An Australian Top 10
| September 12, 2011 | Posted by wpa under Uncategorized |
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As a hotel reviewer I often get asked to list the best things to do. here’s some observations about Australia.
1.The most popular departure point for those looking to snorkel and dive the Great Barrier Reef, Cairns is a popular place to catch a chartered tour to the reef. There are numerous operators that offer a wide variety of different kinds of tours out to the reef. You can choose between day-cruises or extended tours, which vary greatly in quality.If you aren’t yet certified to dive, but can’t imagine a daytrip to the Great Barrier Reef without doing so, you can easily pick up your certification in a few days at Down Under Dive. They offer a 4-day learn to dive course, which gives you your open water qualification and gives you the opportunity for several solo dives out on the reef. Almost all boats now days have an green tourism rating, which means you don’t have to worry about damaging the reef while you are checking it out.
2.Generally thought to be the hot air ballooning capital of the southern hemisphere, Mareeba is just a 1 hour drive from Cairns. Champagne Balloons has a ballooning package that includes a 5 am pickup from your hotel, a buffet breakfast and champagne toast for about 0 . Enjoy the awe inspiring countryside at sun up, enjoy half an hour floating in a hot air balloon, and is concluded with breakfast and champagne in scenic and popular resort town of Port Douglas. Checking out the gorgeous scenery from the air in a balloon makes this a must do.
3.Just south of Cairns<, Mission Beach is the closest mainland point to the Great Barrier Reef. The beach is a 9 mile long, pristine sandy beach, with fantastic views of Bedarra and a couple of other islands just within sight. There is a quaint township there, where you can learn more about activities like snorkelling or skydiving, though some would be perfectly content soaking up the sunlight and taking in the beautiful views.You can stay in Mission Beach, though many will be driving from Cairns. If you did not hire a car or camper van for your [holiday|vacation|trip}, there is a company that offers a coach transfer service named Mission Beach Dunk Island Connections, which takes the scenic road between Port Douglas, Cairns, and the Cassowary coast.
4.Tropfest is the world’s largest short film festival and is held early in February each year in Sydney. Tropfest also screens nationally in Australia’s capital cities. The aim is to ‘showcase the work of emerging filmmakers and to give them the chance to show their short films for their peers in a festive environment’. For everyone else it’s a chance to watch free films while drinking beer on a warm summer’s evening. Each film must contain a ‘signature item’, something inanimate the organisers decided months previously to ensure the film was made for Tropfest. The event began in 1993 when a local actor/director John Polson screened one of his own short films at the Tropicana Café in Darlinghurst. 200 people crammed the café. The next year 2000 showed up and chaos reigned on the café strip. Last year it’s estimated 100,000 watched the festival in The Domain, while millions more filled the interstate venues.
5.Try to play Didgeridoo and learn something about Aboriginal Culture. You will find out that blowing into the carved tree is not as easy as you would think (but you may have lot of fun, you or the guy teaching you). Cultural centres of aborginal art and history are spread all around the land. You will learn stories about the Dreamtime and learn a lot of how people lived in the old days and what were their values. It may change your perception of the locals you may meet on your travels.
6.The thing to do at Uluru – climb to the top of it. Located near Alice Springs aka the Outback, Uluru, one of the World’s Heritage Sites, is a large sandstone formation standing at 1,142 feet in height and turns different shades of bright red throughout the day, particularly so during sunrise and sunset. Also, Uluru is a spiritual source for the Indigenous people who also believe that a curse is placed on anyone who takes rocks away with them. In the tourist information center, there is a exhibition of rocks that have been posted back from tourists who took them home. There is a long chain placed along the side of the trail that acts as a handrail for the trek up and the views from atop this magnificent site are simply breathtaking. The local Indigenous people do not like people climbing Uluru, however this decision is up to you.
7.The largest continuous area of rainforest in the southern hemisphere, the Daintree National Park is a protected area of lush rainforest located north of Cairns. The Daintree, which encompasses around 1200 square kilometers, is not only a World Heritage site, but is also home to a large variety of flora and fauna—including marsupials, frogs, birds and the endangered cassowary. Generally thought to be the oldest rainforest in the world, the Daintree forest is over 138 million years old and has more than 440 different species of bird, including 13 species found only there. There are several day bushwalks that allow travelers to experience sections of this beautiful rainforest by themselves, as well as guided tours that can help teach you about the ecology on your way.
8.Whitehaven Beach is set amongst the Whitsunday Islands along the Central Queensland coast and can be reached by sea or air. I have been to thousands ofan uncountable amount of beaches in my travels and this is undoubtedly the most perfect, most beautiful stretch of sand I have ever witnessed. If you can think of the most perfect, whitest, cleanest sand, the clearest, lightest, bluest water that’s Whitehaven Beach. Airlie Beach is most often used as the base point to get to the Whitsunday Islands and Whitehaven Beach. A popular way to see Whitehaven is an overnight sailing tour. There are lots of sailing companies in Airlie Beach that offer this service. There are also day cruises to just Whitehave or including a visit to another island such as Hook Island.
9.Attend a surf school and experience the surfing lifestyle. Have you ever dreamed of surfing the waves? Well, now is your opportunity. Surfing is huge down under. Not just as recreation, but as a way of life. There is something special about the people that live and breath surfing. They have a natural ease and calm for lifelust for life, that is impossibel to find elsewhere. And it’s almost impossible to understand it until you actually do it. The two seconds of elation while you stand on the board for the first time, with knees shaking like an old man will live with you always. At least long enough to recover from the wave that will Watch the amazing view of the Sydney Opera House with the fantastic Harbour bridge in the foreground .The Sydney Opera House is widely recognized as the symbol of Australia, as well as being one of the most famous performing arts centres in the world. The main attraction is off course the unique design. On major celebrations in Sydney history, like New Years Eve and the Sydney Olympic games, the bridge has always been the focal point. For the adventurous, it’s also possible to climb the bridge.
10.Port Arthur is a great tourist destination full of Australian history. Founded as a convict settlement in 1830, Port Arthur originally served the British Empire as a timber station. Industry in the area soon followed and by the 1840s Port Arthur had a convict population of over 12000. However, by the 1870s the convicts were gone and left the buildings of the period that stand to this day that weren’t destroyed by fires in the late 19th century. Tourists soon followed with an interest in viewing the “horrors” of a British penal colony. Protection of Port Arthur as a important site was established with the creation of the Scenery Preservation Board in 1916. Today, ongoing archeological studies continue to dig up the penal colony past. Don’t miss the night ghost tours.
I trust these help any future visitors to Australia.
