Australia

[Applejack87]

Hi , we would love to visit Australia in July when our 12 year old breaks up from school
We were thinking about flying to Sydney hiring a car & making our way to Cairns we would also love to visit Singapore on the way back to the Uk .. Any advice please ?

How long are you thinking of being in Australia for?.

Its 1500 miles distance (basically London to Moscow in terms of driving) between Sydney and Cairns; flight there from Sydney takes around 3 hours.

Some airlines do stop over in Singapore on return to the UK and you may find a good deal re flights and hotel packages.

We stop over in Singapore. If you fly Singapore Airlines, look out for their Singapore Stopover deals. They are very good value.

We did this last summer (didn't stopover in Singapore but BA flight stopped there). Flew from Sydney to Cairns - would fly rather than drive due to distance. We booked multi flights via BA and only about £100 return to add in Quantas flights to Cairns each.

Weather around Cairns is perfect that time of year and lots you can see from the wider area - we did Great Barrier Reef, Daintree, Atherton Tablelands - stayed with lady who looks after tree kangaroos and a bettong and one tree kangaroo jumped on me, saw cassowary, pademelon, kangaroos, possum, crocs in the wild and cuddled koala in wildlife park. Also stayed in treehouse in rainforest. Would strongly recommend that area - if want to see koalas in wild Magnetic Island is worth looking into but further away - you can take hire cars there now.

Sydney nice to look round for a few days but weather was meh - we did whale watching in Port Stephens which was excellent.

Did you know you can fly directly to Perth now? Perth of old used to have a reputation for being bland but has some trendy suburbs, beautiful beaches and great wineries to the south. Go north to coral bay/Kakadu Nat park. It's beautiful and I think would be warm in July whereas as Sydney could be chilly. East coast is busy and touristy. If u do go to Sydney you could take a few days to visit the Blue Mountains which are beautiful. I know oz well, lived there for a year, been twice and did Singapore on the way back on one of my trips. Good if you love shopping. Was interesting, bit too sterile for my tastes.

Singapore was astonishingly hot and humid for us, interesting but hard to summon up energy to do anything! Lots to see - Indian temple, Chinatown, Raffles, Botanic Gardens. Did not like the artificial island place, very Disneyfied feeling, can't remember the name. Two or three days is more than enough.

Sentosa Island. Agree that it's a bit naff unlike you like Disneyland or theme park like places. However, if you want a beach or swim in the sea, it's probably the most convent place within easy reach of the city centre.

There's plenty to see and do in Singapore as a whole. Public transpoert is excellent and reasonably priced. Food is also cheap if you don't mind eating with the locals. The best part for me is that it feels very safe. Generally speaking, I hate city breaks, but we keep going back.

When we went we flew from cairns to Sydney and then drove to Brisbane up the gold coast. We stopped at a variety of places on the way (Can give more details if you want!).
I'd not recommend driving all the way to cairns as we were advised that there would be days of driving through sugar cane fields so could be boring!!!

Thankyou all so much for your informative replies , I've been trying to tell my husband that driving to Cairns would be too much .. Vegisgrowingwell we have thought about driving form Sydney to Brisbane . If you could give me more details that would be great thankyou

Remember that in July it's their winter. Whilst it doesn't get as cold as it does here, it can still be chilly and damp in Sydney. The further North you go, the warmer it will be (but also can be quite humid I think)

I'd definitely fly from Sydney to Cairns rather than drive, as it makes most use of the time you have there.

Airlines like BA, Qantas and Singapore all fly to Sydney via Singapore, so you can break your journey there, either outward or on your return.

I've been to Australia 3 times always centred around Brisbane. Definitely do not attempt to drive from Sydney to Cairns! Internal flights are cheap and easy to manage. It would be far better to spend e.g., some days around Sydney, then fly to another destination and do the same there. I've never got as far as Cairns, but I flew from Brisbane to Townsville which is not as far and even that was a proper length flight iyswim, and not a distance I would want to be driving. I also know the Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, the Great Ocean Road and Tasmania (a bit in each case) if you want to ask anything.

It will take a really long time to drive from Sydney to Cairns, particularly with children, and through some very remote areas.
(I've done it before.) You would need to plan well and make sure you have road side assistance. If you make any stop overs it will likely be in very small towns with limited accommodation. July will be winter too, driving would be crazy in my opinion.

Another wonderful place in Queensland with decent winter weather is Noosa, lots to do, very family friendly.

@Applejack87 sorry for delay!
We flew to Sydney (after visiting uluru) stayed for a few nights then picked up a hire car there. Without a map I might get these in the wrong order but we stayed in Port Stephens, Coff Harbour and Byron Bay breaking our journey and seeing the sights on each place then ended up in Brisbane.
The drive was no more than 5 hours on a day and gave us a chance to really understand how big Australia is (I know that sounds silly!!)
Trailfinders did all our planning and we stayed in some lovely places. We'd hoped to whale watch in Port Stephens but it was too windy so we did that from Brisbane instead.

I didn't like Byron Bay, too commercialised and full of people trying to be cool !

I think that was enough driving as for a lot of it you are on a main road so not seeing anything unless you pull off.

I will say it's easy to drive as there is just one main road so you don't get lost (although 2 years ago they were making it dual carriage so there were road works)

It really was a fantastic holiday

Driving from Sydney to Brisbane is still a long drive and further infact than driving from London to Marseille!. He needs to think again. Would suggest flying between cities instead of driving, you do not want to spend more time than needed behind a steering wheel.

It is a long way but it depends on what you plan to do. We loved the drive because we took our time and stayed in different places for a couple/three nights at a time. It really didn't feel that far because of the stops. We'd do a similar thing again but we like driving and seeing the coast line.

Port Douglas is really nice in Aus winter

We did it a few years ago in our summer holidays. We flew between Sydney and Brisbane. We stayed in surfers paradise for a few nights. The kids loved the theme parks and they were all so quiet. We then stopped at airlie beach and did a 2 night boat trip. This was amazing. Saw dolphins. Swam with turtles. We also stayed on a working ranch for a couple of nights. Weather is perfect in Queensland at that time of year.

We were there last Easter. Flew via Singapore but didn’t stop here - just pushed on through as we wanted to maximise time in Oz. A week in Sydney, then hired a motorhome and spent 10 days driving to Brisbane. Stopped in Port Stephens, Nambucca Heads, Byron and Gold Coast 2-3 nights in each. Then flew to the whitsundays for 2 nights sailing, before flying back home from Brisbane, again via Singapore. 3 weeks in total. It was amazing. Unless you’ve got at least 5 weeks I wouldn’t be driving all the way to cairns.

There's no way I would drive Sydney to Cairns with kids. Sydney to Brisbane is viable if you've got time to make stops though I prioritise Sydney few days / FNQ with maybe few days in Port Stephens. We just did Sydney / Port Stephens, flew to Cairns and from there did Port Douglas / Tablelands / Daintree / Great Barrier Reef. In their winter would bulk of time in Cairns / Port Douglas / GBR / Daintree due to weather.

Port Stephens is worth a few days and is good stopover on way to Brisbane but is only 2.5 hours from Sydney, we stayed few nights there at Treescape in deluxe apartment, amazing value. Did Moonshadow dolphin and whale cruise and saw about a hundred, well lots anyway 😂, sandboarding on the dunes very good and looking for koalas in Tilligerry - almost impossible so don't bother but very cheap and pretty. They were setting up koala sanctuary at Treescape not sure if open yet.

We flew to Cairns day after Tilligerry and DS said I would like to eat at the restaurant we ate at yesterday with the beach, had to point out to him it was 1500 miles away 😂

We flew Sydney to Cairns and stayed in Palm Cove just outside Cairns.

Lots to do up that way.

We did a stop over in Singapore- hot and humid. About 4 days.

5 days in Sydney - love the zoo there and did the Bridge climb , Bondi beach etc. It was their winter so bit like spring here.

Cairns - perfect to visit in their winter. Comfortably warm , no jelly fish in sea then.

A fe

Singapore is my favourite place so far! Clean, green and no crime.
Sadly wine and beer are expensive...

If you like wildlife this place - hour or so from Cairns is well worth staying at and she cooks amazing food with lots of wines. She rescues tree kangaroos and other injured animals - I had a tree kangaroo jump on me there! When we were there they had tree kangaroos, bettong with DD 12 could bottle feed, pademelon, possum - kids could feed pademelon and possum.

www.lumholtzlodge.com.au/