Nikki

Hi Everyone

Help needed!!! I am living in the Hunter Valley, have yet to travel outside of NSW!!!!!

We have a group of 10 visitors coming to see us in April , they will be having a week in Perth before landing in Sydney - they will have 2 weeks on this side. Obviously Sydney is high on their list, they will be coming to the Hunter Valley for some of their trip, but one of my friends has a dream of diving at the Great Barrier Reef.

I don't claim to have any knowledge of that part of Australia, as a female looking at a map and judging distances is not one of my talents !

We can get cheap flights from Newcastle to Brisbane, looking at possibly hiring camper vans to enjoy the scenery and be less restricted on where we decide to stop along the way. Is this a realistic possibility?

Or, Should we fly to Cairns, which I know is easier but I think having alot of kids in the group they would like to do the fun parks in Queensland and Cairns to Brisbane seems a long long way away (I think thats where they funparks are!!)

Can anyone guide me, I just seem to be lost with endless internet searches, the end result is that I would like my friends to have a great time, but to do the Barrier Reef is really stretching their budget, so I want to try and make it a possibility for them whilst doing it as cheap as possible for them!

Thanks in advance.

Nikki

kevinbloomfield

I think Brisbane to Cairns is maybe 1200Kms or so!!

The parks are just south of Brisbane

Can you possible fly to Brisbane, have a few days doing the parks and then fly to Cairns?

We drove from Sydney to Cairns last year and the section from Brisbane upwards took a long time :-((

Nikki

Hi

Thread title says Cairns, but don't necessarily need to go there, I suppose what I mean is can you do the Barrier Reef travelling from Brisbane, or is it best to fly to Cairns and to it from there?

I would rather do Brisbane end as we can combine with the funparks etc...

Thanks for your help.

Nikki

sassie

Hi, the barrier reef I think starts from about Mackay and goes all the way up to Cairns and beyond, so its not necessary to go all the way to Cairns. Airlie Beach is the gateway to the Whitsundays and the barrier reef. I've done this trip a few time from Brisbane and to do it comfortably, we had 2 night stops, thats driving about 6-8 hours a day. All the theme parks are on the Gold Coast, just south of Brisabane. Dreamworld, Movieworld and the 2 water parks are about 40 minutes south of Brisbane and Seaworld, probably about an hour.

232Bar

Brisbane to Cairns is just under 1700kms - 24 hour drive. Does it have to be the GBR for diving - would they not be happy enough doing Curtin Artificial Reef and Flinders Reef, both done easily from Brisvegas. If it has to be the GBR and it has to be Cairns, I can recommend Tusa Dive in Cairns. We dived with them and they were pretty good although not too cheap - but then again, I don't think any diving out of Cairns is. Plenty of spots in between to dive as well - Town of 1770 I've heard is pretty good and has access to some good dive sites - they could also do the HMAS Brisbane whilst staying in and around Brisbane itself.

kevinbloomfield

HMAS Brisbane is dived from Mooloolaba which is an hour or so north of Brisbane so would be good as the previous poster said. 1700Kms is a long way to drive on a very boring road!!

Nikki

Thanks for the replies everyone, would I be correct in thinking we could fly to Brisbane then travel to Airlie Beach which would mean access to the Whitsundays and diving at a part of the reef (16 hours driving time altogether)?

Having travelled all this way I do think it is the reef my friend wants to dive at. Whilst I am more interested in seeing the Whitsundays!!!

If I have asumed correctly we could drive back down, do some of the parks before flying back out of Brisbane.

As we would need car hire we thought Camper vans would kill 2 birds with 1 stone as this would provide cheap accommodation aswell, unless you have any other / better suggestions. There is possibly going to be 15 of us in our travelling party!!

Thanks again everyone.

Nikki

Pollyana

I'm interested in this one too - family coming out in July, and they want somewhere that they can see "fish and coral and stuff" - they'll be based in Brisbane, a couple of them want to dive but the others are happy with a viewing boat. The nearer to Brissie the better so all suggestions welcime.....

wmoore

Like somebody else said, Brisbane to Cairns is 1700km of boring road - I've driven most of it! Having said that, I would definitely recommend heading for Cairns to do a reef trip over Airlie Beach / Whitsundays. We went on the Reef Magic pontoon for our reef dive and it was excellent. It cost about $170 but was worth every cent (even though I spent most of the journey to the reef bafing over the side of the boat). Their booking office is in the port terminal building (or whatever it's called).

Shaun&Dee

What about flying to Cairns, for snorkling & boat trips, etc., you can then drive inland to things like Milla Milla waterfalls (very green scenery). Lots of boat trips and horseriding etc in Cairns. As it is also an international airport then they can fly back to the UK.

The other option as the other posters say is to fly to Brisbane go south to do the theme parks, then back north to Brisbane, then fly north again to Cairns.

Around Brisbane there is plenty to do. Fraser Island would be good to do too.

Nikki

Thanks everyone for your help.

My friends are booked to return to the UK out of Sydney. This is their plan now (which changes by the day!!!), fly from Sydney to Cairns for 3 days with the intention to snorkel at the reef, they have no other site seeing things set up for Cairns. They are then flying Cairns to Brisbane, again they have not had anything recommended to them. I know they can do the theme parks from Brisbane - How far is Australia Zoo from Brisbane?

I would have thought they would be better spending 2 days in Cairns and an extra night in Brisbane? One other questions - how far is Airlie Beach from both Cairns and Brisbane, if they went from which place would they be better travelling from?

Thanks again guys.

kevinbloomfield

The Zoo is maybe 45 minutes to an hour north of Brisbane (towards the sunshine coast). The parks are less than an hour south of Brisbane on the gold coast. I wouldn't bother going to Airlie beach unless you particulary want to go to the Whitsunday islands.

The reef is closer to Mission beach than it is to Cairns and you get better deals there as well. I personally think it is better going out on a smaller boat rather than the monsters that go out of Cairns. Otherwise you are snorkelling with shed loads of other people. We took the trip from Mission beach and there was only 8 of us on the boat so we got more or less 1 to 1 service from the crew.

Why not fly into Brisbane, drive to the Sunshine coast for a day or so (and visit the Zoo and beaches) and then drive to the Gold coast (and visit the parks) and then spend a day exploring Brisbane?

snappy

Cairns does have heaps of places to visit up that way and I can highly recommend it, even for kids. If you however definitely want to do the parks in the Gold Coast my suggestion would be to either fly to Brisbane then up to Cairns and take it all in or fly to Brisbane and get a camper van then go to Airlie beach as someone else has suggested.

It has good snorkeling up there on some of the reefs and my favourite ever tourist trip was a helicopter ride over the WhitSundays islands landing on Whitehaven beach. If you go early in the morning you will get the beach to yourself.....that trip is one of those once in a lifetime trips and just truly amazing/gobsmacking/stunning etc etc

Sasha

Kapri

The highlight of my time in Australia was a day trip from Airlie no-beach to the Whitsundays and snorkling on the GBR.
I was so frightened out in the sea but when I put my face in the water and saw the beautiful coral and fish I forgot everytthing else. It was amazing.