Category Archives: Holidays

Australia’s most isolated islands

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Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island

Do you want to get away from it all – and we mean, really get away from it all? When a regular beach holiday just won’t cut it, why not jet away to one of Australia’s most isolated islands and discover what their appeal is, apart from the distance.

Christmas Island

You don’t hear much about Christmas Island, apart from the detention centre located on the island. But over half of this small Australian territory around 2600km from Perth (it’s much closer to Indonesia than Australia) is national park, which protects what might, in other circumstances, be called an island paradise.

Rising out of the ocean – Christmas Island is the top of an underwater mountain – much of the surface is covered with tropical rainforest. The most famous residents of the island’s rainforest are the huge crabs. These crabs aren’t like the ones you see in tanks in Chinatown. Robber crabs, one of the prominent species on the island, can grow to be as big as rubbish bins. You don’t want to find yourself in the way when these crabs start their annual migration to the beaches for the mating season.

If crabs aren’t really your bowl of seafood chowder, then Christmas Island offers great snorkelling, diving and fishing. The seas around the island are treacherous, and most areas of the island greet the sea with 20m-high cliffs, but there’s a selection of beaches with natural coves where you can safely swim. Oh, and the best thing about swimming here? The island is ringed by a coral reef, so the snorkelling is just offshore.

Cocos Keeling Islands

Joining Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, the Cocos Keeling Islands are like Australia’s version of the Maldives, a collection of small islands forming an atoll. And unlike Christmas Island, with its more controversial ties to immigration and mining, there’s nothing to mar your enjoyment of these islands. You can participate in all of the activities you’d expect at a tropical paradise – swimming, snorkelling, diving, windsurfing, bird-watching, island hopping – as well as some that are a bit more unexpected, like walking across the entire atoll at low tide on certain days.

Of the 27 islands that form that Cocos Keeling, only two are inhabited. Most people stay on West Island. From West Island, you can catch a ferry across to Home Island, home to the Cocos Malay people, where you try some spicy Malay food or check out the museum.

King Island

The island where dairy is king! King Island is famous for its cheeses, but there’s more to this island in the Bass Strait than its exports. Situated almost perfectly halfway between Tasmania and Victoria, King Island constantly braces itself against the Roaring Forties and has the shipwreck history to prove it. Luckily, the days of maritime disasters seem to be over, and you can take a self-guided shipwreck tour of the island. And if that doesn’t scare you off, there’s some world-class surfing spots you can try.

What else is there to do on the island? Well, apart from take in the incredible natural environment, buy some cheese and eat some beef, you should just … relax and embrace island life.

Macquarie Island

Macquarie Island

Macquarie Island

Just when you thought an Australian island couldn’t be more remote than the Cocos Keeling Islands, along comes Macquarie Island to burst that bubble. This Tasmanian State Reserve is halfway between the Australian mainland and Antarctica, around 1400km from Tasmania.

So here’s the good news: Macquarie Island is a truly unique natural environment (so unique it’s on the World Heritage List), with dramatic cliffs and mountains crafted from volcanic rock, and is home to king and emperor penguins, seals and a magnificent seabird population.

The bad news is that the only humans who get to visit Macquarie Island do so as part of Australia’s Antarctic program. But if we were you, we’d think about signing up.

Norfolk Island

From Australia itself, to Tasmania, to Cockatoo Island in Sydney – the early British inhabitants of Australia really liked using islands as prisons. And even though Norfolk Island was a difficult 1000km from the east coast of Australia, that didn’t stop the British from following their usual patterns and establishing Norfolk as a prison island, although the last prisoner was moved to Tasmania in 1855.

The remains of the prison on the island are now heritage listed, and the island has shaken off the rest of its penal past. It’s now a delightful holiday retreat, complete with a friendly community and a tropical island feel.

     

Australia’s best glamping (it’s good enough for royalty)

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Sal Salis, Ningaloo Reef, Sal Salis Ningaloo Reef/Tourism Australia

Sal Salis, Ningaloo Reef, Sal Salis Ningaloo Reef/Tourism Australia

How would you like to stay in a tent that has been set up for you, with catering, cleaning, a heater in winter – and your own bathroom? This is fancy camping (with the price tag to match).

Bamurru Plains, Mary River, Northern Territory

Just outside of Kakadu National Park, there are only nine safari lodges at Bamurru Plains. Like regular camping, the mesh walls are the only things separating you from the nature of the Top End. But unlike regular camping, you’ll have a solid floor, a bed and a high-pressure shower. Oh, and there’s also the catered meals (three course, if you please) and personalised tours into the floodplains.

Sal Salis Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia

Ranged in the sand dunes facing Ningaloo Reef and cushioned by the ochre hills of Cape Range National Park, the nine safari tents of Sal Salis Ningaloo Reef have some of the best views on this stretch of coast. They are also fancier than any other tent you’ll see on this stretch of coast, with solid beds, bathrooms and catered meals.

Longitude 131, Uluru, Northern Territory

Is the sun lighting up Uluru the best wake-up call in the world? The luxury ‘tents’ at Longitude 131 are the closest accommodation to the rock, and have a view that’s priceless (and very pricey). Apart from that, Longitude 131 has all the fancy things we’ve come to expect from a glorified tent (that has solid walls) – all meals catered, spectacular activities and the most luxurious bed under a canvas roof you could expect. In fact, it’s so luxurious that Kate and Wills stayed here when they visited Uluru.

Roar & Snore, Taronga Zoo, Sydney, New South Wales

What’s better? Watching the sun set over Sydney’s magnificent harbour, complete with bridge and opera house, or waking up to a behind-the-scenes tour of the zoo? At Taronga Zoo’s Roar & Snore you can have both, as well as a luxury safari tent where you can dream of lions and tigers and bears (oh my).

 

     

Welcome to Marble Bar, the hottest town in Australia

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Chinaman's Pool, Marble Bar, Tourism Western Australia

Chinaman’s Pool, Marble Bar, Tourism Western Australia

If all the towns in Australia entered a ‘Hot or Not’ competition, Marble Bar would definitely be hot.

Its reputation for being the hottest town in Australia comes from early in the twentieth century, when Marble Bar recorded temperatures of over 38 degrees for 161 consecutive days. Things have cooled down a bit since then – while the town regularly reaches 45 degrees in summer, the locals normally have a day or two of relief in between.

Marble Bar is itself a relief, an oasis of modern amenities in the middle of a particularly sparse stretch of the Pilbara. It is, of course, a mining town. But it is nowhere near the scale of the major mining towns in this region like Port Hedland or Karratha, and is, quite frankly, charming, from its heritage-listed buildings to the native-tree nursery on the outskirts of town.

Iron Clad Hotel, Marble Bar, Tourism Western Australia

Iron Clad Hotel, Marble Bar, Tourism Western Australia

There’s even a heritage-listed pub, built during the gold rush. The Iron Clad Hotel is over 120 years old, although luckily the cool beverages it sells aren’t quite the same age. Unlike gold-rush-era buildings on the east coast of Australia, for instance the spectacular hotels in Ballarat and Bendigo, the Iron Clad Hotel is built on a smaller scale. Imagine an outback pub on a dusty outback road, whack a few corrugated iron panels on it and you’ll have something close to the Iron Clad Hotel.

But if a drink is not cutting it and you need full body immersion to escape the heat, Marble Bar has a few ridiculously scenic swimming holes. Marble Bar Pool and its neighbouring Chinaman’s Pool are only 4 kilometres from town. You’ll also find jasper bar at the Marble Bar Pool. The town was named after the bar, as the jasper was originally thought to be marble. Splash some water on the bar to bring out the colours, but don’t take any – the bar is protected.

Somewhere that wasn’t quite as protected as jasper bar was Comet Gold Mine, which operated from 1936 to 1955. It’s now a museum, and you can take underground tours daily. Another, less well-known historical site near Marble Bar is an old WW II airbase. It’s not operational anymore, so you can visit and wander around at your leisure.

If you do visit Marble Bar in winter, hoping to soak up some of those 45 degree days, you’ll probably be disappointed. The town has quite a mild winter.

You might not find marble when you visit Marble Bar, but you will feel like you’ve struck gold.

Winter is the best time to visit Western Australia’s hot and dusty Pilbara region. Find out more about visiting Marble Bar here. And if you’re visiting the region, don’t forget to visit one of the best national parks in Australia: Karijini National Park.

 

 

     

We swam with whale sharks at Ningaloo Reef (and lived to tell the tale)

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Whale shark at Ningaloo Reef, Tourism Western Australia

Whale shark at Ningaloo Reef, Tourism Western Australia

One of our Explorers, Lauren, went swimming with whale sharks over Easter. And yup, she found out that they are definitely sharks. But also that they probably won’t eat you.

‘Group 2, get on the marlin board! Quickly, quickly.’

Shoving on my flippers and snorkel, I flapped my way down the stairs to the edge of the boat. In front of us, the water of Ningaloo Reef was a sparkling blue, like the deep blue of Elizabeth Taylor’s famous sapphires. Unfortunately, unlike a sapphire, the water was not smoothly cut but choppy and getting worse by the second. In the distance, the dry brown hills of Cape Range National Park lined the shore. The heads of Group 1 were bobbing around in the ocean around 50 metres from the boat, unmoored by anything except their fascination with something underneath the surface that we couldn’t see. But I was pretty sure they were all looking at what we’d all come to Ningaloo Reef to see – a whale shark.

‘Okay, go!’

The other people on the board started leaping in the ocean. I stuck out my right foot, flipper first, and stepped off the boat.

The water was cold and tingly. A slightly panicked gasp from one of my fellow group members made me look up – ‘There are jellyfish!’ she said. That explained the tingling. But as the stings seemingly weren’t deadly, I focused my attention on looking down, trying to spot movement in the water.

Our group leader gestured for us to swim away from the boat and to stay close together. There’s nothing like being smacked by multiple flippers to encourage movement, so we all kicked our way slowly through the water, swimming towards Group 1 with our heads in the water, glancing from side-to-side to see whether we could spot anything moving in the water. At that moment the water was calm, but in the distance I saw a wave in the water. Was there something emerging from the clear blue of the reef water?

There was something, something big. It was a similar colour to the surrounding ocean, but slightly darker. As we swam closer, I could see that it was a huge head, its mouth double – triple! – my width, with white spots polka-dotting over its head and all the way down its back. It was a whale shark.

I’d travelled quite a way to see this whale shark. After flying into Perth from Melbourne, my travel buddy and I had rented a campervan (if you can call a converted Toyota Tarago a campervan) and raced – within the speed limit, of course – up the coast to Exmouth. We’d almost booked a tour with a company in Coral Bay, but decided to go further north at the last minute. It was a good call. Exmouth is an enchanting town, the final outpost of this surprisingly fertile stretch of desert, and is the gateway to both Ningaloo Reef and Cape Range National Park.

We’d been lucky to get a spot on a whale shark tour in Exmouth. When we’d enquired two weeks earlier there had been only two spots left across the whole Easter week, and we’d only gotten lucky because Ningaloo Whaleshark n Dive had two boats going out.

We found ourselves on one of those boats, the Aliikai (which apparently means Queen of the Ocean in Hawaiian), the day after arriving in Exmouth. The crew all swore, hand-over-heart, that the Aliikai was the best whale shark boat on the reef and after spending the day with them, I’m a believer – especially after eating the lunch they provided (you really want to get their lunch).

But as we bobbed around in the ocean, food was the last thing on our minds. Although I’m sure some of us were worried that we might become food.

We’d been told to stay three metres from the whale shark at all times (for their safety and ours), and as the huge head moved towards us, I scrambled to get out of its way, bashing into the other members of Group 2 in my haste. We were desperate not to startle the whale shark, as our crew had warned us that any sudden movements could lead to the shark diving away from us. As it came closer, we could see the full scale of this so-called gentle giant – this one was around five metres long. As it swam past, with other fish clinging to its fins, I forgot to breathe into the scuba mask, awed at the grace and power of this animal. The whale shark is, quite frankly, the supermodel of the shark kingdom, although slightly larger in scale than a human supermodel. It doesn’t really look like more familiar images of sharks with their pointy noses and sinister rows of teeth; a whale shark’s mouth is wider and gracefully curves into a body that is bigger than any other variety of shark. Flapping my flippers with my enthusiasm than skill, I tried to keep up with the shark, but soon fell back. In my defence, its fins were much bigger than my flippers.

Sticking my head above the water, I breathed in with a gurgle, sure that it was the end of the encounter. But everyone else still had their heads in the water – I stuck mine back down to see that the whale shark had doubled back, and was swimming past us again. It was briefly silhouetted against the hull of the boat, and was almost the same size as the boat.

Jeannette, our German photographer, had told us that these whale sharks are teen males and the whale shark swinging around was reminiscent of nothing so much as a teen boy circling a group of girls on his bicycle. The whale shark was no less impressive on the second time around.

‘Everyone, out!’ We swam back towards the boat, heads still down, hoping to catch a final glimpse of the whale shark. There are strict guidelines around interactions with whale sharks to protect them and us – only ten people are allowed around the creatures at one time. Whale shark tour boats work together to make sure everyone gets adequate time with the sharks, and our time was up for now.

We swam with our first shark three more times before moving on. Apparently he was a particularly curious and friendly guy – normally whale sharks are more bashful, so our crew wanted to give some other groups time with this rare creature.

The whale shark companies have spotter planes to find these gentle giants in the water, and another one had been spotted further west. Our second whale shark was more typically bashful. Group 1 jumped in the water, but by the time we (Group 2) jumped in, Bashful had dived down to 10 metres and we could no longer see him.

Luckily, the spotter plane had seen another whale shark a short distance away, and we spent some time swimming with this one, who was a happy compromise between Curious and Bashful.

As we were relaxing on deck after our third whale shark encounter, one of the crew members came racing down the stairs. Some manta rays had been spotted further out to ocean, so we dropped everything and sped off.

When we got there, two boats were rocking around the windy patch of ocean. There were around 40 people already in the water, moving in a pattern around what must have been the manta rays.

Before we jumped into the ocean, one of our crew members gave us an overview. Manta rays are extremely jumpy and will dive away at the first hint of too many bubbles in the water. So don’t breathe OR swim too vigorously. But no worries – it was a stingray that had killed Steve Irwin. Manta rays are more closely related to sharks, so there was nothing to concern ourselves about. We were given the cue to all jump in – no groups this time. Even the skipper was going in.

Swimming over to where the majority of people were hanging out, we looked through the water. And there was one of the most incredible sights I have ever seen – two huge manta rays, doing a synchronised swimming routine through the water. These manta rays were each around 3 to 4 metres across, and were circling around, tail to face, in incredible patterns. And contrary to the warnings of our crew member, these manta rays were swimming right at us – simultaneously the most terrifying and thrilling moment of my life. You know who will come out on top in a collision between a manta ray and a human (hint: it won’t be you). It’s an experience that’s so hard to describe. You’re trying to get out of the way of these giant creatures without smashing into everyone around you, trying to remember to breathe properly, all without taking your eyes off the manta rays. Braver people than me were free diving to get underneath the creatures, holding their breath longer than seemed possible.

After around 20 minutes I was manta ray-ed out. I felt (manta) ray-diant, but it was time to get out of the water. Swimming back to the boat, I felt almost relieved. It had been incredible, but my adrenalin levels couldn’t handle any more excitement. Around a metre from the boat, I felt a presence nearby. Looking around, there wasn’t a human within 20 metres. But the ocean below me wasn’t the blue I’d come to expect – I glanced down to see the steel grey of the manta ray stretched up mere centimetres from my legs. Gurgling screaming through my mask, I watched as the manta ray looked up at me (did the cheeky devil wink?) and leisurely glided away.

At the end of the day, our crew told us we’d had one of the best days ever, and that it would have only been complete if we’d seen a tiger shark as well. Somehow I didn’t feel like we’d missed out too much.

 

 

     

Is it too soon to think about Easter camping?

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Howqua Hills Historic Area, Lyndon Sparrow

Howqua Hills Historic Area, Lyndon Sparrow

We certainly don’t think so. Camping at Easter this year is going to be big. If you take three days off work between Easter and Anzac Day, you’ll get a whole 10 days off. Here are our favourite Easter campsites (some of these require bookings).

Sheepyard Flat camping area, Howqua Hills Historic Area, Victoria

The Easter holidays is the last break before winter sets in, so get in before the snow does! If you want to go camping in the High Country, now’s the time to do it. And while Alpine National Park offers plenty of camping areas, our favourite spot in the area is Howqua Hills Historic Area, which has multiple campsites ranged around Howqua River.

One of the most popular is Sheepyard Flat camping area. This is a lovely grassy and spacious campground, with plenty of facilities. Because the camping areas are outside of the national park, you can bring your dog, and the area is also a keen haunt of horseriders and four-wheel drivers. These are no-bookings sites, but if you miss out at Sheepyard Flat you can just head further up or down Brocks Rd to the other campgrounds in the hills.

Appletree camping area, Blue Mountains National Park, New South Wales

The Blue Mountains hasn’t been having an easy time of it lately, with the catastrophic bush fires of 2013. But most camping areas will be up and running for the Easter holidays, including family-friendly Appletree camping area. As of the date this article was published, there were still camping areas available to book for this period. You’ll feel blue if you miss out on a camping area in the national park, so hop to it!

Appletree Flat is one of the camping areas that make up Euroka campground, and is in a ridiculously scenic position next to the Nepean River Gorge. It’s in the Glenbrook section of Blue Mountains National Park, which is the section of the park closest to Sydney. There are toilets (non-flush only, so warn the kids!), but you’ll have to bring your own drinking water.

Darlington Park camping area, Beaudesert, Queensland

We know, we know – we harp on about Darlington Park camping area. But that’s just because it’s so good. It’s affordable, scenic and spacious, with plenty of good facilities. We think you should go there and find us something not to like. In fact, we dare you.

Situated in the Darling Downs area of Queensland, it’s only a short drive to Beaudesert and within an easy distance of the Gold Coast.

Tulki Beach camping area, Cape Range National Park, Western Australia

Ten days in April? That’s enough time to travel up the new Indian Ocean Drive to Cape Range National Park and pitch your tent at Tulki Beach camping area, which as the name suggests is right next to the beach. Now, you might be thinking, not another beach. But this isn’t just any beach, as spectacular Ningaloo Reef is just offshore and you can rent a snorkel and get amongst it in the most literal sense.

You can set up tent next to your car, which always things easier, and there are toilets at the site. You’ll have to bring pretty much everything else yourself, including drinking water. Don’t forget to book this site online soon – it’s sure to fill up fast.

Memory Cove camping area, Eyre Peninsula National Park

If what you’re looking for at Easter is a place to get away from the crowd, Memory Cove could be the campsite for you. Access to the cove is restricted to 15 cars at a time, so you’re guaranteed to get the feeling of being alone with nature – at least until you spot another car on the horizon.

There’s even fewer cars allowed at the camping area itself, as it only has five sites. Memory Cove camping area is situated above the cove and your view will only be interrupted by the scrubs and trees of this shady campsite. With extremely limited facilities at the site, prepare to be self-sufficient. You’ll need a key to access this camping area, so don’t forget to book.