Australia Pictures
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Intrepid operate 33 lively, good value, different tours throughout Australia, including many overland adventures: All Australia Trips | Central Explorer | East Coast Explorer | Outback Tracks | West Coast Safari | Special Promotions |
Sydney harbour bridge and Opera House as dusk falls and nocturnal animals come out to play.
Click on the image above to see all Australia pictures on a circular route or go down under to choose a particular destination.
Australia Travel Guide | Australia Map | Australia Tours | Destinations
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.
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.
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.
Climate: 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, Dec - Feb, 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. Decisions, decisions.
Activities: Apart from spotting wacky wildlife 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.
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.
Airlie Beach | Fraser Island | Brisbane | Adelaide
Bug
Photos:
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 Australia's 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.
Images © bugbog.com