Transportation

As for transportation, the options are similar to New Zealand.  A traveler can buy a car or a camper van, rent a car or a camper van, buy a bus pass, or even hitch hike.  Be aware, if driving in Australia, during certain seasons, roads can become treacherous as drivers must avoid hitting Kangaroos.  This is similar to the problem in the  Midwest (of the U.S.A.) of hitting deer.

Money

It’s easy to travel Australia with $20-40 US per day.  ATM’s are readily available in all of the cities, but plan ahead and carry some cash for more remote over land travel.  Australia becomes even more accessible to the apprehensive traveler through being an English speaking nation.  The best way to save money in Australia, is through self catering.  Buy your own food at the store instead of eating out 3 meals a day.

Best to Explore

Australia offers so many wonderful places to explore including Sydney, Melbourne, Fraser Island, Nimbin, the Gold Coast, and the Great Ocean Road.  Sydney was an awesome city, and we found lots of FREE activities.

Although Justin and I have not visited Melbourne yet, we have only heard positive recommendations on Melbourne.  Aussies have described it as beautiful, friendly, colorful, artistic, and inviting.  Looking back, Justin and I really wish we would have made a few days in Melbourne a priority.  But it’s good to have an excuse to return and explore Australia.  Melbourne is currently ours excuse to return.  If you have been to Melbourne let me know what you think.  Is it truly an awesome place?

Problems

Now not all of Australia is perfect.  In fact, the long distances between one point of interest to another is a major  hindrance if you have not set aside an adequate amount of time to explore Australia.  It can also become dangerous to attempt driving a multi-day road trip across more remote regions of Australia.  Make sure you have properly loaded your vehicle with extra gasoline (or petrol), water, food, spare car parts, tools, and other necessary supplies.

Individuals complain that exploring Australia can become very expensive, quickly.  If you are looking for a cheap budget destination perhaps consider a trip to a less expensive country.  If your heart is set on exploring Australia, opportunities exist in order to avoid holding a ‘WILL WORK FOR FOOD’ sign.

Explore for Less

Many individuals get around the expensive of exploring Australia through working.  Work is not difficult to find and 12 month Work Visas are available online.  If you don’t have 12 months to spend exploring Australia, know that other opportunities exist.  In Australia it is popular to spend 2-4 hours working each day in exchange for accommodation.  Justin and I only spent one week in Australia and we did not participate in WWOOFing, however we spent two weeks in New Zealand working at a Pub on the Great Barrier Island for our food and lodging.  Just because we only spent 2 weeks receiving FREE food and accommodations, doesn’t mean you can’t spend several months lowering your travel expenses through becoming a WWOOFer.  You could even work at an alpaca farm!

Waiting to Explore

While waiting to explore Australia I would recommend the following as fun ways to learn and plan:

• Check Australia guide books out at the library
• Rent a movie based in Australia (Lord of the Rings doesn’t count, it was filmed in New Zealand)
• Read a fictional book (not just guide books)
• Hang a map of Australia on the wall – great inspiration to save money
• Need more inspiration?  You Tube beautiful Australia videos
• Look into WWOOLFing opportunities
• Set up a buzz alert with Kayak to monitor airfare prices

We currently have one year visas that are valid until early 2010.  Although we have only seen one week of Australia, who knows what the future could bring, we may even head back to the Outback?

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• 4 days in Sydney
• 1 day in the Whitsunday Islands    Hamilton  Island
• 1 day in Cairns
• 1 day in Darwin

Australia is a huge country.  The United States is larger geographically, however Australia is approximately the same size as the 48 contiguous states.  Australia offers enough nonstop adventure to easily fill a year or more.  In fact, there are countless routes one could take in traveling by land.  Here are 4 examples to help you imagine how you may explore Australia.

East Coast Drive 6-8 weeks

If you love the beach then this is the way to explore Australia.  Begin in Sydney and enjoy the beautiful harbor front with the iconic Opera House and all the FREE activities Sydney offers.  As you drive north, hiking and wine tasting will begin the adventure around Hunter Valley. Since you love the beach, spend a day or two in Port Stephens where you may participate in various water sports.  Continue driving north because there is loads of coast to explore, including Byron Bay, the Gold Coast, and the stunning Sunshine Coast.  Adventure off shore and join a whale watching tour while visiting Hervey Bay.  Towards the end of your East Coast drive, be sure to save time to consider sailing or even SCUBA diving in the Whitsunday islands along the Great Barrier Reef.  However, ending your beach explorations in Cairns is wonderful, with their public swimming lagoon (overlooking the ocean) and many more opportunities to SCUBA dive.

You can’t spend every day laying on the beach with a book, because the coast offers too much to explore.  This route is a great splash of urban and beach.

West into the Outback 6-8 weeks

This is a great route to explore the Outback while still having opportunities for wine tasting, some animals, and hours of endless rock formations and breath taking scenery.  Fly into Perth and savor your last few days while taking part in some urban exploration.  Once you begin to drive east from Perth, the art galleries, bars and restaurants will vanish rapidly.  Make sure you camp on the Margaret River and consider surfing or wine tasting before arriving in Augusta.  Here you will find Cape Leeuwin and you might be able to see some whales off the coast.  Even if you are not able to spot any whales, the giant old-growth forests of Southwestern Australia are next along the route, just before arriving in Albany to explore amazing architecture and perhaps SCUBA diving (it’s some of Australia’s best).  While driving along the south coast, Esperance will offer even more animals to explore with seals, penguins and sea birds.  Kalgoorie Bolder offers a historic look into the ‘wild-west’ and you can even have a miners beer.  While driving along the coast to Port Lincoln their are countless beach towns, opportunities to learn to surf, or fish a while (tuna is a popular catch).

The Outback exploration takes over all of your senses when driving north of Port Lincoln, towards Port Augusta, and continuing on to Alice Springs.  Rocks, canyons and springs, oh my!  Several national parks will adorn the route to Alice Springs.  This route is quite the journey and it can even be expanded to 2 months if you really want to take your time.  Rent a camper van or bring a tent and be prepared to create your bed from time to time.  Through bringing some food, water and other supplies you will be able to choose what you explore as you drive from the west into the outback.

Hinterland Route – Less Traveled 4-6 weeks

This is the lest traveled route that most tourists overlook.  However, it’s a route that offers the Outback, rivers, National Parks and more.  Melbourne is a great place to start, while enjoying the art and cafe culture of an Australian city.  Each National Park has something unique to offer, make sure that you allow enough time to explore.  Hiking, wildflowers, rock climbing, or even renting a paddle boat to take down the Murray River.  Broken Hill marks the middle of the route.  It offers great historic perspective through artists, poets, Aboriginal culture and the busy mining days of the past.  If you enjoy wildlife you will love the incredible Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo.  Don’t worry there is still loads to see before Byron Bay.  Amazing foliage, some historical buildings, the drive through Waterfall Way and more beautiful sights to explore.  Hope you are still enjoying the vehicle you have been driving for the past several weeks, because their is still a 2 hour drive from Byron Bay to Sydney before you fly home (unless you live in Australia).

This is a great option to explore Australia if you only have a month.

Cross-continent: One to two months

This is a long strenuous route with difficult driving (not all paved/sealed roads).  Beginning in the north (Cairns) will lead to a tropical start.  While continuing west, this route will take you through some old mining towns.  Driving even further west will bring endless days of exploring the vast outback.  The feeling of remoteness begins to end with gorgeous rock formations that appear along the Great Central Road.  Finally a wonderful site of the beach will end your long cross country experience.

This is a 2900 mile journey, only the adventurous should consider this path when exploring Australia.  Road and weather conditions are unpredictable, so it is best to allow 2 months of travel time.  In addition, much preparation is necessary to survive a drive as strenuous as the cross-continent route.  The vehicle should be equip with extra supplies including food, water and gasoline or petrol.  While interviewing a few individuals that have made this journey, I learned that many vehicles will even carry some spare car parts.  Make sure to do the proper research and preparation before executing this journey.  Want to explore Australia in an extremely wild, adventurous manner?  Go cross-continent!

Part two of this mini-series will discuss the tools you will require to make these adventures a reality.

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FREE in Sydney:

• Sydney Harbor Bridge
• The Rocks (historical area with street theater on the weekends)
• Art Gallery of New South Wales
• Sydney Parks (tons of green space all over the city)
• Sydney Beaches
• FREE Tour (3 hour walking tour)
• Weekend markets, endless festivals and events

Justin and I have greatly enjoyed many of the FREE activities Sydney offers.

We especially enjoyed the FREE walking tour.  The walking tour through Sydney’s most popular sites proved to be a fun, educational experience.  I was able to learn about Sydney’s history, especially things I was not taught during my high school history classes.  Did you know that during WWII the United States of America fired at a tiny fort in Sydney’s harbor?  We apologized to our tour guide on the behalf of all Americans.  It was clearly our mistake as we intended to hit the enemy, but we missed.  Australians will always view Americans as people with good intentions but bad aim.  Enter a men’s public bathroom on U.S. soil and I am sure many will agree with the Aussies on the ‘bad aim’.  Needless to say, go on the FREE tour.  You will learn a lot.

After the results of You Choose (the poll on www.nomadbackpackers.com) were calculated, we were thrilled to head to the Open Air Cinema to view a movie under the stars.  Unfortunately, the Open Air Cinema is closed for the season and we are not able to do exactly what ‘You Chose’.

Since we couldn’t do what you voted on, we decided to do it all!

In second place  was swimsuit shots in front of the Opera House.  Although Justin and I forgot to wear our swimsuits, both Jerry and Rob from Ontario, Canada were enjoying sunny Sydney.  They both have the Sydney harbor blues!

In third place was creating a You Tube video of a Sydney local.   When we first created the poll I envisioned the Sydney local being a human.  Everything changed when I met Sydney’s famous talking dog.  Instead of running around the city searching for cheap, reliable internet access, to upload my video of Sydney’s talking dog, you can check out this crazy guys video instead.

In fourth place, was going to a BYO (Bring Your Own Alcohol) restaurant.  Although this came in last place on You Choose, BYO dining is popular among Sydney foodies.  Almost every restaurant in Sydney is a BYO restaurant in which you may enter with a bottle of wine (beer or alcohol of choice) that you have purchased somewhere else in the city.  The BYO experience occurs at both casual cafes as well as high end establishments.  Most restaurants will charge a corking fee (around $8) or charge per wine glass ($2.50 per head) they distribute.  Personally, being a newbie to the BYO experience and also trying to test it’s limits, we went all out and found an Authentic Korean restaurant.  Not only did the menu fail to have any English, but we were the only people in the entire restaurant who were not Korean.  It was an amazing BYO experience even though red wine does not pair well with authentic Korean cuisine.  I would recommend the Sydney BYO restaurant experience to anyone, backpacker and budget traveler alike.

Thank you for voting and participating in You Choose.  I hope you enjoyed the results.  Ladies, I hope you enjoyed the swimsuit shots I got.

We are dreaming of our time in South East Asia and want you to vote on what we should to do.  South East Asia is exotic and full of adventure.  Its an area of the world with mostly developing countries.  Things are unpredictable as you never really know what you are going to get.  Therefore,You Choose: South East Asia is a variety of activities we have heard a traveler could do, however we are uncertain if all of the voting options will be possible.  Who knows?  The elephants could go on strike?  Check it out and vote.  You Choose what we do.

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