I spent approximately one-month navigating around Australia starting in Sydney. An early decision was made not to also go to New Zealand as it would of course mean rushing through places and not getting a good grasp. A month in Australia to focus primarily on the eastern seaboard was a decent amount of time - especially as a fact-finding mission for a subsequent trip. I would want at least that much time travelling about New Zealand.
This trip comprised the following: Sydney (go to the fish market for lunch), Byron Bay (chill-vibe surrounded by nice scenery), Surfer's Paradise (questionable at best), Brisbane (under-rated), Cairns (seems to survive off Great Barrier Reef traffic), Cape Tribulation/Daintree Rainforest (best place I visited), Adelaide (terribly empty black-hole of a city), Kangaroo Island (second best place I visited), Tasmania (Freycinet is ridiculously over-rated) & Melbourne / Great Ocean Road (quite enjoyable despite the weather encountered).
So, to solve a couple matters:
- Anyone who goes to Cape Tribulation as part of a daytrip has not gone to Cape Tribulation. Sure you can check it off on some checklist - but there is so much there to explore. Sleeping in the rainforest surrounded by nocturnally-induced activities and then waking up to the ruckus of various birds & animals must be experienced here.
Watching a 20ft (7m) amethystine python rest in the rafters of a house is interesting. Discovering, that said python struck a rat in the middle of the night (inside the kitchen you frequent) and dragged it, blood trail and all, across the floor and into the cabinets below the sink is ever more interesting.
Wandering through rainforest foliage (going nowhere in particular) while attempting to avoid the countless number of large and sticky Golden silk orb-weaver webs is an experience for certain (their webs have been used as fishing nets). Their venom is a neurotoxin and they have been known to eat birds. They do not look friendly and they are very large in relation to most spiders I am familiar with. And yet, you have just walked into a web, feel a spider crawling on your head, are trying to untangle yourself as you run into other webs - great times.
I am not sure how Jumping in a jeep in Cairns and speeding up to Cape Tribulation to go zip-lining with a bunch of rowdy half-drunk teenagers or muddling over boardwalks with said group is getting the full experience...but I digress... - Sydney vs. Melbourne is a silly competition. Both cities are nice and both are worthless places once you enter Australian nature which is grand. And, as far as cities go, Hobart is the best city in Australia in my humble opinion.
- Kangaroo Island was an excellent escape from city-life (and the ghost-town-like city of Adelaide which seemingly has all the infrastructure for a city but not the people). It was laid-back and sparsely populated. This may had to do with the fact that half the island was a raging wildfire. The whole west end, a bunch of the center, and some of the southeast was shut off to travel. Luckily nightly rains put out some of the fires and most of the island was reopened before I had to depart, but Flinders Chase National Park, one of the main attractions on the island, didn't open in time.
Two things about Kangaroo Island: Haloumi cheese at Island Pure, a sheep dairy farm is wonderful. Second, you will beat up your car on the many rough dirt roads (think rental vehicles). Third, you need a vehicle - public or mass transit is very lacking for tourism purposes. Fourth, go to Little Sahara (which you will see in the gallery). - Tasmania has a good number of national parks and is an outdoor wonderland worth a couple weeks in itself. This said, in regards to all the other potential alternatives, I found Freycinet National park to be a waste of time. Yes I hiked to Wineglass Bay, which is ranked by various places as being a Top 10 World Beach. I preferred the beach scenery around Cape Tribulation, and, Freycinet didn't provide much else outside of a couple short hikes.
- The area west of Cairns, aka the Atherton Tablelands, is beautiful. There is a waterfall circuit. Make a travel plan based off of those waterfalls (e.g. you can basically make a circle out of them and spend a day getting from one to the next). By doing this you will drive across very nice scenery. The waterfalls are fine but are overshadowed by the in-between scenes.
Unfortunately I did not have my full camera setup as I was primarily backpacking. As such, many amazing experiences exist only in my mind. I did not have macro ability. Didn't have a flash. Didn't have a tripod. Yet had a great time. Photography can capture a moment in nature; but cameras are not necessary for one to be captured by nature. Even still, I was able to shoot a good number of images to share, which you can find by following the link below.
To enter the picture gallery, click here: Australia Photo Gallery
