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  #21  
Old August 19th, 2004, 10:02 PM
Bego Mario Garde
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Peter schrieb:


I'd also get a driving map with the distances shown
http://www.australianexplorer.com/driving_distances.htm ...


Have a look at
http://www.travelmate.com.au/MapMaker/MapMaker.asp?TM_Page=Mapmaker.

Totally forget about getting off a longhaul flight and hiring a car at
the airport.


Yes, absolutely.

Especially if you normally drive on the right side of the
road.


Oh, I think it's more difficult if you come back to Europe and suddenly
find yourself on the left lane!

Fraser Island is great, but you can't take a 2WD rental car over.


We booked an organized tour with a 4WD-bus. Normaly I hate such tours,
but this one was great, even with all the people around you.

Bego
--
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we.
They never stop thinking about new ways to harm
our country and our people, and neither do we."

- George W. Bush, 5.8.2004

  #22  
Old August 19th, 2004, 10:02 PM
Bego Mario Garde
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Default

Peter schrieb:


I'd also get a driving map with the distances shown
http://www.australianexplorer.com/driving_distances.htm ...


Have a look at
http://www.travelmate.com.au/MapMaker/MapMaker.asp?TM_Page=Mapmaker.

Totally forget about getting off a longhaul flight and hiring a car at
the airport.


Yes, absolutely.

Especially if you normally drive on the right side of the
road.


Oh, I think it's more difficult if you come back to Europe and suddenly
find yourself on the left lane!

Fraser Island is great, but you can't take a 2WD rental car over.


We booked an organized tour with a 4WD-bus. Normaly I hate such tours,
but this one was great, even with all the people around you.

Bego
--
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we.
They never stop thinking about new ways to harm
our country and our people, and neither do we."

- George W. Bush, 5.8.2004

  #23  
Old August 20th, 2004, 11:30 AM
Alan G. McCall
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Whats the attraction with Sydney???
Blue Mountains I guess but not much more.
I reckon one or two days tops there, and spend the extra time in the centre
or in Kakadu.

Alan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan"
Newsgroups: rec.travel.australia+nz
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 8:02 AM
Subject: Australia travel tips


snip
Just a rough itinerary to play with over 20 days:
1 Sydney
2
3
4
5
6
7
8 Adelaide
9 Alice
10 Uluru
11 Darwin
12 Kakadu
13
14 Cairns
15
16
17
18
19
20 depart

Cheers, Alan
--



  #24  
Old August 20th, 2004, 11:30 AM
Alan G. McCall
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Posts: n/a
Default

Whats the attraction with Sydney???
Blue Mountains I guess but not much more.
I reckon one or two days tops there, and spend the extra time in the centre
or in Kakadu.

Alan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan"
Newsgroups: rec.travel.australia+nz
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 8:02 AM
Subject: Australia travel tips


snip
Just a rough itinerary to play with over 20 days:
1 Sydney
2
3
4
5
6
7
8 Adelaide
9 Alice
10 Uluru
11 Darwin
12 Kakadu
13
14 Cairns
15
16
17
18
19
20 depart

Cheers, Alan
--



  #25  
Old August 20th, 2004, 11:57 AM
Peter
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In article ,
says...
Whats the attraction with Sydney???


The iconic harbour, with the bridge (and bridge climb), the opera house,
the great expanses of bush-covered shores, the beaches...

Taronga Park Zoo is world class, and one of the few places where a
tourist may see a more or less complete collection of Australian fauna.
Tourists can see kangaroos anywhere, but platypodes are "tuff".

Blue Mountains I guess but not much more.


Jenolan Caves are worth a look as well.

I reckon one or two days tops there, and spend the extra time in the centre
or in Kakadu.


Problem is that for an international tourist, seeing the outback means
that they either spend a lot of money on airfares, or they spend a lot
of time driving for days and days to tick a few boxes.

Australia's a big place, and realistically, most of it is miles and
miles of nothing much. It's not like Europe, where you'll drive for a
day and go through three countries with any number of chateaux,
galleries, museums, battlefields, cathedrals, historic places and so on.
Even the USA's most sparsely populated areas are veritable hives of
activity compared to your typical slice of remote Australia. Hell, just
about anywhere on earth bar the Sahara and Antarctica is more crowded
than the outback.

Entirely up to the tourist, of course, but I suspect that very few would
have a proper appreciation of just how much time and money they'll spend
on travel within Australia.
  #26  
Old August 20th, 2004, 11:57 AM
Peter
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Default

In article ,
says...
Whats the attraction with Sydney???


The iconic harbour, with the bridge (and bridge climb), the opera house,
the great expanses of bush-covered shores, the beaches...

Taronga Park Zoo is world class, and one of the few places where a
tourist may see a more or less complete collection of Australian fauna.
Tourists can see kangaroos anywhere, but platypodes are "tuff".

Blue Mountains I guess but not much more.


Jenolan Caves are worth a look as well.

I reckon one or two days tops there, and spend the extra time in the centre
or in Kakadu.


Problem is that for an international tourist, seeing the outback means
that they either spend a lot of money on airfares, or they spend a lot
of time driving for days and days to tick a few boxes.

Australia's a big place, and realistically, most of it is miles and
miles of nothing much. It's not like Europe, where you'll drive for a
day and go through three countries with any number of chateaux,
galleries, museums, battlefields, cathedrals, historic places and so on.
Even the USA's most sparsely populated areas are veritable hives of
activity compared to your typical slice of remote Australia. Hell, just
about anywhere on earth bar the Sahara and Antarctica is more crowded
than the outback.

Entirely up to the tourist, of course, but I suspect that very few would
have a proper appreciation of just how much time and money they'll spend
on travel within Australia.
  #27  
Old August 20th, 2004, 03:01 PM
Alan
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On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 18:30:22 +0800, "Alan G. McCall"
wrote:

Whats the attraction with Sydney???
Blue Mountains I guess but not much more.
I reckon one or two days tops there, and spend the extra time in the centre
or in Kakadu.

Alan


Hi Alan

I suspect the only point we'll agree on here is how you spell your name.
You hit a nerve, after a few similar comments by others.

Last year I spent some time in almost all of the major cities of the
Western world. Each had it's own unique attractions, and each was well
worth the visit. And, as an Aussie, I'll admit my bias up front even
though I live 900km from Sydney.

Sydney was right up there with the best of them. For scenery - that
magnificent harbour is unbeatable, food, shopping, activities, people,
and just simply the differences between it and the other great cities,
you would be mad to miss it or hurry it. And no, it doesn't have the
antiquity of Rome, Aquilaea, Pompeii, Mycenae or Athens; it doesn't have
the Prado or the Getty or the Louvre; it doesn't have the history of
Versailles or Edinburgh or Trier or Bath; it doesn't have the theatres
of Broadway or the cafe's of Paris. I saw all those, and many others -
you would find it hard to name a major western city we didn't visit. In
twenty countries over five months.

I could go on - but I'm showing off here to make the point that Sydney
is right up there as a major tourist city. I re-visited it with fresh
eyes after that trip. It's a great city.

To see this country, you need to see more than the outback, the rock,
the reef and Kakadu. You need to see the cities, where most of the
people are, in one of the most urbanised countries in the world. And
Sydney is also the most cosmopolitan of them all, a melting pot of
western and eastern cuisines and all the cultures of the world.

I'll stop before this becomes a book.


Cheers, Alan
--
  #28  
Old August 20th, 2004, 04:18 PM
Frank Slootweg
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Peter wrote:
In article ,
says...
Alessandro Cannarsi wrote:
2) flying Sydney-Uluru, driving about, Flying Alice-Cairns, driving up
to Cape York (how many days?), diving 3/4 days on the reef and then fly
back to Sydney.


Best way to plan your journey is to open a spreadshet and fill in the
days of your journey.


I'd also get a driving map with the distances shown
http://www.australianexplorer.com/driving_distances.htm has a rough
guide and links to more detailed sites. Most of the distances are two or
three *thousand* kilometres.


But even then the distances are hard to imagine, especially for
Europeans, which I imagine the original poster (Alessandro Cannarsi) is.
Some Europeans 'easily' drive 1000km and more a day to get somewhere. In
Australia that is hardly possible (for a European) and a complete waste
of your time. If you drive (so) much per day, you might as well fly,
because you will not have time to see/visit anything along the way, and
the *driver* will see the road and little else.

A more sane distance is a *few* hundred km per day. Many rental
agencies advise an average of about 250km per day. But with those
averages, the original poster will get exactly nowhere, given his
limited time.

Personally, I prefer driving, so I would limit how far I would go and
would probably drop Ayers Rock (etc.) and Kakadu and go north from
Sydney to as far as practical/comfortable, or perhaps even south and
'around' the lower-right 'corner' of Australia to Melbourne, Great Ocean
Road, etc.. I have not checked, but probably the Snowy Mountains
(Koswhatever) and/or Grampians National Parks could be included.

Also Bego's fly+drive plan looks quite OK.

Another approach is to get some brochures from a good/responsible
travel company and 'copy' one of their itineraries, especially the
fly+(self-)drive ones.

Alessandro, for your information: On our first trip we did *less* (not
Cairns and further up north) than what you are planning in *six* weeks,
and *still* flew part of the way (from Alice Springs back to Sydney).
  #29  
Old August 20th, 2004, 04:18 PM
Frank Slootweg
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Peter wrote:
In article ,
says...
Alessandro Cannarsi wrote:
2) flying Sydney-Uluru, driving about, Flying Alice-Cairns, driving up
to Cape York (how many days?), diving 3/4 days on the reef and then fly
back to Sydney.


Best way to plan your journey is to open a spreadshet and fill in the
days of your journey.


I'd also get a driving map with the distances shown
http://www.australianexplorer.com/driving_distances.htm has a rough
guide and links to more detailed sites. Most of the distances are two or
three *thousand* kilometres.


But even then the distances are hard to imagine, especially for
Europeans, which I imagine the original poster (Alessandro Cannarsi) is.
Some Europeans 'easily' drive 1000km and more a day to get somewhere. In
Australia that is hardly possible (for a European) and a complete waste
of your time. If you drive (so) much per day, you might as well fly,
because you will not have time to see/visit anything along the way, and
the *driver* will see the road and little else.

A more sane distance is a *few* hundred km per day. Many rental
agencies advise an average of about 250km per day. But with those
averages, the original poster will get exactly nowhere, given his
limited time.

Personally, I prefer driving, so I would limit how far I would go and
would probably drop Ayers Rock (etc.) and Kakadu and go north from
Sydney to as far as practical/comfortable, or perhaps even south and
'around' the lower-right 'corner' of Australia to Melbourne, Great Ocean
Road, etc.. I have not checked, but probably the Snowy Mountains
(Koswhatever) and/or Grampians National Parks could be included.

Also Bego's fly+drive plan looks quite OK.

Another approach is to get some brochures from a good/responsible
travel company and 'copy' one of their itineraries, especially the
fly+(self-)drive ones.

Alessandro, for your information: On our first trip we did *less* (not
Cairns and further up north) than what you are planning in *six* weeks,
and *still* flew part of the way (from Alice Springs back to Sydney).
  #30  
Old August 20th, 2004, 04:18 PM
Frank Slootweg
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Peter wrote:
In article ,
says...
Alessandro Cannarsi wrote:
2) flying Sydney-Uluru, driving about, Flying Alice-Cairns, driving up
to Cape York (how many days?), diving 3/4 days on the reef and then fly
back to Sydney.


Best way to plan your journey is to open a spreadshet and fill in the
days of your journey.


I'd also get a driving map with the distances shown
http://www.australianexplorer.com/driving_distances.htm has a rough
guide and links to more detailed sites. Most of the distances are two or
three *thousand* kilometres.


But even then the distances are hard to imagine, especially for
Europeans, which I imagine the original poster (Alessandro Cannarsi) is.
Some Europeans 'easily' drive 1000km and more a day to get somewhere. In
Australia that is hardly possible (for a European) and a complete waste
of your time. If you drive (so) much per day, you might as well fly,
because you will not have time to see/visit anything along the way, and
the *driver* will see the road and little else.

A more sane distance is a *few* hundred km per day. Many rental
agencies advise an average of about 250km per day. But with those
averages, the original poster will get exactly nowhere, given his
limited time.

Personally, I prefer driving, so I would limit how far I would go and
would probably drop Ayers Rock (etc.) and Kakadu and go north from
Sydney to as far as practical/comfortable, or perhaps even south and
'around' the lower-right 'corner' of Australia to Melbourne, Great Ocean
Road, etc.. I have not checked, but probably the Snowy Mountains
(Koswhatever) and/or Grampians National Parks could be included.

Also Bego's fly+drive plan looks quite OK.

Another approach is to get some brochures from a good/responsible
travel company and 'copy' one of their itineraries, especially the
fly+(self-)drive ones.

Alessandro, for your information: On our first trip we did *less* (not
Cairns and further up north) than what you are planning in *six* weeks,
and *still* flew part of the way (from Alice Springs back to Sydney).
 




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