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If you're planning on doing diving on the Reef, head north of Cairns to Port Douglas. The area of the Reef around Cairns has been heavily touristed for almost 50 years and the coral has suffered accordingly. Further north around Port Douglas it's in much better condition. Make sure your boat is going to the outer reef and try and get on a smaller boat - one with only 40-60 people. Some boats take hundreds of passengers and while it's still safe and regulated, it's pretty much cattle class. One company (I forget the name) even built a permanent pontoon with a net, restricting you to a small area. Honestly, avoid staying in Cairns if you can. I found it a pretty boring soul-less place that, aside from the palm trees, could've been anywhere in Australia. Also there's no beach in Cairns. Stay further north around Palm Cove or Port Douglas. And yeah like others have said, driving from Sydney to Cairns in a week is doable but won't be much of a holiday. Spend a few days in each and fly between them. The flight is only a couple of hours and you can get budget tickets from Virgin or Jetstar for pretty cheap prices. Bear in mind that those are discount airlines, so if you want anything beyond a chair and a seatbelt like drinks or a blanket you'll be paying extra. vv loving freezing for us, but probably quite balmy to someone used to cold climates 
webmeister fucked around with this message at 08:59 on May 18, 2011 |
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May 18, 2011 08:52
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 06:37 |
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Sydney is one of the most expensive cities in the world, both for real estate and for everything else. It sucks but what can you do. Superannuation is a forced retirement fund. By law your employer must pay 9% of your salary into a superannuation fund (you can choose one if you want but if you're only here for a few years don't worry too much), which the superannuation fund company then invests on your behalf. You can tell them how much risk they should take when investing etc. The money in the fund is inaccessible to you until you approach retirement age (I think the minimum age is 55 but generally higher). The idea is that everyone has a nest-egg to retire on so they don't have to live off a government pension. As for salary + super, there's no rules about what they can or can't say in an advertisement. For a job that's advertised as say a $50k per annum package including super, $4,500 of that (9%) will be automatically deducted by your employer. It comes out each pay, so you never even see that money. Just be aware when it's advertised that way, your $50k package is really only $45,500. So if you were comparing that to a job that was $50k base + super, the latter job will give you more weekly income.
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Aug 5, 2011 03:33
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monsterbunny posted:Leg 2 - Melbourne Be aware that if you're going to Melbourne for Cup week, prices for everything (especially hotel rooms) will be sky high, and may even be booked out already. It's a great time though. In Sydney, for 3 days I'd recommend: - spend a day around the CBD for the usual sights (Bridge, Opera House, Botanic Gardens etc). Avoid Darling Harbour as it's a tourist trap and not that great imo. Get the public ferry to Manly Wharf (it's the very large green & gold boat) - it's not too expensive and Sydney is best appreciated from the water. Head for Bondi as well, it's super trendy these days so you can have an expensive coffee while lying on the beach. Note that the station called "Bondi Junction" is actually a couple of kilometres from the beach, so don't rely on getting there via train! November is probably still a bit cold for swimming though, unless you're European. Take the train a few stops from Central Station to Newtown, which is the main hipster area but has great bars, pubs, cafes and restaurants. Hire a car and take a day trip out to the Blue Mountains which are about 90-120 minutes drive west from the city centre. The bushland is very impressive and there are some great stone formations to check out. In Cairns - stay in Palm Cove or Port Douglas instead, as Cairns itself is a fairly boring city. Lots of places in Port Douglas can sell you on a minivan tour of the Daintree, it's pretty common to do as a day trip. It definitely takes the entire day though, I wouldn't try and combine that with another activity.
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Sep 7, 2016 16:14
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Yeah, the airport in Cairns is fairly small iirc and won't take many international flights. Fly to Brisbane or Sydney and get a domestic flight from there. Also don't stay in Cairns itself, stay in Port Douglas or (if you can afford the resorts) Palm Cove. Most of the decent reef tours will include a hotel pickup from anywhere in those three towns.
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Jun 14, 2017 09:29
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It's probably OK for a day or two. Margaret River is a few hours drive to the south and has some great scenery, wineries and surfing. If you've got longer, head north to Ningaloo Reef where you can dive with whale sharks. It's almost as good as the Barrier Reef, but nowhere near as crowded (or developed, honestly).
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Oct 30, 2017 18:04
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Port Douglas if you want a town, Palm Cove if you want a resort
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Nov 4, 2017 00:48
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UnfortunateSexFart posted:Are there any big cities that aren't worth visiting? Haven't heard many good things about Darwin... I wouldn't call it a "big city" but Darwin is OK for a couple of days. The museum is interesting (the Cyclone Tracey exhibition is really good), there's a surprisingly good aircraft museum at the airbase, and you've also got Mindl beach markets as well on Friday nights. Plus you're only a day's drive from Kakadu, Litchfield and more, so I wouldn't dismiss it completely out of hand.
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Apr 7, 2018 20:56
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Do you have a job lined up? If money's totally not an issue, maybe consider spending the first week or two setting up your life (renting an apartment, getting a bank account/phone set up etc), then travelling and just leaving the apartment empty for a few weeks. If you're walking straight into a job, you (should) get a fairly generous 20 days of annual leave per year, but (generally speaking) it accumulates over the 12 months so you won't be able to take a full week off for at least a few months. Might be a bit frustrating.
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May 12, 2018 21:04
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Lived in Sydney for 35 years. First off, Sydney's public transport is designed to get people in and out of the CBD during peak hour, and not really a whole lot else. On Christmas day it'll be a very barebones service, so you might need to stay local depending on where you're staying. And as someone else said, most businesses except for small Asian restaurants and kebab shops will be closed, so prepare in advance. Oh and Christmas Day is one of the only two days per year you can't buy takeaway alcohol, so again stock up in advance. If it's good weather, head to Bondi on Christmas day since that's what every other expat in the city does. There are buses that go there, but it'll be crowded. The ferry to Watson's Bay is a good rec, I also like the ferry to Manly as well. Just get the regular public service (green and cream ferries) as the private fast boats are really expensive. Walk across the Harbour Bridge - the passenger walkway is on the side closer to the Opera House so you get a great view the whole way across. If you can't afford BridgeClimb, you can climb the south-east pylon instead for I think about 10-15 dollars. The view is almost as good, and inside the pylon is a museum showcasing the history of the bridge. Darling Harbour is okay, but basically full of overpriced restaurants and tourist tat. The Rocks is where you'll find some of Sydney's oldest history and is an interesting place to wander for an hour or two. The Botanic Gardens is also quite nice.
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Nov 12, 2018 04:20
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movax posted:What are the downsides to this place (Australia)? On a work trip and it just seems too nice, people, weather, scenery. Is your country out of money? Are you all secretly horrible racists? It’s got to be something evil. We run offshore concentration camps for vulnerable refugees seeking asylum 
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Dec 1, 2018 19:27
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Yeah honestly, Melbourne -> Singapore is an 8 hour flight so going there for a day or two is just ridiculous really. Lots of cool stuff to see in Melbourne itself, lots of little laneway bars and cafes to check out and try different foods and drinks. Melbourne is pretty renowned for its coffee if you're into that (note that it's real espresso coffee, not American style dishwater "joe" coffee). Further afield, you can do a one or two day trip to the Yarra Valley where there's a whole bunch of wineries. Some of Australia's best wines come from that area. To the south-west of Melbourne there's also the Great Ocean Road which includes the 12 Apostles (big sandstone pillars sticking out of rugged surf). That's worth a two day trip, which you can self drive or book a guided tour of. Or yeah you could head up to Cairns (5-hour flight, mind) and check out the Great Barrier Reef.
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Jun 11, 2019 00:01
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Yeah the CBD is fairly bikeable as it's pretty flat. Just be careful of Australian drivers, most people are fine but dickheads in utes (pickup trucks) sometimes get weirdly aggressive about cyclists. There's the Powerhouse museum in Ultimo which is cool. If you don't feel like shelling out hundreds of dollars for Bridgeclimb you can pay a few dollars to climb one of the pylons (it's the south-west one, closest to Circular Quay). Inside there's an interesting exhibit about the building of the bridge. Head out to Newtown and walk up and down King Street. It's the centre of the hipster and student communities so there's quite a bit of cool stuff there. Try a bunch of cafes as our cafe culture is pretty good, just make sure you read up on how to order coffee beforehand (if you just order "coffee" you'll get a weird look). Get the ferry across to Manly, and use the green & gold public ferry rather than the private "fast" ferries. Do the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk.
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Sep 5, 2019 13:49
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Make sure you get a small boat, though realise in this context “small” means probably 50 passengers. The larger boats have 200+ people and often just dock at pontoons in fixed locations
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Sep 16, 2019 00:42
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Cemetry Gator posted:I'm planning to travel to Australia for about a 3 weeks on the ground in March. I'm planning to start in Melbourne and end in Sydney, but I'm trying to figure what my 3rd city should be. Is Canberra a good place to visit? Sort of, but not really. Canberra is a planned capital so if the idea of grand boulevards with distant important buildings sounds appealing, then you'll enjoy it. You can tour the national parliament, and there's a couple of decent galleries. But it's mostly full of public servants and that makes it fairly quiet in terms of culture and nightlife. Are you driving or flying? If you're okay with driving, spend say 4-5 days in Melbourne, drive the Great Ocean Road for 2 days, then back to the Yarra Valley for the wineries. Then take a couple of days driving up the NSW coast to Sydney. Maybe spend a day or two in the Blue Mountains exploring nature, then spend the rest of your time in Sydney. Or if you're flying, head to Tasmania or up north to Cairns and see the Reef. I would honestly recommend seeing the reef sooner rather than later, it's genuinely dying because of climate change and politicians/media/tourism industry folk are all pretending it's  completely fine:D because otherwise people will stop coming and the money will dry up.
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Oct 10, 2019 10:33
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So Cairns is basically just a tropical city and the gateway to the region, kind of like Honolulu I guess? Nice enough, but there's better stuff going on elsewhere. And yes, there's no real beach to speak of in Cairns (it's on a river mouth, so the waterfront is largely a mud flat. That said, it kinda depends what you want to do up there. With four days, I'd say one day out on the reef, a day trip up to the Daintree/Cape Trib area, and a day up into the hinterlands around Kuranda. Other day just for relaxing I guess? Palm Cove is the best bet for beaches near Cairns; it's about 20-30 minutes north, though it's more a collection of beachfront resorts than an actual town. There are some good restaurants and cafes along the waterfront, though the area is kinda expensive. Port Douglas is about an hour north of Cairns and is much more of a tourist town. There's a cool vibe, great cafes, and yes - a great beach. Couple of other tips for the Reef since I assume you'll be going out there. When checking out different options, make sure it's a "small" boat. In this context a small boat will be a couple of hundred people, while the larger operators might have 1000+ passengers on their boats. Clarify if it's going to the outer reef, which is generally in better condition (again the larger boats often go to fixed pontoons). Be aware that the reef is a fair way off shore, so you might not be able to see land when they tell you to jump in. Also the water is deeper than you think, so be mentally prepared for jumping into 20 metre deep water (though of course you can see the bottom quite clearly). In September you probably won't need a stinger suit, though if it's recommended absolutely take it. Crocs don't go out to the reef, but if anyone on land talks about crocs in local swimming holes or whatever, absolutely believe them. Australians are kinda blase about snakes/spiders/sharks/etc, but everyone absolutely takes crocodiles seriously.
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Aug 11, 2023 13:23
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 06:37 |
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Yeah Port Douglas is a pretty good choice. It's mostly walkable iirc and there are plenty of shuttle options from Cairns airport. If you're doing a tour out to the Reef or the Daintree, most of those will include a hotel pickup. Going up into the hinterland is probably a bit trickier, but I reckon you'd find options to the base of the Skyway going up to Kuranda, and then from the railway stop back down at the bottom. Otherwise, driving on the left is pretty much fine if you're a confident driver. Just follow everyone else and it's hard to go wrong. Trickiest parts are when you're not following someone else through an intersection or turning into/out of a driveway. And we don't have "turn x on red" rules like the US - if the light is red, don't go. Wear a seatbelt, don't touch your phone, don't have more than two beers and drive - all of these are actively policed here.
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Aug 17, 2023 04:44
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