New Zealand/Australia

O

OldHippie

2,500+ Posts
I'll be in New Zealand and eastern Australia for 2 months in the fall. Where is the best place to go to the Great Barrier Reef? Any other suggestions?
 
i am a big fan of New Zealand.. you got 2 months.. i would recommed at least spend 5 weeks in NZ and 3 weeks in Australia.

The Fall.. i would spend the first part of your trip in Australia, the 2nd part in NZ. It will be warmer in NZ in November than it will be in October. Further, it will be warmer in Australia in October than it would be in NZ in October. Make sense? I don't know if you have that type of flexibility.

I could give more advice if you kind of let me know what kind of vacation you enjoy. adventure? natural settings? tropical? cities, rural settings, mountains, roughing it, luxury, hotels or motels, etc?

I don't know too much about Australia, but i know quite a bit about NZ.

oh, and i am very jealous. You will have a blast.
 
We stayed in Port Douglas and took the Quicksilver to GBR. Stayed at Thala Beach Lodge, which is about 10 minutes outside of Port Douglas. Excellent resort. Make sure to catch the Toad Races in town. Can not remember the name of the bar, but I am sure someone can set you straight on it.

Beachwise, we were big fans of the Gold Coast/Surfers Paradise area. A bit touristy, but the beaches are nice and there are several great resorts.
 
The trip is completely flexible as long as it is approximately October and November. I understand the winter/summer switch and we were considering Australia first for that reason. Our thoughts had initially been Great Barrier Reef, Ayers Rock, Sydney and maybe Melbourne and/or Adelaide all in 2-3 weeks. That may be too much travel (flying) considering the distances.

We have a house swap with some Aucklanders, so we'll be much longer in New Zealand. We'll spend some time in Auckland but I don't know much about the other cities. We hope to do a lot of hiking and nature sights, maybe some farm stays and home stays if they are available. Do you think we could just drive and call ahead each day as we went or would they all be booked? We'll have use of a car to drive up and down both islands if that would be a good plan.

Thanks for the tips on the GBR. Is it easy to get there from Port Douglas? Do you know if it is a better option than Cairns? Is the Quicksilver a seaplane? Do you remember what it costs? I'm not sure we will do the resort or beach scene since we're all old hippies with sun damaged skin but we would like to snorkel the reef.
 
also, just for reference, Adelaide to Ayers Rock is about a 1000 miles / 19 hour drive. I think most fly to Alice Springs though. Alice Springs to Ayers Rock is 275 miles / 5 hour drive

to drive the entire South Island of NZ, tip to tip is about 575 miles / 12 hours with much more variety.

I have never been to Ayers Rock. I am sure it is beautiful and maybe someone on here can recommend it, but it is in the middle of nowhere/desert and will take time and money to get to. But hey, you have 2 months! Most don't have the luxury of time you got!
 
When in NZ, definitely head down here to Queenstown. It's only a 2 hour flight from Auckland. I moved here earlier this year and am teaching snowboard lessons at one of the ski/snowboard resorts. If you like adrenaline sports, Queenstown is the place to be when in NZ. Depending on the time of year, we have everything from jet boat rides to paragliding, sking, bungee of course, and all kinds of other stuff and good restaurants. There's also plenty of home rentals available.

If you're looking to buy tickets down to here in Queenstown, or anywhere else in New Zealand for tha tmatter, I would book tickets on Air New Zealand's New Zealand region website, not the .com. site. Here's the URL:The Link. The fares for domestic NZ flights are half off here compared to the regular US site.

What months will you be in NZ for? If you're down here and its still winter, if sking or snowboarding is your thing, I can get you free passes and rentals to Coronet.
 
Thanks for the tips ipd.

We are leaving Austin in mid-October and returning mid-December. The first 2 or 3 weeks will be in Australia. Then we will travel to NZ. We reserved tickets yesterday. Queenstown seems to be well recommended so we'll no doubt spend some time there.

We are all geezers, so adrenaline sports may be out, at least for me anyway. Thanks for the generous offer for free passes and rentals. I will share that information with the friends I'm traveling with but a leisurely tram ride up and down the mountain or a mountain trail hike might be more our style.
 
No problem at all! You'll be here then at a great time. There's a tram right into town that goes up at about a 33 degree angle that gives you a great view of the surrounding mountains. Since you'll be here at a pretty decent time, I'd recommend renting a car and over a couple of days taking a drive out towards Milford Sound. The scenery is absolutely spectacular on the way out there (think Lord of the Rings if you saw the movie..).

There's plenty of other things to do here for all types of people, The people here are great and if I'm around, I always love to meet fellow Horns! Once you further plan your trip out, I can send you a more detailed list of things that I recommend.

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Port Douglas is the place to be for the GBR, we dove 4-5 days of the week we were there. Beaches were relatively quiet and absolutely perfect. The other week of the trip we spent driving around the South Island in a rental car, highly recommended. The only thing I would recommend as to your itinerary is to stay in one place for at least a few days in Australia, you'll want to relax a bit and enjoy it all.
 
Thanks for the information on the GBR and Port Douglas. The people I'm going with want to snorkel the reef from Cairns. Anybody ever visited the GBR from Cairns?
 
Don't know why I guessed when I could have just looked it up. Port Douglas and Cairns are 47km away, so yes, I have been snorkeling and diving on the reef there.

Fantastic, as expected. One day out of five the wind made it choppy for the snorkelers. The boat ride wasn't exactly short, so I would recommend getting on a nice one as opposed to the dingys you encounter in Mexico, etc. Water was a fantastic 78 degrees when we went in July/August.

Here is who we went with:
Calypso
 
YoLaDu. Thanks for the follow-up. Unfortunately, one of the people I was planning to travel with has developed a major medical problem and we had to postpone the trip for now.
 
Old Hippie, I know what it's like. I was developing a big med problem in August and knew it, but had a trip planned and went anyway. Everything went well, but had to check into the hospital after I returned. Spent my 60th BD in the ******* hospital and barely remember the Wyoming game...Getting old sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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