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Steve. posted:I totally forgot about the Country Link trains! They look to be OK. Cool, thanks. Yeah, I didn't think about country link either until I was on the train the other day and saw an ad. In the meantime, I might just keep looking for tickets to Uluru in hopes of finding a dip in prices one day.
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Jul 22, 2010 07:10
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Need a small favour from you Aussies out there! I'm trying to reply to some gumtree adverts around short term accomodation for when I land on Friday. However, because i'm located outside of Australia my messages don't get through at all! (good ol gumtree!) If I give you the advert links and the text to cut and paste could someone assist by spending 2 minutes filling out the forms for me? All replies should then go to my email addy... Thanks Edit: it's only 3 fields, email, message and verification code. Very easy! Vanilla fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Jul 26, 2010 |
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Jul 26, 2010 09:51
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Vanilla posted:Need a small favour from you Aussies out there! I can if you are still online. Email is dispute85atgmail.com
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Jul 27, 2010 08:03
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unixbeard posted:If the weather is nice and you have a car, go get fish and chips here and eat them by the water. If you don't have a car you can get there by public transport though it will probably take hours, so you can bitch about that like a real sydney sider. I believe here http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou...013797&t=h&z=16 has better fish and chips  But really anything that involves getting out on the heads and sitting admiring the view for lunch is a good day spent (You have north head, middle head and south head). Catch a ferry across to north head and watch the yachts go by (depending on the day)I'm not really sure exactly where the ferries go but you can get most of them from circular quay (its in the CBD) to most places. Go get a nice lunch and have a walk around looking at the water/skyline.
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Jul 27, 2010 08:15
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Alfajor posted:I'm going on my honeymoon next week to Sydney & Cairns. I'm excited as gently caress about it! Go beach hopping. Start at Curl Curl, then go to Manly and have a walk through the corso. Go to Collaroy, Narrabeen, Newport, Whale and finally the famous Palm Beach. Once you've gone to these you'll see why Aussies laugh at all the tourists who flock to Bondi. It's poo poo and way too crowded. However you picked a bad time to go, Summer is a much better time in Sydney however Cairns is pretty much hot/warm year round. Also if you ride a motorcycle there are some fantastic roads to ride on (Macquarie pass, Old Pacific Highway, West Head and Bobbin head road but be loving careful there though)and you can rent a 600cc bike for pretty good prices. toadcat fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Aug 13, 2010 |
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Aug 13, 2010 17:29
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Manly is a lot worse than Bondi is
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Aug 14, 2010 09:43
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Fists Up posted:Manly is a lot worse than Bondi is To be fair they're both pretty poo poo. Coogee in the east and Newport/Bilgola in the north IMO
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Aug 14, 2010 09:48
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Well yeh because thats where all the tourists go. But Manly is just tacky poo poo. Bondi is not a "bad" place. I prefer freshwater, mona vale, dee why and palm/whale
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Aug 14, 2010 10:54
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True but it's a pretty touristy place with the corso etc. Also can go hug John the hobo.
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Aug 15, 2010 18:38
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So the Girlfriend and I are planning to move from BNE to Melbourne in the next few months, and we've been looking around at different suburbs. My question is; what's wrong with Kensington? There seems to be boatloads of 2 bedroom apartments for around $380 and it's ridiculously close to the city. I currently pay $390 for a two bedroom place in New Farm, Brisbane, and it's at lower spectrum in terms of quality. I'll be working in the CBD, so trams look pretty amazing.
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Aug 16, 2010 01:54
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Yeast posted:So the Girlfriend and I are planning to move from BNE to Melbourne in the next few months, and we've been looking around at different suburbs. Trams are the bee's knees, especially after the horrible bus bullshit in Brisbane. Kensington is okay, I suppose. A friend lives there and I used to live on the outskirts of the west melbourne CBD. The low rent is just because its on the extremely unglamorous west side, has plenty of fresh housing development blocks and it's next to footscray. Dont live in footscray.
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Sep 3, 2010 05:40
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I'm leaving Canada for Sydney on a working holiday visa in a few weeks. I have some family just outside of Brisbane, but I have to fly into Sydney. I have agreed to be in Sydney to meet some friends for New Year's, and I can't decide if I want to just stay and live in Sydney until then, or haul up to Brisbane to see my aunt and uncle's sweet ranch (complete with dirtbikes, wakeboarding, and RC planes [!!!]). If I go to brisbane, I would of course have to bear the cost of travelling there and back for a 3 month stay. I served and bartended all through university, so I plan to work easy-to-get-and-easy-to-quit service jobs to keep my costs down. Is brisbane totally awesome and way cheaper than Sydney? Will it have less jobs? How terrible would greyhounding for 17hrs be? I did an 8hr NationalExpress bus trip in scotland and it was pretty miserable. Also, I really want to buy a motorcycle over there, because I'm clinging desperately to foolish youth. I have a regular canadian license, does anyone know what the rules are for motorcycle licensing in Australia?
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Sep 15, 2010 00:02
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Argh..hh...heh. posted:I served and bartended all through university, so I plan to work easy-to-get-and-easy-to-quit service jobs to keep my costs down. Is brisbane totally awesome and way cheaper than Sydney? Will it have less jobs? How terrible would greyhounding for 17hrs be? I did an 8hr NationalExpress bus trip in scotland and it was pretty miserable. Brisbane may be a little cheaper but not to any great degree. No it's not more awesome, Sydney's got a lot more to do, but I'm biased. It will absolutely have less jobs though, as it's much smaller than Sydney too. Greyhounding for 17 hours would be loving poo poo, just fly with Virgin Blue or Jetstar, it won't be much more expensive than the bus ticket, it'll only take an hour, and it'll be a hell of a lot less trouble.
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Sep 15, 2010 01:02
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Argh..hh...heh. posted:Also, I really want to buy a motorcycle over there, because I'm clinging desperately to foolish youth. I have a regular canadian license, does anyone know what the rules are for motorcycle licensing in Australia? Are you still on a learner/provisional/otherwise restricted licence? If not, with a Canadian licence you'll just be able to walk into an RTA motor registry, hand over your Canadian one and get an Australia licence. And nthing just flying between Brisbane -> Sydney. If you look around you'll probably be able to manage a return flight for <$150. It's only a short flight so it won't matter if you take a really budget airline like Tiger or Virgin.
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Sep 15, 2010 01:27
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Come to Sydney and come on rides with the Sydgoons. Awww yeah
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Sep 16, 2010 15:38
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Argh..hh...heh. posted:I served and bartended all through university, so I plan to work easy-to-get-and-easy-to-quit service jobs to keep my costs down. I don't know what it's like in Canada but to work with alcohol here you need your Responsible Service of Alcohol certificate (aka RSA). A list of RSA courses in NSW is listed here. So be aware you'll have to get that first before you can work. Regarding motorcycles, I think since you are a visitor and not a permanent resident you would be able to ride with your Canadian license? You would want to check that with the RTA in NSW or QLD.
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Sep 21, 2010 05:26
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Argh..hh...heh. posted:How terrible would greyhounding for 17hrs be? I did an 8hr NationalExpress bus trip in scotland and it was pretty miserable. Don't do it. Get a cheap plane ticket. You'll end up buying food every time the coach stops just for something to do, so in the end it'll probably end up costing you more to Greyhound Sydney to Brisbane. Spend $69 dollars on an airfare and save yourself a day's worth of smelling other people's piss and poo poo.
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Sep 24, 2010 02:55
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Well, it looks like I might be moving to Brisbane for two years to go to school at University of Queensland. I appreciate all of the advice people have posted in here, it's made researching the problem a lot easier. Does anyone have opinions on cellular providers in Australia?
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Oct 1, 2010 19:38
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Rhandhali posted:Well, it looks like I might be moving to Brisbane for two years to go to school at University of Queensland. I appreciate all of the advice people have posted in here, it's made researching the problem a lot easier. Telstra has the best coverage, but is the most expensive and has bad customer service. Optus has the second best coverage, pricing is good, but horrible customer service (think 1 hour on hold to get any customer assistance). Three and Virgin Mobile have slightly worse coverage (but still fine in any capital city), but good pricing and customer service. Most people who aren't old are generally with one of the latter three - I'm with Three, personally, and it's fine in Sydney and roams onto the Telstra network anyway when it can't get direct reception with Three.
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Oct 1, 2010 21:05
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I'm in Brisbane with Vodafone. It does what I want it to, however the customer service from Vodafone has been sub-par over the last few years. It was brilliant when I first got it but they've slowly whittled it away to a shell of its former self. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but Three was recently bought out by Vodafone, which may (or may not) mean that Vodafone customers will have access to Three infrastructure in the future, and vice versa.
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Oct 1, 2010 23:54
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brendanwor posted:Telstra has the best coverage, but is the most expensive and has bad customer service. If he needs 3G then I really suggest Telstra. For just normal mobiles then go with whatever if you are in a big city. But the amount of people getting pissed off about Optus's and Virgin/Vodafones/3 coverage on their iPhones 3G and poo poo is pretty high. Telstra have actually come down in price somewhat and are slight more competitive. Optus might give you more for your money but thats at the risk of it being unworkable half the time. Never have any problems with getting a signal on Telstra.
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Oct 2, 2010 03:56
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Rhandhali posted:Well, it looks like I might be moving to Brisbane for two years to go to school at University of Queensland. I appreciate all of the advice people have posted in here, it's made researching the problem a lot easier. UQ is an awesome campus, although I haven't been there in years. As to phones, my work changed us over from Telstra to Optus. Since then I've had worse coverage, lower battery life, and some of my SMS messages have been delayed receipt for 2 or 3 days. My work mates have had similar experiences.
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Oct 3, 2010 23:36
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Morning Bell posted:Anyone have any experience with the Partner Visa? That's the one where you have to be in a 'de facto relationship' for a year with an Australian and living together as a couple for a year, to get a residency permit. Seems a bit difficult to prove if you're living together outside Australia. This is totally like 6 months late, but if anyone ever has questions like this I went through the marriage visa version of this one. I don't regularly read this thread so post your question in here then find me in the LF aus embassy thread and I can answer anecdotally what I went through. edit: I was the dirty foreigner, not the citizen
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Oct 4, 2010 07:35
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Thanks for the advice. I found out Thursday that I'm heading out that way so I'm still figuring out what's what. The University has housing, and off-campus housing that looks petty reasonable on the surface. I'll be there for two years or four years, depending on how things work out in my program. How is the living situation around the St. Lucia campus? Is having my own transportation required, or can I get by on public transport/feet?
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Oct 4, 2010 16:31
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Rhandhali posted:Thanks for the advice. I found out Thursday that I'm heading out that way so I'm still figuring out what's what. The University has housing, and off-campus housing that looks petty reasonable on the surface. I'll be there for two years or four years, depending on how things work out in my program. I drove in there every day when I went, but there are buses and ferries. The nearest train station is Toowong on that side of the river, and I imagine a combined train and bus trip would be popular with students. Trains run infrequently if you are used to how they are in London or places like that, but off-peak they're every half an hour or so until they stop running for the night. Take a look on Google Maps to see the lie of the land. It's quite hilly behind St Lucia, so keep that in mind if you like the look of walking or riding a push-bike.
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Oct 5, 2010 03:16
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Gromit posted:I drove in there every day when I went, but there are buses and ferries. The nearest train station is Toowong on that side of the river, and I imagine a combined train and bus trip would be popular with students. I lived a fair way away whilst studying at St Lucia (about an hour bus into the city, plus another half hour or so in peak, at worst, to St Lucia. Ten to fifteen minutes in a good run from the city). I've walked to Toowong station a few times from the campus, it is possible but I wouldn't want to do it frequently. Your experience will depend highly on where in/near St Lucia you intend on living. Living along Coronation Drive between Toowong and the City means you get a reasonably good bus service in terms of frequency, but it does tend to fill up quickly. Other locations are the opposite. I have walked from Park Road and Dutton Park station to the campuses as well over the bridge (coming from the city to play touch football). I would actually say, by walking, Park Road is about the same distance to the campus as Toowong. Moral of the story is to not get too caught up on having to be on the St Lucia side of the river. There's some reasonable accommodation on the Boggo Road side as well.
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Oct 5, 2010 10:45
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Rhandhali posted:Well, it looks like I might be moving to Brisbane for two years to go to school at University of Queensland. I appreciate all of the advice people have posted in here, it's made researching the problem a lot easier. Hey man, UQ is a really good university, it's one of the most prestigious, for reasons I don't really understand in Brisbane/Gold Coast area. I currently go to Griffith at Mt. Gravatt (transferring to Gold Coast campus next year), if you have a any questions about the general Gold Coast and maybe Brisbane area I can do my best to answer your questions (as I used to live on Gold Coast and my girlfriend still does) Also, in regards to providers, if you're living in the city most of them are decent, Telstra provides the best coverage but it's the most expensive. Also, hope you have a license if you're living anywhere outside of the city/too far from the university and/or want to travel as the public transport in Brisbane is okay, but on the Gold Coast it's absolutely poo poo.
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Oct 9, 2010 15:15
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I'm taking a trip to Australia/NZ the last 3 weeks of December. For the first week (December 14-21) I'll be in Cairns diving the GBR. I'll be doing a lot of diving so I'm content just getting that accomplished, but looking at Cairns, it just looks like a big tourist trap. Is there anything else worthwhile doing there besides the Skyrail (which I might do on my last day since I can't dive)? I can't believe there isn't even a beach in Cairns proper! But again...I'm there to dive and dive I shall. After a week in NZ I'm coming back to Australia for 5 nights in Sydney for the New Year. I'm fortunate enough to have a nice hotel room downtown (paid for with points, the room rate was pretty insane) and I'm trying to plan my agenda. Definitely looking forward to some of the best fireworks displays in the world, but should there be anything else a young single tourist should look into for NYE? I'll probably do a bike tour of the city one of the days I'm there, and I have a sort-of-coworker that lives in the suburbs of Sydney that will keep me entertained while I'm there too, but he's twice my age with kids so I don't see him being the time of my life. Any information is appreciated!
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Oct 11, 2010 10:07
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mishaq posted:After a week in NZ I'm coming back to Australia for 5 nights in Sydney for the New Year. I'm fortunate enough to have a nice hotel room downtown (paid for with points, the room rate was pretty insane) and I'm trying to plan my agenda. Definitely looking forward to some of the best fireworks displays in the world, but should there be anything else a young single tourist should look into for NYE? Well, if you want to go out to a bar/club/etc on NYE, you'll basically want to be in there early and stay there, or you'll never get in. If you're keen to see the fireworks, probably best to wander down to the harbour nice and early and claim a good spot.
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Oct 11, 2010 10:47
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Rhandhali posted:Thanks for the advice. I found out Thursday that I'm heading out that way so I'm still figuring out what's what. The University has housing, and off-campus housing that looks petty reasonable on the surface. I'll be there for two years or four years, depending on how things work out in my program. You'll have 0 issues with public transport to UQ. I went there for 5 years and never once had an issue. You'll need to organise a touch and go card when you arrive though through the dept of transport's website.
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Oct 11, 2010 10:53
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mishaq posted:After a week in NZ I'm coming back to Australia for 5 nights in Sydney for the New Year. I'm fortunate enough to have a nice hotel room downtown (paid for with points, the room rate was pretty insane) and I'm trying to plan my agenda. Definitely looking forward to some of the best fireworks displays in the world, but should there be anything else a young single tourist should look into for NYE? Well, what do you like doing? If you like fine dining, we've got lots of that, but you'll need to make a booking ASAP. If you're happy to just sit at the harbour and watch the fireworks (along with the other couple of million people) then go for it, but you might have trouble getting in anywhere to drink afterwards, every venue in the city will be packed to poo poo from about 3pm onwards. Like dance music? Sydney gets some really good acts every NYE. David Guetta is playing at Shore Thing on Bondi Beach, Basement Jaxx are playing at the Ivy and Digitalism are playing at Luna Park. As a Sydneysider I'd say your best bet is to buy tickets to something, watch the fireworks from Circular Quay and then go to wherever you've booked afterwards, that way at least you're assured that you won't be stuck out on the street.
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Oct 11, 2010 12:06
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mishaq posted:I'm taking a trip to Australia/NZ the last 3 weeks of December. The fireworks at NYE are pretty nice but assuming by downtown you mean away from the harbour you are going to have to get down there to have a nice view. It really lends itself to getting a few people and setting up a picnic rug and sitting there eating/drinking all day whilst you wait for the night to come. You have to get there in the morning or at least early to get a good spot especially in some of the areas which fill up and close up by afternoon. Theres over a dozen places you can sit at, some of the are not THAT great for seeing everything and some are tiny. If you are by yourself or just with one other this might not be so great. Theres a whole lot of parties around the harbour that you might be able to get a ticket to. Or maybe they will have something in the major hotel bars that have awesome views of the bridge and stuff like the shangri-la and Four Seasons and Intercontinental but they might be only for hotel people or booked out for private stuff. I really don't know. I think doing the fireworks is pretty good for someone coming to Sydney but personally once you've seen it once or twice its not much difference so I prefer to go to the parties around the place where most people just watch it on tv
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Oct 11, 2010 12:49
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mishaq posted:I'm taking a trip to Australia/NZ the last 3 weeks of December. When you're diving the reef, make sure you pay attention to the fact that some of the companies are more designed for the lazy tourist who just wants to sit on the boat and eat sandwiches, and others are more for people who want to snorkel/dive for real. You can get a good idea which is which from the brochures. I would say if you can, go to Port Douglas and not Cairns. You spend less time on the boat and more time on the reef. We used Poseidon cruises when we were in Port Douglas, and they were really good. (It was the second place where we went to the Outer Reef, we also did it from Airlie Beach) My husband and I did 2 dives, my mom just snorkeled (and saw a hammerhead shark that she has a photo of). I'd say it actually is worth snorkelling a few times, just because if you're a good swimmer they don't get mad when you swim over the reef (they don't want people stepping on it) and it's really cool in its own right. It's different from diving, and definitely worth doing. Get a digital underwater camera. I rented one from the boat ($65) or in Cains you can rent them for a week or longer. But seriously, get one. I took 418 underwater shots at two of the three dive sites. As for the rest of Cairns, there is an AMAZING Italian restaurant on the main strip, I can't remember what it's called but it's next to a Japanese restaurant called something-ichi ban. Seriously, go there and have the Cabonara. It's on the expensive side (a little under $20 for a pasta main) but it's sooooooo good. We went there for dinner on 2 of the 3 nights we spent in Cairns. There's a lagoon which is pretty cool if you like to just randomly swim, but other than that yeah, there isn't too much to do in Cairns.
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Oct 11, 2010 12:52
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2ndclasscitizen posted:Well, if you want to go out to a bar/club/etc on NYE, you'll basically want to be in there early and stay there, or you'll never get in. If you're keen to see the fireworks, probably best to wander down to the harbour nice and early and claim a good spot. brendanwor posted:As a Sydneysider I'd say your best bet is to buy tickets to something, watch the fireworks from Circular Quay and then go to wherever you've booked afterwards, that way at least you're assured that you won't be stuck out on the street. These two suggestion seem to conflict with one another. If I want to see the fireworks in person, will it not be worth it to have tickets booked to an event and go to it after the midnight fireworks? Fists Up posted:The fireworks at NYE are pretty nice but assuming by downtown you mean away from the harbour you are going to have to get down there to have a nice view. It really lends itself to getting a few people and setting up a picnic rug and sitting there eating/drinking all day whilst you wait for the night to come. You have to get there in the morning or at least early to get a good spot especially in some of the areas which fill up and close up by afternoon. Theres over a dozen places you can sit at, some of the are not THAT great for seeing everything and some are tiny. I'll be at the Hilton. Mind sharing what some of those places are? HookShot posted:I went to the GBR (and basically everywhere else in Queensland) with my mommy and my husband this summer. I'll be bringing my own camera. Thanks for the restaurant suggestions, I'll check them out. I'm doing a day trip and then a liveaboard, I don't think (hope) people on the liveaboard are lazy/not into diving! Has anyone done the Skyrail? Asymmetric POSTer fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Oct 11, 2010 |
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Oct 11, 2010 17:15
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Fists Up posted:You have to get there in the morning or at least early to get a good spot especially in some of the areas which fill up and close up by afternoon. Theres over a dozen places you can sit at, some of the are not THAT great for seeing everything and some are tiny. Nah, that's not really true. Speaking from experience, the last two times I've been down to watch the fireworks, I've walked down to Circular Quay at around 10-10.30pm - so not that early - and still had a perfectly fine view of the bridge and Opera House. You just have to have the patience to squeeze past people. mishaq posted:These two suggestion seem to conflict with one another. If I want to see the fireworks in person, will it not be worth it to have tickets booked to an event and go to it after the midnight fireworks? That's exactly what I said in my last post?? 2ndclasscitizen was referring to a scenario in which you didn't have prebooked tickets to anything, in which case yes, you'd want to get inside whatever pub/bar/club you're interested in quite early.
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Oct 11, 2010 20:55
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brendanwor posted:That's exactly what I said in my last post?? 2ndclasscitizen was referring to a scenario in which you didn't have prebooked tickets to anything, in which case yes, you'd want to get inside whatever pub/bar/club you're interested in quite early. I was just interpreting 2ndclasscitizen's post as if it wouldn't be worth it even WITH tickets. That's why I asked! Sorry... 
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Oct 11, 2010 20:59
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mishaq posted:Has anyone done the Skyrail?
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Oct 11, 2010 22:23
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HookShot posted:I did the skyrail, my advice is to do the skyrail on the way there and the little train on the way back. Other than that I don't have much to suggest other than do it, it's a really good experience. Will do, thanks!
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Oct 11, 2010 22:41
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brendanwor posted:Nah, that's not really true. Speaking from experience, the last two times I've been down to watch the fireworks, I've walked down to Circular Quay at around 10-10.30pm - so not that early - and still had a perfectly fine view of the bridge and Opera House. You just have to have the patience to squeeze past people. Thats true. I never go down around circular quay on NYE. I forget that a lot of families actually leave after the 9pm fireworks so you could probably snag a spot after those easily
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Oct 12, 2010 03:40
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mishaq posted:I'll be at the Hilton. Mind sharing what some of those places are? Well you don't get anymore central than the hilton so good choice. Still just a little too far to get a good view of the fireworks though Too many buildings in the way I would think. The places I talked about are all public parks and stuff. Anyone thats next to the water pretty much on both sides of the harbour (but you are not likely to go over to the north side or down to somewhere like drummoyne). Basically the whole thing centres around the harbour bridge with a bunch of stuff coming off barges in the middle of the harbour and some other stuff on buildings. The very best spot would to be on a boat most likely (i've only done this once when I was younger). Next best would be places like Mrs Macquaries chair or Blues point reserve (tiny, north side). The opera house forecourt is usually closed off for a ticketed event. Theres a map here. Blue stars are where fireworks come from. http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nye/2010/VantagePoints/default.aspx I obviously can't vouch for all the places but really you could go check a few out anyway seeing as its likely you'll go near a few during your stay in Sydney.
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Oct 12, 2010 03:50
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