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Home > Features > Australia
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Six Reasons to go Down Under
Posted On
02.10.07 |
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Australia is not a just a great country to visit– it’s a huge continent, with a huge range of options for different sorts of holiday. We asked our wizard of Oz Nigel Tisdall to pick his six best reasons to travel halfway round the world
To party!
Everyone knows Australians love sport, barbecues and the beach, but it’s only when you get there that you realise just how much they enjoy the good life. In this enormous, sun-baked land all the action is concentrated around the coast, and there’s simply no better place to start your holiday than Sydney. Still basking in the positive images from the 2000 Olympics, this welcoming waterside city has a compelling style and energy thanks to its sparkling harbour (a cruise is a must), the iconic Opera House and distinctive neighbourhoods peppered with familiar names like Kings Cross, Oxford Street and Paddington.
While there are plenty of sights to be seen (start with the historic core around Macquarie Street), it’s the city’s everyday pleasures – Sydney Fish Market, the Royal Botanic Gardens, scenic walks around Manly – that are the star attractions. Go during the Australian summer if you want to see Sydney in its full glory, and head straight for the seaside (there are over 30 beaches). Another lure is the thrilling restaurant scene, which is backed up with excellent Oz wines and a friendly service born of a ‘no worries’ culture.
Sydney’s long-standing rival Melbourne is equally appealing. Here you’ll find trend-savvy shops, marvellous food markets, a thriving cafe society and top sporting events like the Melbourne Cup horseracing in November. With its arts festivals, ethnic restaurants and rattling trams, this is a good choice if you’re visiting Australia in the cooler winter months.
To be beside the seaside
As the seasons in the southern hemisphere are reversed, the chance to swap our dreary British winter for high summer on a beach Down Under is hard to resist – particularly if you like to get away at Christmas. In fact, when it comes to enjoying sun, sea and sand, Australia can be considered a year-round destination. Many British travellers visit the coast of Queensland during our summer holidays, where the combination of endless beaches, top-class resorts and the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef guarantee a brilliant time.
Fly into Cairns then head north to Port Douglas, which is an excellent base for exploring what’s known as the Tropical North. Here you can combine boat trips to snorkel and dive with walks and tours into the glorious Daintree and Cape Tribulation area, home to the oldest rainforest in the world. This is the coast that Captain Cook came sailing down in 1770, and it’s remarkable that parts of it remain so green and pristine today.
Elsewhere, the shores of Australia are speckled with beaches for all seasons. Head to Noosa for a hip, celebrity scene, and to Byron Bay to spot whales and dolphins between June and November. For a rewarding coastal hike try the Bay of Fires in Tasmania, or go horseriding over the sands by Warrnambool, on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. If you fancy a luxury hideaway with deserted white beaches, go for Bedarra or Orpheus Islands in North Queensland – or for some real wilderness, drive up to Cape Leveque on the Dampier peninsula in Western Australia.
To experience the Outback
Okay, we’ve all seen the pictures, but in reality Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock) is quite a surprise. Everyone who makes it to Australia’s Red Centre is overwhelmed and humbled by the monumental scale, complex hues and peculiar isolation of this 300-million-year-old rock. Deep in the heart of the continent, it’s the obvious destination for anyone seeking a quick taste of the Outback, along with nearby Alice Springs where you can learn about the flying doctor service and visit the wonderful School of the Air, which teaches children living on unbelievably remote farms.
There are plenty more adventures to be had in Australia’s vast interior, a wild landscape of big skies and endless deserts that gets truly magical once you get away from the tourist hot-spots. Travellers can fly into cattle ranches the size of Belgium, take jeep tours into the bush to camp beneath incredible stars, and visit the bizarre opal-mining town of Coober Pedy, which gets so hot its hotels are built underground.
Above all, the Outback is a place to appreciate the living culture of the Aborigines, which is so much more than a load of dotty paintings. Darwin is the best gateway for this, a multi-ethnic frontier city where you can visit the excellent Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and hop over to the nearby Tiwi Islands. To see extraordinary Aboriginal rock art, book a trip from here into Arnhem Land or the Kakadu National Park, otherwise known as Crocodile Dundee country. This far north the climate is tropical with a dry season from May to October, while the Red Centre can be visited year-round.
To take an epic train ride
Flying’s too quick, driving’s so slow... Jump on a train, though, and you really feel the immensity of Australia. Perth to Sydney is the country’s classic great rail journey, a 2,702-mile (4,348-km) transcontinental trundle known as the Indian-Pacific. It takes three nights and stops at forgotten places like Cook, where the population has rarely reached double figures, and the silver-mining town of Broken Hill, which starred in Australian movies such as Mad Max and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Life on board these trains is no hardship – most passengers travel in Gold Kangaroo Class, which means ensuite cabins with a shower and all meals included, served in a well-appointed restaurant car as you watch the sheep farms, Nullarbor Plains and Blue Mountains roll by.
Standards are equally high on the Ghan, which travels north-south between Darwin and Adelaide. This takes two nights with stops made for scenic tours of Katherine Gorge (best done by helicopter) and Alice Springs. Popular with retired travellers, both trains have a relaxed, sociable atmosphere and there’s no need to dress up. A third, shorter route is the Overlander, which links Melbourne and Adelaide – a delightful and often overlooked city with a Mediterranean climate and superb food and wine. Nearby attractions include the vineyards of the Barossa Valley, the holiday retreat of Kangaroo Island, and the spectacular Flinders Ranges.
To treat the kids
Australia might seem a long way to go with children, but flying long-haul has become a lot more comfortable these days. Seat-back TVs keep everyone entertained, and there’s always the option of a stopover en route. Once there, families soon fall in love with a land that offers so much to do so easily. Australia is a relaxed, safe and stimulating destination for children, and its outdoors culture is a blessing if you have youngsters with bags of energy. And this won’t just be a holiday – with an engrossing history featuring Aborigines, explorers and convicts, and a natural world that ranges from tropical forests and coral islands to wombats and whales, a trip to Australia is also highly educational. There are plenty of good museums and wildlife sanctuaries, not to mention the odd theme park, and the kids will have no complaints about the tucker.
If possible try to go for three weeks, perhaps moving twice to get a variety of experiences such as city, beach and rainforest. Hiring a motorhome is a popular way to tour, but be careful not to spend all your time on the road – the distances here are huge and low-cost airlines have made it easy to hop around by air. Many resorts and aparthotels have rooms with kitchen facilities, and offer organised activities for children along with lifeguards on the beach and babysitting, so Mum and Dad can have some fun too. As the locals put it, you’ll all have a ball, tiger.
To see amazing wildflowers
If you’re a nature-lover, then Western Australia is rich with rewards. This barely-populated state has a coastline that stretches for a whopping 7,700 miles (12,400 km), offering visitors the chance to wander on beautiful shell-covered beaches and swim with the world’s largest fish, the whale shark. From June to November, huge swathes of the countryside are covered with wildflowers, which can be enjoyed in national parks like Kalbarri or by following driving tours such as the Pilbarri and Jarrahland Trails.
Most visitors to this region fly straight into Perth, where it’s worth seeing the historic port of Fremantle and exploring the wineries around Margaret River. Further north, the Coral Coast is the place to spot dolphins and manta rays and snorkel along the Ningaloo Reef, while Broome is a far-flung escape famous for its pearls and amazing sunsets. Here you can ride camels on Cable Beach then head inland to the Kimberley, a frontier region that includes the World Heritage- listed Purnululu National Park (otherwise known as the Bungle Bungles). Here masses of strange, sandstone peaks with bee-like stripes present a mysterious spectacle that is probably best discussed over a nice cool beer. And that, of course, is another aspect of Australia well worth exploring...
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Nigel Tisdall, Travel Writer
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