Trip to Australia

[Tron_fdc]

Originally Posted by Oliwa

These are all great! haha the only problem I have now is getting my boss to give me the time off!

You're 18, with a free ticket to Australia.

Quit.

Extend your ticket, stay until you are living on a beach and drinking fruity lexia, then fly home to rest your liver and get rid of the STD's you accumulated from sleeping your way through the hostels.

[Regular_John]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

You're 18, with a free ticket to Australia.

Quit.

Extend your ticket, stay until you are living on a beach and drinking fruity lexia, then fly home to rest your liver and get rid of the STD's you accumulated from sleeping your way through the hostels.

This. Unless your name is Steve Jobs and you'r starting Apple this trip will be a much better time investment.

[valo403]

Just so we're clear

Sidney


Sydney

[Oliwa]

YAHHOOOO! good news! my boss is letting me have it off!

[Regular_John]

Originally Posted by Oliwa

YAHHOOOO! good news! my boss is letting me have it off!

Excellent, now see about extending that ticket!

[Oliwa]

Originally Posted by jaydorn

Excellent, now see about extending that ticket!

I wish! My mom is already nervous enough. She thinks I will miss my flight home and spend Christmas in Australia. Actually that sounds like a really good idea.

[killer_carlson]

Nimbin is a joke. There is nothing to do unless you have an affinity for hallucinegenic abuse.

See if you can get your way up to the Whitsundays and spend some time in Airlie Beach. It will be hot as heck though.

You'll have a great time and be more likely to get into bars as the drinking age there is 19 or 20 if I recall correctly.

[Language]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

Nimbin is a joke. There is nothing to do unless you have an affinity for hallucinegenic abuse.

See if you can get your way up to the Whitsundays and spend some time in Airlie Beach. It will be hot as heck though.

You'll have a great time and be more likely to get into bars as the drinking age there is 19 or 20 if I recall correctly.

This. Once I got there I wondered how I had never heard of the Whitsundays in the first place.

[Rutuu]

Originally Posted by Oliwa

I wish! My mom is already nervous enough. She thinks I will miss my flight home and spend Christmas in Australia. Actually that sounds like a really good idea.

I live in Brisbane now and I can tell you that you're in for a great time if you come down.

Summer is just starting in Australia and will be in full swing when you get here in December. Don't bother packing anything heavier than a windbreaker for rain as long as you're travelling North. My jacket that I brought down in February sits in my closet 99.9% of the time and I live here.

As for things to do...well there are a million!

Sydney has a good rail system...when you arrive take the airport train to Circular Quay; there are a number of hostels in the area as well as the Botanical Gardens, Opera House, and Sydney Harbour Bridge. Find a hostel to use as home base, do the Manly Harbour tours that are located just outside Circular Quay train station or head to Bondi.

Brisbane is not just a few hours from Sydney...it's a ~10hr drive...however it's worth it to come up here (you can take a bus, train, or fly...flights are ~$250 round trip). From Brisbane you can do a lot of things. There is a train that goes to the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast there are also lots of tours that head to the Whitsunday's or Fraser Island (~$300-$500 for the package which would last 3-4days).

Byron Bay is 1.5hrs from Brisbane, but there are a million surf spots/hostels/beach towns in between too. Byron Bay, Coolangatta, Tweeds Head, Burleigh Heads, Surfer's Paradise, Noosa (north to sunshine coast) and Mooloolaba (north to sunshine coast) are some. There is definitely no lack of world class beaches/surf breaks when you come to Queensland. Lessons to surf can be found at any of the popular beaches...it's usually a guy with a van and a trailer full of foam boards. They'll run classes 2-3 times a day and it will cost you around ~$70.

Other things I'd recommend are climb Mt. Warning (highest point on the East Coast, so it sees the first light on the continent...they have a tour that goes there), go to O'Reilly's at Mt. Tamborine for a Rainforrest Tree Top hike, Koala Sanctuary (hold a Koala...good zoo too), Australia Zoo is pretty amazing, and Underwater World.

If you wanna go to "the Rock" at Uluru its a little pricey, but can be done cheaper if you fly to Alice Springs then do a camping tour. You can also do the Great Barrier reef if you go to Cairns.

There are also a number of music festivals kicking off around Brisbane/Sydney, so something to look into.

As for doing it all yourself...well you'll have no problem. There are many many people doing the same thing as you, so just sign up for a few tours and you'll be all good.

[valo403]

Rutuu must be biased I would not recommend spending any time in Brisbane if you only have 2 weeks. The surrounding area? Yes. Brisbane itself? No, unless you enjoy half assed casinos that is.

[Rutuu]

Originally Posted by valo403

Rutuu must be biased I would not recommend spending any time in Brisbane if you only have 2 weeks. The surrounding area? Yes. Brisbane itself? No, unless you enjoy half assed casinos that is.

Ha...I'd completely agree with that. Things to do in Brisbane the city itself would be:
1. Fortitude Valley...HUGE number of bars/clubs
2. Ride the CityCat
3. Southbank for a couple beers
4. Koala Sanctuary
5. Book a trip to Fraser Island, Whitsundays, Gold Coast, etc, etc

If you wanna skip the flight to Brisbane, the Gold Coast airport is in Coolangatta and will be regularly serviced from Sydney.

Also I recommend having a credit card for a lot of your transactions...having one makes life easier here...although most bank machines will accept your card as well.

[icarus]

I lived in Sydney for 2.5 years so I can give you lots of tips if you have specific questions. There is so much to do in that area that if you want to save money on travel and stay in town you won't be bored. I don't blame you for wanting to see as much of the country as you can while you're there though but it's a big country and not cheap to get around. If you catch a bus to another city it will take you hours and hours (unless you go to Newcastle or Wollongong).

Boycott the YHA in The Rocks though, I got vengefully evicted from my house for opposing the planning permission for it (long story).

Oh, and I should add that you can do it on a budget. I was dead broke at one point and still managed to rent a campervan and did a three-week 10,000km roadtrip. To this day I have no idea how I managed to do it because I was poor at the time... I did it for less $$ than you will be taking into the country with you.

[Oliwa]

Thanks for all the help everyone! Right now I am lookinng at a few different bus trips with Backpacking Australia and Contiki. Also is there a transit alternative like a train? Does Australia have bullet trains? because that would be sweet.

[Pizza]

18 huh?

If you're looking for other Aussie 18 year olds to meet, you might want to hit up Surfer's Paradise in Gold Coast.
The time you're going to Austrailia is "Schoolie" time which means all the fresh-outta-highschool grads are all headed out to Party Central that is Surfer's

The Parties are awesome,
The Beach is great to hang out at,
Lots of night life,
The Strippers there are hot, cheap and let you feel them out

But Beware of two things.
1) With every hot girl out there, there's an equal number of ######bags, easily looking for a fight.
2) "Toolies" (early 20 year olds) come out to harrass the Schoolies too.

and you might have problems finding accomodation in the area


A couple more tips:
-Drip Coffee is more than $4 CAD
-Fast food places charge extra for ketchup, and they make you pay to upgrade from the starter kids sized combo drink
-Dont fall for trying the Veggiemite, it's death in a jar
-Visit Steve Irwin's Zoo and pet a free roaming Kangaroo
-Try Kangaroo Meat, its awesome

[valo403]

Yeah if you wind up in a schoolies scene be careful, I've heard enough stories of people getting beat into comas, I don't want one to be about someone from Calgary.

[Chingas]

Leave your watch at home and enjoy the trip. I think you are going to find that your allowed time is going to be extremely limited and you will be buying a ticket back to Aus to finish up where you left off.

It has been a long time since I did the backpacker thing but what I found was the farther north you went, the hostels were much better, and cheaper as well.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by Oliwa

Thanks for all the help everyone! Right now I am lookinng at a few different bus trips with Backpacking Australia and Contiki. Also is there a transit alternative like a train? Does Australia have bullet trains? because that would be sweet.

There are trains (such as the Ghan) but they are not fast, cross country and quite expensive. Consider whether you would advise someone to take a CN or CP passenger train from city to city in Western Canada. No? Then forget about it.

Jetstar and Virgin Blue are the discount airlines, so you might get lucky on flights if you check them out.

You're probably on the right track with a young persons bus trip. If schoolies is indeed on while you're there, then you might want to take a bus tour that stops off in the Gold Coast, just to experience it. You'll be better off with a crew that you'll meet on your bus. Follow Tinordi's advice in post #2 above.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by Pizza

-Visit Steve Irwin's Zoo and pet a free roaming Kangaroo

When you go to Sydney, go to Featherdale zoo right away. You'll get to see all the Aussie animals up close, feed them, probably get to hold a koala or a baby kangaroo or a snake, and it is smaller than a regular zoo and easier to get through. That way you'll tick off the animal experience right away and can focus on drinking and petting girls instead.

[Robotic]

Prepare for lots of drinking games in hostels. Everyone does the predrinking there before heading out. I'd suggest brining a deck of cards because you'll need it for games and will make friends quick. Also befriend the Swedish girls, there easy and hot.

[worth]

Good luck man. We will be living vicariously through you.

I'm just about ready to say F-it at work today and hop on the plane with you. You will have a great time. I've done a few trips solo. You won't have any problems meeting other people traveling solo looking to hang out with.