What to do in Australia
Australia has a dazzling choice of things to do on your holidays,
and below are a few suggestions.
Gone are the days when you had to see on arrival what was available
and at what cost, now you can browse and book tours and activities
online from the comfort of your home before you start your trip.
Tours To Go specializes in all sorts of Australian
tours, browse and book tours online.
Search for a specific Australian tour or location on
Viator.com, they are an international tour booking
service but have a huge range of tours in Australia that you can
browse and securely book online.
GoDo is a very useful website where you can browse
and book loads of Australian activities and tours online
Red
Balloon Days offers you a huge choice of Australian
tours, treats, activities and adventures online, for yourself or
as a gift voucher for a friend.
Abseiling
Experience the thrill of abseiling down some steep cliff faces
in the Australian bush, accompanied by qualified instructors to
keep it safe! Click
here for a selection of abseiling tours...
Aboriginal culture
To see the real Aboriginal culture you would have to travel to
some very out of the way places and usually it is too difficult
to organize permits to enter Aboriginal owned land and even then
they prefer to be left alone and not be a tourist attraction. Fortunately
there are many places nowadays where you can without traveling too
far get an introduction into Aboriginal culture. In, or just outside
main cities, there are Aborginal galleries and dance theatres. Click
here for a selection of these tours...
Antarctica
Several times a year planes depart Sydney and Melbourne for scenic
flights over Antarctica. More
info...
Ballooning
There are many places around Australia where you can go for a flight
in a hot-air balloon, probably the most famous one the one at Ayers
Rock. Usually early departures to catch the sunrises and a champagne
breakfast is included. See
a selection of them here....
Bird watching
Australia has over 800 species of birds, half of those found only
in this country. The multitude of bird life, from the brightly colored
lorikeets to the elusive cassowary, makes Australia a bird watchers
paradise. The most amazing one of all would have to be the cassowary.
Boating
As is often the case with islands, Australia has a lot of water
around it, and boating is a popular passtime in Australia, and the
climate and fish make it even better. See
a selection of boat trips here...
Boomerang throwing lessons
Learn to throw this ancient hunting tool to make it come back,
not as easy as it sounds but there are various places around the
country where they will turn you in to a skilled hunter.
Bridge climbing
© BridgeClimb
This fantastic tour is an unforgettable way to see
Sydney!
The world famous 'BridgeClimb' takes you to the summit of the magnificent
Sydney Harbour Bridge. With expert Climb Leaders this three hour
adventure will give you a sensational view of one of the most beautiful
cities and harbors in the world.
Click
here to book this tour on-line
Bungy jumping
Found in many, often very scenic, places around Australia. Is no
longer free for naked jumpers, too many people started taking advantage
of this offer, now everyone has to pay. The Bungy Jump in Cairns
offers a few more extras, including their BIGGEST
DAY OUT deal! This package allows UNLIMITED JUMPING
between 10:00am and 3:30pm, on the same day. It has been designed
specifically for the more adventurous thrill seeker. Lunch at AJ'S
Rainforest Café is included. For your UNLIMITED number of
bungy jumps, you may want to select from the following menu:
Bushwalking
Australia is a mecca for bush walkers and hundreds of National
Parks across the country offer a huge choice in walks. Tasmania
is a very popular place, the Cradle Mountain walk being the most
famous, the south-west still has expanses of wilderness where you
can walk for weeks without seeing anyone and you will need a plane
to fly you out again. Keep an eye out for that elusive Tasmanian
Tiger while you're there.
Camel riding
One place where this is popular is Cable
Beach in Broome W.A. where you can watch a magnificent
sunset from the back of your camel. Another popular one runs in
Alice
Springs where you take your camel to dinner.
Cane toad races
Before the race someone is given the task to collect
a bucket of cane toads. They are then fitted with a number on their
back to tell them apart. The numbers correspond to names on a board,
to make it more internationally competitive they get names associated
with countries and are then assigned to people from those countries
that are picked from the audience. One by one they are issued their
cane toad, instructed to kiss the toad, and place it in a bucket
in the centre of the dance floor. Read
more....
Caving
The sense of adventure you feel when caving is second
to none, navigating your way through a maze of passages that will
eventually lead you to the exit requires excellent leadership, teamwork
and an appetite for fun. Click
here for a selection of caving trips...
Crocodile spotting tours
Forget about just going down to a river to see crocodiles in northern
Australia, they are masters at hiding, while the whole body is submerged
only the eyes stick out above the surface so they see you but you
don't see them. The way to see them isto book on a crocodile spotting
tour, the guides will know where they are and point them out to
you. Most of them, like the ones around the Daintree area north
of Cairns only view crocodiles, but on the Adelaide River in the
Northern Territory on the way to Kakadu they take it a step further
and dangle pieces of meat above the weather that the crocodiles
snap up. Advertised as the "Jumping Crocodiles" you will
see they do not just jump, their tails are powerful enough to let
them stand up out of the water for a few seconds to take meat from
as high as two metres above the water. Thisis not a trick they are
taught, in nature crocs will jump to catch low flying birds. When
this first started local fishermen were not too happy about this
as they thought it would teach crocs to jump at any boat they would
see but so far nothing has happened.
Didgeridoo lessons
Too many people just buy a didgeridoo as an ornament that will
gather dust in a corner of their European living room for years
to come, but it really would add to your Australia experience, and
impress your friends and family, to return home as a didgeridoo
player, also being able to annoy the hell out of the neighbours
with midnight didgeridoo concerts.
At the Didgeridoo Breath shop in 6 Market St, Fremantle, Western
Australia you can do a four week course, 1.5 hours per week. What
you will learn: making the drone, vocal sounds (animal noises),
circular breathing, diaphragm techniques, building rhythms and more...
Cost: $100 for early payment or $120 (4 x $30) for weekly payments,
this includes didgeridoo hire if required. More
info...
If you didn't get to learn to play the didg in Oz, log on to this
website anywhere in the world for some online didgeridoo lessons!
Drinking
Drinking was about the only pleasure the convicts had in the rough
old days and it has remained an institution ever since. Be sure
to visit some of the Australian pubs, especially in the outback
they are usually very colorful and often the only thing around so
you don't have much of a choice.
Some more civilized drinking occurs in the various wine growing
regions around Australia, either cruise around in your own car or
book on a tour bus to sample wines of the various wineries; the
Hunter Valley near Sydney, the Barossa Valley near Adelaide and
the Margaret River near Perth are the most popular.
Especially along the east coast there is a well established party
trail where the Australian tourism industry caters to young, mainly
English, backpackers that drink and shag their way around Australia.
Eating
Australia has nearly two hundred nationalities of people as residents
so you can be assured of huge variety of cuisines being available.
Coming from Europe you will find most of it very reasonably priced
and besides in restaurants it is in often cooked fresh at outdoor
markets, one particularly popular one being the Mindil Beach markets
in Darwin, N.T. where you can eat on the beach watching the most
magnificent sunsets.
Festivals
Australia has some good festivals and
annual events, try to time your holiday
so you can catch some of them.
Fishing
Australia has some pretty good fishing and some tourists can't
believe the size of the fish that are being pulled up here.
See a selection of Australian fishing trips here...
Flying
Explore Australia from the air, by all sorts of flying craft. All
over the country scenic flights are available to show you the beauty
of this country from the air. Click here for a selection of flights
in jet
fighters, light
aircraft, Tiger
Moths, sea
planes,
historic planes, glider
planes and helicopters!
Fossicking
Try your luck at finding gold or gem stones. Though most of Australia
has been explored many small scale miners and fossickers make a
living out of what they find.
Just recently in March 2005 a farmer dug up 1.5kg gold nugget in
the north of Victoria while he was out fossicking with some friends.
The nugget contained about $40,000 in gold but to a collector could
be worth around $100,000 in its natural form as nuggets this size
are quite rare.
Four wheel driving
There are a lot of unsealed roads and a lot of bushtracks in Australia,
and four wheel driving, or 'bush bashing' if there are no tracks
at all, is a popular passtime. Quad biking is another way to get
off the beaten track. Click
here for a selection of these tours....
Fruit tasting
Many exotic tropical fruits are grown in Australia nowadays, one
such place where you can learn about these fruits is the Cape
Trib Exotic Fruit Farm.
Golf
Aussies love a game of golf and there are golf courses all over
the country, even the smallest towns have one. Many Japanese come
to Australia for the main purpose of playing golf. Click
here for a selection of golf activities and lessons...
Guided rainforest tours
Hang gliding
Harley tours
In Melbourne
and many places around Australia leather clad bikers have gone into
business to tour you around on their shiny thundering machines.
The first one to kick off this industry did so well he was featured
on TV. Unfortunately an FBI agent then recognized him as wanted
and he was promptly arrested and carted back to the States. Nowadays
all Harley Tours are all fully checked out, licensed by the Transport
Department and insured, though they might still be a bit hairy and
sweaty you know what they say; Old bikers never die. They just smell
that way! Click
here for a selection of Harley tours....
Horse riding
In many places you can explore Australia's beauty on horse back,
tours usually cater for beginners and advanced riders and run through
outback, along beaches and through forests.
Click here for a selection of horse rides....
Jackaroo or jillaroo school
Several outback places offer courses that will turn you into a
jackaroo or (for girls) jillaroo, otherwise known as station hand.
You will learn how to ride a tractor and horse, how to castrate
a sheep with your teeth and how to fix a fence and be qualified
to get a job on a cattle station.
Jungle Surfing
In the rainforest most of life occurs high up in the canopy where
you can not get to but in Cape Tribulation in the oldest rainforest
in the world in the World Heritage listed Daintree you can get a
birds eye view of the canopy. Fully trained and qualified guides
will move you along steel cables through the canopy. More
info...
Kayaking
See the country and get some exercise at the same time! Click
here for a selection of kayaking tours....
Salty Dog
Seakayaks - Half day trips that include snorkelling in the Whitsundays
Cape
Trib Paddletrek - Sea kayaking tours in Cape Tribulation
Kite surfing
This sport has rapidly increased in popularity the last few years,
and there are various places where they can teach you how to kite
surf. See
a selection of them here...
Mine tours
Mining is a huge part of Australia's history and even today's economy.
In many places like Mount Isa, Kalgoorlie, Coober Pedy, Tennant
Creek etc. you can go on tours in the mine and get a feel for what
it was like to be a miner in those rough old days.
Mountain biking
With so much bush in Australia it is a paradise for mountain bikers.
See
a selection of mountain bike tours here....
Outback camping trips
In many places there are tours that will show you the sights in
multiple day trips camping out in the bush in tents or swags. Nights
are usually spent either in the middle of nowhere around the camp
fire underneath magnificent starry skies or at outback pubs where
the locals are usually friendly and the cowboys like to meet some
new faces from out of town. One such tour is Bart's
Bush Adventures in Cooktown.
Parachuting
See sky diving.
Rodeos
In many places around Australia, especially in the outback, the
wild west is still alive and the annual rodeo is often the highlight
of the year. You can watch cowboys ride horses and bulls while you
enjoy a cold beer. More
info...
Sailing
One popular place is the Whitsunday Islands in Queensland where
you can book on a skippered trip or charter your own yacht if you're
feeling confident.
Sunsail
- 31 boats at Hamilton Island
Sea kayaking
Join the Paddle
Trek and explore the Daintree Coast at Cape Tribulation
by sea kayak.
Ski the snow
Snow? Yes, not all of Australia is covered in palm trees and tropical
things, in the south the weather is much like Europe and up in the
mountains it gets cold enough for snow and skiing. The Snowy Mountains
in New South Wales have a thriving ski-industry centred in the village
of Thredbo.
Scuba diving ship wrecks in Darwin harbour
Scuba diving the desert
Under the Nullarbor Plains between Adelaide and Perth there are
submerged caves where you can go scuba diving.
Scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef
Early 2004 a survey was held in the U.K. asking people about the
50 things to do before you die and the majority placed scuba diving
on the Great Barrier Reef in the top three. It is the largest living
coral system in the world, stretching 2300km along Queensland's
coast from Bundaberg to the top of Cape York it contains 1600 reefs
and a 1000 islands and is the site of the biggest orgasm in the
universe; this is one of the terms the North Queensland dive industry
uses to describe the annual coral spawning where three to five nights
after the full moon in november or december when the water temperature
hits 28 degrees, the entire 2300 kms of Great Barrier Reef lets
go of zillions and zillions of brightly colored sperm and eggs that
float around for several days and fertilize eachother. Fish go into
a feeding frenzy and the ocean sometimes resembles an oiltanker
disaster site but all this is done to propagate new corals to ensure
the survival of the Great Barrier Reef. If you find yourself in
North Queensland around this time you can witness this spectacular
event as many of the reef tour operators run extra night trips.
The Great Barrier Reef was the first Australian site to be placed
on UNESCO's World Heritage list, now there are 15 Australian sites.
In Cape Tribulation the reef comes closest to the shore and you
can go on a reef trip here with Rum
Runner.
See a selection of Queensland scuba diving trips here..
Click
here for a selection of Australian scuba diving trips...
Scuba diving with sharks
© Oceanworld Manly
Yes, believe it or not, in Sydney at Manly Oceanworld
you can scuba dive with sharks! They have two tours, one exclusively
for certified
divers and another introductory
dive for those who have never dived before. What a
blast for your first dive!
Scuba diving with whale sharks
Ningaloo Reef
© Australian Adventure Travel
Whales, dolphins, dugongs, manta rays, huge cod or
sharks can be seen in abundance on this tour…
260-kilometre-long Ningaloo Reef offers world class diving through
to family snorkeling in sheltered lagoons crammed with coral gardens.
Ningaloo is the largest fringing coral reef in Australia. It is
the only large reef in the world found so close to a continental
land mass; about 100 metres offshore at its nearest point and less
than seven kilometers at its furthest. The park covers more than
4000 square kilometers and was declared in 1987.
This 4WD adventure will have you enjoying Ningaloo Reef, Shark
Bay, the dolphins at Monkey Mia, Coral Bay, Kalbarri and the Pinnacles.
Swim, snorkel, scuba, ride a quad bike or take a boat cruise. The
tour is accommodated on sheep stations, farms and country lodges.
More
info....
Smoking
Most of Australia, and especially Queensland, is pretty conservative
when it comes to marijuana but the town of Nimbin in northern New
South Wales is a smokers paradise.
Skydiving
Many people thinks it makes no sense to jump out of a perfectly
good aeroplane but there are others that disagree, even if you want
to do it only once you can do a tandem jump with a fully qualified
instructor to give you a huge adrenaline rush and see some Australian
scenery from a birds eye view. Click
here for a good selection of sky diving operators....
Surfing
Never surfed before? No worries, there are surf schools were they
will teach you how!
Click
here for a selection of Australian surf trips and lessons, including
kite surfing....
Gold Coast: For surfing lessons on the Gold Coast
go to Silversurfer.net
, Greg Howell will teach you how to ride those waves!
© Adrift Surf Tours
Western Australia: Experience the
soul of surfing… come along on a true surfing safari, escape
the crowds of the city and head north out of Perth. You will soon
be driving along beautiful white sandy beaches in the search to
find the best waves. With a fully accredited coach by your side,
you will be cruising along waves all the way into the beach, in
no time!
After your first surfing lesson, it's time for a healthy lunch and
a moment to sit back and enjoy the view. Once you have recharged,
hit the surf again to fine tune your new surfing skills.
The afternoon will include 4WD action through the awesome Lancelin
sand dunes where you can test your sandboarding skills. You will
then head back to Perth, around mid-afternoon, and relish the experience
you've just had living a day in the life of a surfer!
More info...
© Australian Day Tours
This is a seasonal activity as it depends on the migration of the
whales to and from the icy waters of the Antarctic which normally
happens from June till October.The humpback whales swim along the
entire east coast and are sometimes spotted as far north as Cape
Tribulation. More
info....
Click
here for a selection of whale (and dolphin) watching tours....
Wine tasting
Either cruise around in your own car or book on a tour bus to sample
wines of the various wineries; the Hunter
Valley near Sydney, the Barossa
Valley near Adelaide and the Margaret
River near Perth
are the most popular.
Click
here for a selection of wine tasting tours and appreciation courses...
Wwoofing
One way to find accommodation around the country if you're not
too lazy, is to join WWOOF,
it stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms and the principle
is that you stay with host-members where you do 4 to 5 hours work
a day in exchange for food and accommodation. Very popular with
young people, it saves money, is approved by Immigration for people
without a working visa as it is not paid work and no money changes
hands, and it gets you away from the 'get pissed and get laid' backpackerscene
that has taken over much of the east coast. When you join WWOOF
you receive a book with addresses all across Australia with property
descriptions so you can choose what suits you best. One such place
is Rainforest
Hideaway in Cape Tribulation but there are thousands around
the country.
You did anything in Australia that you would recommend
to others? Then contact
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