Planning a Trip to Oz, can you help? I have no idea where to start....

[OneLieIn]

Planning a Xmas time trip to Oz, but I don't know where to start.

How do you book flights with a stopover? We want to break it up with a stop somewhere....where?
Where would you go? Sydney, Barrier Reef are definites, where else?

Argghhhh so complicated.

Do you have kids - what ages?

We've just booked to go to sydney for Xmas, new year and our friends wedding for 4 weeks. We booked with dial a flight and they've been great. We're flying from Manchester to heathrow, although could have gone straight from manchester but the flight would have left at 8am ish, so we'd have to leave home around 5am meaning ds (3) would already have had his sleep pattern messed up. We're stopping for 1 night in Singapore each way to allow ds to recharge his batteries. Dial a flight have sorted the hotel and transfers. Can't help with things to do though as we're staying in Sydney the whole time with our friends.

We did Sydney, then Port Douglas, Ayers Rock, Perth, Singapore with a 2 year old. We are experienced travel bookers but the flights were so complicated, we left this to Trailfinders. We booked the accommodation directly and saved over £1,000 in doing so.

As others have commented, it is noticeably expensive, particularly in Sydney. Absolutely loved the Aquarium (I think this must be the best in the world), the ferry ride from Sydney to Manley was great fun, the Opera House tour was great too.

But by far the most amazing part for us was Port Douglas - the route from Cairns to Port Douglas is breathtaking and in Port Douglas you are between the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest - both World Heritage Sites. Go on car ferry across the Daintree, go on crocodile spotting tour, eat tropical ice creams at the ice cream farm en route, great animal farm in Port Douglas, beautiful beaches, snorkel/dive the Great Barrier Reef ...

Ayers Rock/Uluru - would recommend for max one or two nights as it is very very expensive and there isn't a great deal to do outside of Uluru Recommend the free of charge Rangers tour. An Aboriginal elder accompanied our ranger and so we were given a great insight into Aboriginal culture. Preferred Kata Tjuta as felt more desolate.

Only had a brief stopover in Perth - Fremantle is quite nice on a Sunday, nice fish restaurants but very busy on a Sunday.

Singapore was amazing for all sorts of reasons but the zoo is a must see - it was wow!

PS. You can still climb Uluru but it's very disrespectful to do so - although that didn't stop many from climbing it when we were there.

Also, although I haven't been yet, Ningaloo Reef is supposed to be equal to Great Barrier Reef and I believe Margaret River area is very beautiful (tips from an Australian relative of ours).

It can be as cheap to fly round the world as it is to go to Oz and back, so you could do stop overs both ways but in different places. The US or Brazil one way and Singapore / Japan the other.