Australia Pictures
Travel Photos

Sydney harbour bridge and Opera House as dusk falls and nocturnal animals come out to play. Sydney Pictures.

Click the image above to travel Australia on a circular route of large photos or go down under to choose a tourism place.

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Australia's huge land area is inhabited by just 20 million people, mostly living within hopping distance of the east coast shore.

The vast interior is a spectacular, flat, dry wilderness that needs to be treated with a great deal of respect - wander off there and death is an easy option, while the far north sports sticky, tropical rainforest and the far south cool, damp greenery, so most traveller's outdoor tastes are catered for.

Australian Beaches Pictures

Due to the space and high sunny day ratio Australians tend to focus more on outdoor activities than Europeans. Watersports are, naturally, the favoured pastime, with surfing way number one and scuba and sailing sharing second place. The bottom half of the east coast, for example, offers excellent surf, the top half excellent scuba, and both provide good sailing.

Great Ocean Road Pictures

Wildlife: Probably the biggest disappointment for visitors is the difficulty of seeing Australia's unique wildlife. Many people expect to see 'roos hopping all over Sydney and that's not going to happen, at least in the inner suburbs.

If you stay on the east coast - with a side trip to Uluru perhaps - you will be very lucky to catch a glimpse of a kangaroo or koala in the wild. The Bugcrew saw the wild thing for the first time part way down south on the Great Ocean Road - 'roos hanging out at Anglesea Golf Course and koalas hanging from roadside eucalypti like fat furry fruit.

It requires a lot more than a two week runaround to get pictures of Australia's animals, though birds are pretty omnipresent - cockatoos, mynahs and parrots especially. Some wildlife parks are excellent, spacious and very user-friendly, letting visitors get very close to - even hand feed - 'roos, wallabies, emus and birds.

The Bugcrew were particularly impressed by Adelaide's Cleland Wildlife Park and have pictures of the experience there.

The Red Centre Pictures

Australia Weather: Another disappointment for travellers can be the weather. Just because it's summer doesn't mean the sun's going to shine all day every day.

In fact Australia's summer, December - February, is the rainy season in backpacker central Cairns and one of the wetter times in Sydney too. June- August [winter] is a much better season weatherwise in both Cairns and Sydney, but then the sea around Sydney and the south will be quite chilly and not at all inviting for dipping or surfing. Decisions, decisions.

Melbourne Pictures

Activities: Apart from spotting wacky wildlife, exploring the city culture of Australia, hiking and surfing one of the must-try activities for an fit person are scuba diving up north, especially in lively, good value Cairns where a four day PADI course can cost as little as A$250, including four dives on the Great Barrier Reef.

Gold Coast Pictures

The other must-try is surfing anywhere from Sydney up to the Gold Coast.

Many backpacker places lend out body boards for free and wet suits are for hire if the water's chilly. Tuition on full-size boards anywhere up the east coast is quite competitive.

The Bugcrew enjoyed life in Sydney's suburb of Manly, with its young buzz and big clean beach with good waves, but just north of Brisbane the lovely, calm, affluent town of Noosa also specialises in surf lessons on big, soft beaches with a lot more space than Manly or Bondi could ever offer.

For your moving needs - you should be so lucky - Europcar's tough but spacious van hire range offer plenty of storage space along with convenience and reliability.

Cairns Pictures

Airlie Beach | Fraser Island | Brisbane | Adelaide

Having a thorough look at Oz is not to be taken lightly as it requires either a lot of time, or money, or both. Having neither, Bugbog humbly offers some images of the Australien south and east coasts plus a trip into the interior to see the Red Centre and especially Uluru. The west and north coasts will have to wait till next time.