One month to go!!!!! - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

Chocolaty Claire · 08-24-2007, 04:41 AM

I've just handed in my notice and now only have one month to go until my big Trip to Oz on the WHV!! Woooo!

I cant quite work out weather I am excited or nervous, but one things for sure I'm not as nervous as i should be and I'm rather worried about that haha

My friends are asking me what i have planned for my trip and I cant really tell them much, all I can give them is a rough 3 month plan:

(flying to) Cairns
Karunda National Park
Atherton Tablelands
White water rafting
Diving on a live-aboard

Innisfail
Banana picking

Then taking my time down the East Coast, not missing The Whitsundays, Noosa, Brisbane, Surfers Paradise, Byron Bay.

After spending a few months in one of the Cities working I obviously want to see the rest of Aus.. yep all of it!! :D

Is this a decent enough plan?? or do you think i should be planning more? I think my head will explode if i plan anytime else!!

If you can recommend anything else i should do that would be great!!

**mbo108** · 08-24-2007, 05:42 AM

I'm sure you have some type of plan to go see Uluru (Ayers Rock)? Other than that it sounds awesome.

Chocolaty Claire · 08-24-2007, 09:05 AM

I will see Ayres Rock and will look into how to get there.. I may do this after my City-time in Melbourne or Sydney.

I have given myself about 10 weeks to travel down the east coast, but I'm desperately trying to find adventure things to do, I love to party but i've heard its so easy to get stuck in one place and drink your time & money down the drain and i dont want to do this!

One thing that i did see was www.WWOOF.com.au a company that puts you in contact with Organic Farmers

for Volunteer work. I'd love to do this, especially if you work with animals! has anyone done this?

**LiveFreeorDie** · 08-24-2007, 09:59 AM

Seems like a good rough itinerary to me. You will hear about other things when your over there so its good to leave a lot of flexibility. I did a couple of your activities in Cairns: white water rafting, diving on a liveaboard and touring the Atherton Tablelands. I have two recommendations for you to check out:

1.)Depending on how extreme you want you adventures, some of the white-water rafting companies offer multi-day trips where they helicopter you in to remote areas and you raft out, all the way to the sea. I only heard about that after we did the standard day trip. Not sure what seasons they do this, but I thought I would mention it.

2.)Diving liveaboard - see if you can do a longer (5 day) trip that takes you up to the more remote parts of the GBR (to the north of Cairns). The diving is supposed to be much better. The highly-trafficked parts of the reef that are more easily accesible to Cairns are definately showing some wear and tear.

These may be too costly for you, but I figured I would mention them. If you like diving, you may want to consider doing a cage dive out of the Sydney or Melbourne areas to dive with Great Whites, again I think it depends on the season.

You will have an awesome time!!

**maracle** · 08-24-2007, 11:40 AM

Looks like a good plan to me, only a few comments...

1) Cairns is a gigantic tourist trap made to sell as many digeridoos as possible, so I wouldn't plan to spend much time "seeing the city." The hostels there are packed with fun people though so if you just want to hang around with backpackers you'll have a blast doing that.

2) Kuranada Village was even worse than Cairns! Except there its all about selling you opals. I did the train tour thing and wasn't too impressed, but its very pretty and I think if you got off the beaten track in the national park that would be great.

3) For a liveaboard dive trip I used ProDive and it was perfect. It was on the cheap side for a dive company and yet I wouldn't have wanted anything more than I got. Nice new modern boat, great AC, lots of decent food, and the staff were really fun. Plenty of space. I think I went on ScubaPro II which was brand new at the time. I have some pics I'll try to post them tonight. The more expensive tour operators I think just have more gourmet food and nicer cabin trimouts.

The only other thing you don't have on your list is heading farther north into the Daintree rainforest or to cape trib. You can only do so much though, 10 weeks will go by in a flash

Chocolaty Claire · 08-25-2007, 04:27 AM

Thanks for your tips guys :D

Woops i didnt mean to miss out Cape Trib, being a lone traveller i'm going to book myself on a 3 day tour once i arrive in cairns.

Just a question though, obviously i'm going to book my first couple of nights accom for when i arrive, but generally whats the booking situation like in Aus, would i be ok just turning up at hostels asking if they have room?