18 replies to this topic

[Jill]

Hi Delta fans!

I'm going to Australia in October! I want to travel and work there for a few months. I also really want to go to Delta's concert! It would be a great opportunity as I live in Holland and there's little chance I will see her live here!

Anyway, I am going to travel on my own, I want to visit the south/east of Australia. Sydney, Brisbane etc.
Basically, I don't know anything! So right now, I am asking other people experiences to get an idea!

* What are nice places to visit?
* What are affordable places to sleep? (hostels eg)
* Is it safe over there to travel alone?

Any other ideas, advice, questions; let me know!

Thanks!
Jill

[ninafan]

I recommend YHA(Youth Hostels Australia) they're in just about every capital city, Melbourne and Sydney are beautiful if you go to Sydney I recommend Blue's Point in Northern Sydney it's named after Australia's first celebrity Billy Blue. It is safe to travel alone but like anywhere you do have be careful.

[Frágil]

Where do we start?

Sydney for obvious reasons, Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge Etc.....

If you're coming to Adelaide, don't hesitate to ask. I could list quite a few!

[Johnson]

First of all, there are no direct flights between Holland and Australia, so you must transfer via London, the Middle East or Asia. There are a dozen airlines to choose from and so many combinations (for example, you can fly KLM from Schiphol to Kuala Lumpur then transfer to Malaysia Airlines to Sydney, Brisbane, or Melbourne). Ask your local travel agent or you can do your own research.
Visit these websites for ideas on where to visit:
Tourism Australia: www.australia.com (there is a site catered to Dutch people, in both Dutch and English)
Tourism New South Wales: www.visitnsw.com
Tourism Victoria: www.visitvictoria.com
South Australian Tourism Commission: www.southaustralia.com

Here in Melbourne, I recommend the Eureka Tower, Federation Square, Puffing Billy steam train, Melbourne Aquarium, Melbourne Zoo, the laneways of Melbourne city. Further afield there is Phillip Island (and its penguins), Healesville Sanctuary, Ballarat, Bendigo (both gold mining cities), and Great Ocean Road.
Like Renee (ninafan) has said, YHA is the best place to stay while you are in the country.

If you want more specific information, just ask

[Future_JD]

Ah! I was getting ready to make a similar thread on here at some point. I really didn't think it would be appropriate to make a whole new thread, so I hope you don't mind if I post in here as well! I'm fairly certain I will be doing a study abroad trip at the 1st of the year- literally I will fly out Jan. 1.

Anyway, it's actually a dual program so I will first go to Hamilton, New Zealand and study at University of Waikato Te Piringa- Faculty of Law. I know there are a few New Zealanders on this thread so please feel free to comment because I was a little nervous about this one. I read somewhere online that Hamilton has a ton of drug use especially meth so yeah if you could dispell this rumor and maybe say some good things (truthfully of course) about Hamilton that would be fantastic! And then the obvious places to go, things to see, ect. Oh are there any good beaches near there. This trip will be my last semester of law school so I want to live it up!!!

The second half will be in Melbourne. I'm studying at The Monash Faculty of Law. I'm curious what your guys' school schedule is like for instance in the US most summers June and July we are typically on summer break, so I'm curious since it is summer in Australia will you guys be in school? I just really want to meet a bunch of Australian students if I can. I mean it's kinda the whole reason to be there is to meet people and learn the culture.

I think we are staying in the CBD. Is that a good place to be in terms of location of the city? And I will be there from Febuary to April, so like weather-wise. Is it mostly going to be summer or mostly fall?

I'm trying to do as much research as I can (and I'm such a Type A I probably will have maps printed for every part of my trip), but any personal suggestions of would be much appreciated. I've heard the coffee is amazing there any good cafes that I can't leave Australia with out trying. I wanna do some of the tourist-y type things and see everything I need to see, but I think I most interested in hearing from you guys the cool places and things to do that wouldn't be on a website for the "tourist attractions."

Thanks so much!

Edited by Future_JD, 08 July 2012 - 03:45 PM.

[Daniel]

Add The ghan to the list

[Bernadette]

You must go to Phillip Island if you're coming to Victoria/Melbourne.

[Adam :)]

Our semesters tend to start in late January early February. The weather will still be quite warm as February is the end of our summer.

When visiting Sydney be careful down in kings cross of a nighttime and don't go into Redfern after dark on your own!

In Melbourne the CBD is great! There are tonnes of places to stay that are cheap and it is quite easy to find your way around as it is a big square!

I suggest also coming down to Tasmania we are little but a great tourist destination if you have time! We have great attractions such as port Arthur, Hastings caves, Richmond, cradle mountain !! Just a plug for Tasmania :-)

[Future_JD]

Ah thanks for all your replies!

Adam I will try. The program is through a different law school in the US so I won't know anyone until I get there and can make some friends (hopefully Lol). If I can convince people to go I would love to see & visit Tasmania!

[Walshy]

Watch out for drop bears.

[ninafan]

aren't they only on Fraser Island? With that place highly recommend you don't go during Dingo breeding season, stay away from the Island completly as the dogs are at their most agressive, size does matter when it comes to vehicles but it's a beatiful place. Gloria Jeans or Mad Cap Cafe are good, Mad Cap is a non profit organisation and it employs people with mental illness.

[Walshy]

aren't they only on Fraser Island? With that place highly recommend you don't go during Dingo breeding season, stay away from the Island completly as the dogs are at their most agressive, size does matter when it comes to vehicles but it's a beatiful place. Gloria Jeans or Mad Cap Cafe are good, Mad Cap is a non profit organisation and it employs people with mental illness.

Personally for an international traveller coming to Australia, I'd watch out for all bush land more than 50 metres from a footpath, road, or McDonald's, stray too close to the (dangerous) bush and you could very likely be attacked by a drop bear, ravaged by a dingo, bitten by 9 of the world most venomous snakes that inhabit Australia, be eaten alive by a great white shark, slaughtered by a crocodile, or fatally bitten by the common australian ant. If you survive all that, maybe a trip to the zoo would be nice??

[ninafan]

yeah it would be, sharks only attack certain times of the day the man that was kiilled recently by a Great White was in the water aka their home when they're thinking about food and he probably kinda looked like a seal on his surfboard. You're more likely to be killed by drowning, sun cancer or on your way to the beach in a car than be killed by a shark, we kill more of them than they do of us 150 million sharks each year are killed by humans worldwide mostly for food as apposed to around 10 I think of us worldwide are killed by sharks.

[Walshy]

Okay serious shark fan right here ^

[ninafan]

yeah the animal not the NRL team that hail from the Sutherland Shire, I've also heard the shark talk at Melbourne Aquarium quite a few times they're not a threat the average size of a shark is 1m and the largest species is only a threat to plankton there's only 5/6 species that are so called man eaters and what gives a shark species that tag is it's size, the type of teeth it has, it's behaviour. Yes the Great White Shark is one of the 5/6 species but you just have to know when it's safe to be around them(when they're not thinking about food which is in the middle of the day and not around their food) and normally if the life guards know a dangerous shark's around they do close the beach

[Future_JD]

haha I actually spent like an hour researching the different spiders/snakes in Melbourne because that is a major fear of mine. I put it off because I didn't want it to affect my decision to go! Yeah that's how bad it is, but reading posts from a lot of people living in Melbourne made me feel better. They seemed to imply it really just wasn't that big of deal and not a daily issue. I guess I'll have to look in to the shark thing too I was wanting to learn how to surf while I was abroad or well be told how to surf properly and then fail miserably.

Actually, I have thought of another question. I am a big sports person, so I have been researching Aussie football to get up to speed before I leave. Cause I imagine it would piss a lot of people off if I tried to talk about American sports the whole time just kidding, but I am genuinely interested in learning about Aussie football. If the website I found is correct games start in March. I was really wanting to go to a game before I was forced had to leave. Are tickets fairly hard to come by? Expensive? How early would I need to order them?

[Walshy]

haha I actually spent like an hour researching the different spiders/snakes in Melbourne because that is a major fear of mine. I put it off because I didn't want it to affect my decision to go! Yeah that's how bad it is, but reading posts from a lot of people living in Melbourne made me feel better. They seemed to imply it really just wasn't that big of deal and not a daily issue. I guess I'll have to look in to the shark thing too I was wanting to learn how to surf while I was abroad or well be told how to surf properly and then fail miserably.

Actually, I have thought of another question. I am a big sports person, so I have been researching Aussie football to get up to speed before I leave. Cause I imagine it would piss a lot of people off if I tried to talk about American sports the whole time just kidding, but I am genuinely interested in learning about Aussie football. If the website I found is correct games start in March. I was really wanting to go to a game before I was forced had to leave. Are tickets fairly hard to come by? Expensive? How early would I need to order them?

Nrl, union, and afl seasons are all getting towards the end in a couple of months tix areeasy to get

[ninafan]

haha I actually spent like an hour researching the different spiders/snakes in Melbourne because that is a major fear of mine. I put it off because I didn't want it to affect my decision to go! Yeah that's how bad it is, but reading posts from a lot of people living in Melbourne made me feel better. They seemed to imply it really just wasn't that big of deal and not a daily issue. I guess I'll have to look in to the shark thing too I was wanting to learn how to surf while I was abroad or well be told how to surf properly and then fail miserably.

Actually, I have thought of another question. I am a big sports person, so I have been researching Aussie football to get up to speed before I leave. Cause I imagine it would piss a lot of people off if I tried to talk about American sports the whole time just kidding, but I am genuinely interested in learning about Aussie football. If the website I found is correct games start in March. I was really wanting to go to a game before I was forced had to leave. Are tickets fairly hard to come by? Expensive? How early would I need to order them?

if you want to learn how to surf then Sydney's probably the place to be and with sharks like I said most sharks are harmless yeah we've got most of the sharks that are part of the 5 that are considered a threat to humans(the Tiger, the Bull, the Great White and the Hammerhead) but like all wild animals you just have to know when they're at their most dangerous which is for a shark when they're thinking about food or their food source is around so dawn/dusk and if you hear about a school of bait fish hanging around don't go in the water because there's probably going to be a shark around to take advantage of a free meal which they do the sharks at Melbourne Aquarium don't often go after the fish in the oceanarium because they get fed about twice a day and it's easier to get food off a diver then chase a fish and they don't do that often, I've been to the beach heaps of times and only encountered a shovel-nosed shark while snorkling. Like Walshy said tickets to the AFL, NRL and Union are pretty easy to get unless it's a special AFL game.

[Alice]

aren't they only on Fraser Island? With that place highly recommend you don't go during Dingo breeding season, stay away from the Island completly as the dogs are at their most agressive, size does matter when it comes to vehicles but it's a beatiful place. Gloria Jeans or Mad Cap Cafe are good, Mad Cap is a non profit organisation and it employs people with mental illness.

Personally for an international traveller coming to Australia, I'd watch out for all bush land more than 50 metres from a footpath, road, or McDonald's, stray too close to the (dangerous) bush and you could very likely be attacked by a drop bear, ravaged by a dingo, bitten by 9 of the world most venomous snakes that inhabit Australia, be eaten alive by a great white shark, slaughtered by a crocodile, or fatally bitten by the common australian ant. If you survive all that, maybe a trip to the zoo would be nice??

And wear a cork hat so you don't look like a tourist.

Nah in all seriousness though, you should wear sunscreen when you're out!