glad you are feeling better LizF. Doesn't sound to good when you plan for one day and don't get out until 10 days later - sounds quite serious.

We are going to research the web sites, and trip reports. When we get an idea of what we want to see, we will make a new post and run the ideas by everyone.

Cheers

Steve and Andrea

Coober Pedy is entirely worth the hardship of actually getting there....10 hours drive from Adelaide or a 1.5 hour flight on tiny plane. Apart from the uniqueness of the desert, the opals and underground houses, the biggest surprise is the food! Unlike almost every other outback town in Australia the population is really diverse - lots of Greeks, Italians, Rumanians, Poles etc who arrived to make their fortune opal mining. You'll consequently get great proper coffee, and see European newspapers in the shops. Yep, Desert Cave is the only place to stay. If you have the time and the inclination, driving from CP to Adelaide via the Flinders Ranges is definitely worthwhile - spectacular scenery and great places to stay like the Parachilna Pub. I agree with LizF that there's lots to see in Tasmania, and never enough time, but I can honestly say that there's nothing like Coober Pedy!