Australia Travel Guide

Introduction:

Why You Will Fall In Love With Australia

Australia lingers long in every impression. From burning red desert to bustling metropolis, aboriginal lifestyles to surf culture, the land down under seems to serve up a feast of preconceptions. This vast island, cast adrift in the South Pacific, seems to ignite the imagination unlike anywhere else. Australia. Just picture it and it's impossible to focus on a single image; Sydney, Uluru, the Great Barrier Reef, the desert, the beach, everything in between. We'll let you into a little secret. All that dreaming, all that unadulterated reverie of Australia...it's pretty much exactly what Australia is like when you visit.

Let's indulge a little on the country's appeal. Over 20,000 miles of virtually untouched coastline, a series of cities founded on ingenuity and intrigue, endemic wildlife skipping around all over... This is where you'll find the world's biggest monolith, it's longest reef, oldest rainforest, longest surviving culture, and a completely new definition of uninhabited wilderness. With Australia, there's never a debate about whether you want to go. It's hard to find a soul on the planet who isn't in-spired by the thought of this immense island nation.

The question is more about how to transform Australia from fantasy to reality. First up are the practicalities. Just flying across the country takes five hours, nothing but scorched landscape beneath the wingtips. Even on the ever popular East Coast you can drive for hours without seeing anything but sugar plantations and the odd kangaroo. Second up is cost. Australia's transformation from rugged hinterland into sophisticated nation knows no boundaries, and the spiraling costs have many visitors surviving off boxed wine and jam sandwiches. Finally, there's the dilemma of finding time. Such a vast far flung destination deserves oodles of time. So what can realistically be squeezed into an itinerary if you don't have three months to spare?

Consider the three questions and Australia can easily be left to rot in the annals of travel day-dreams. But as the Aussies would say, no worries. The locals' serene and easygoing attitude forms the paradigm for this guidebook. There's no need to completely overthink Australia. This is an indelibly easy country to travel in and this guidebook believes in giving you all the information and tools to turn a dream trip into reality. All the core practicalities are considered, helping you plan an itinerary regardless of how much time you have to spend. Costs are outlined, along with numerous ways to reduce them without reliving days of being a squalid student.

This guidebook is about all the essential information you need to plan and realize a trip to Austral-ia. Because once you've got it planned the country will do the rest. So jump forward into a nation of superlatives, into a mesmerizing concoction of escapism and adventure. Some people say that Australia is a country for finding yourself. We prefer to think it's a country for getting lost, amidst the finest landscapes and experiences on the planet.

Chapter 1:

Welcome to Australia!

Australia at a glance

Let's start with the obvious. Australia is huge. It's also vastly unpopulated, a handful of cities containing the large bulk of a 25 million population. This is a place of wilderness and hinterland, a dry and barren land that evokes all the impressions of desert and the bush. Traveling between destinations almost always takes a day, even if you're flying, yet arrive for just a week and there's plenty to discover with a realistic plan. Sandwiched between desert and ocean is a thin coastline of development and greenery, home to the iconic cities and more deserted sand than you could ever possibly imagine.

The East Coast is more developed with Sydney and Melbourne providing the most popular entry points to the country. Most visitors stay east, traversing the renowned wonders that dot a long coastline, including the Great Barrier Reef and Whitsunday Islands. South of the two famous cities but still firmly on the eastern side, you'll find the Southern Coast and island of Tasmania. The West Coast is far less developed, save for the rapidly expanding and beautiful city of Perth. Journeys here are more off the beaten track, the intrepid coastline a place for real adventure. The red center is exactly that, a vast red desert where you can drive 1000 miles without seeing another person or building. It's achingly authentic, but can be brutal and unpleasant for the unprepared.

Land in a city and you'd be forgiven for an immediately blinding by the lights. Australia can be as developed and futuristic as anywhere in the world. However, at its heart, the country retains the tranquil atmosphere of days gone by. Even the Sydney city slickers will jump off work early for a surf. Settling into the local rhythm happens almost instantaneously; expect to be gently rolling on an anything-is-possible mentality. Not in an American Dream kind of way. Think instead, that if anything is possible, then there's time for a beer in the meantime. Australia and Aussies are fun, always focused on absorbing the best of life and having a laugh. You can't help but smile, especial-ly with the endless days of sunshine, exuberant coating of nature, and encompassing wonder that seems to cascade from the hotel window.

Australia's tourist infrastructure matches its modern world status. Roads are in excellent condition, flights connect remote destinations, and the range of accommodation always impresses with its quality. Arrive in the most far-flung destination and there will be a tour company offering some kind of unique trip.  Just to get you excited, here are a few examples:

Iconic Experiences

• Sydney is surrounded by green, dissected by a river, and fringed by memorable surf. Yet it's also a marvelous blend of ultra plush development and old-world ambiance, one that's stuffed with iconic sights and must-see landmarks. (See Chapter 5: Sydney and Around).

• The wild West Coast is a place for beach dreamers, for those that imagine thousands of miles of sand without a single footprint. Jump out into the Indian Ocean and tropical marine worlds serve up kaleidoscopic beauty, like swimming with whale sharks in Ningaloo. (See Chapter 11: The West Coast)

• Kangaroos and koalas feature highly on all postcard images of Australia, yet few can picture how closely they merge with urbanity. Just outside the colorful artistic streets of Mel-bourne you can spot hundreds of marsupials thriving in their natural habitat. (See Chapter 6: Melbourne and Victoria).

• Visible from space and stretching half way down the East Coast, the Great Barrier Reef needs little introduction. Yet for all the boasting about size, there's a wonderful intimacy to exploring its colors and weirdness. (See Chapter 9: The East Coast).

• Running between Melbourne and Adelaide, the Great Ocean Road is perhaps the country's most dramatic expanse of cliff lines and sandy havens, the bays interluded by staggering rocky pinnacles that stand isolated in the water (See Chapter 6: Melbourne and Victoria).

• Peculiar Tasmania runs with its own style, the island's geography more reminiscent of nearby New Zealand than the mainland. It's a place for outdoor adventures, wild camping, and the most laid-back characters around (See Chapter 8: Tasmania).

• Kangaroo Island isn't just home to the hopping version of marsupials, it's one of the final utopias