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Welcome to Australia - It’s a big country - heck - make that a BIG BIG Country - no - make that a HUGE country .. so please DO NOT try and “do” it ALL in two weeks! Having lived in Australia most of our lives we still have not visited all the places in Australia that we want to! And - no matter how much you have read, seen or imagined - you still will not be able to initially grasp the vastness of Australia nor the often huge distances and travelling time between cities, towns and states...
Remember that the Australian Travel Company is about providing you with a marketplace to give you the ability to deal direct with travel industry suppliers and operators, not only saving you money by booking direct, but also giving you access to the most definitive source of information available on the product or services you require - from the locals themselves!
We also think frankly that it is a huge waste of time (both for you to wade through and for us to continually update! ) and to write thousands and thousands of pages of information when all you have to do is use the new social media section in our website to ask another member a question, check our specials and travel classifieds, look up accommodation reviews, post your own travel photographs, check blogs, post a question on our members forum, start a group, or check our video feeds from You Tube!
So - just what does does Australia have to offer to UK visitors, and why is the UK the no 1 long haul inbound market in the world (and the no 2 market overall) for tourism to Australia? Even with the ongoing deep global recession of 2008-2009, 620 thousand UK tourists visited Australia for the year ended 30 September 2009, spending an average of 36 nights in Australia and injecting $A1.9 billion (the highest of any individual country in the world) into the Australian economy. The only country in front of the UK for inbound visitors into Australia was New Zealand, Australia’s next door neighbor - A mere 3 hours away! In a country that is 33 times bigger than Great Britain with less than a third of the population (approx 20 million total in Australia v 60 million plus in the UK) it certainly offers something incredibly different to the UK!.
Firstly - It’s good value in regards to cost. For every UK *pound you get $1.82 Australian dollars. ( *exchange rate at 20 December 2009). Aussie’s speak English. (Or their version of it - mangled usually by the world famous laconic Aussie drawl...!) People are incredibly friendly. It’s laid back. It’s incredibly clean. The crime rate is very low by world standards. As the rest of the world fights its way out of recession Australia never went into recession - and is booming. Australian wine is now no 1 in the world! It is the home of Fosters beer! And - space - and more space.
Coming back to Australia every year or so we are still boggled by the enormous space and silent tranquility of rural Australia - as well as the breakneck development of its sleek sophisticated cities. Stunning weather - although contrary to the popular belief that it is drenched in sunshine all year round it can be as cold - if not colder than the UK in winter if you are down south, and in summer - especially in tropical north Queensland it can be extremely hot and very humid in summer ..(We lived in beautiful Port Douglas for 9 years and summer time was “24x7 aircon” and ‘wall to wall’ ‘pina coladas’..but that’s another story!)
There are no 8 lane M1’s to speed you between cities, nor thank goodness any gridlocked M25’s to park your car on all day! Australia’s version of UK motorways (called “freeways” after their American counterparts) are usually a maximum 4 lane road or highway (2 lanes in either direction) with a maximum speed limit of 120 kph, with hundreds of of extremely sneaky radar speed cameras and police to fight your way through all the way to your destination. (You won’t ever complain about the UK speed cameras again!) Try a 1800 kilometre (1100 miles) trip from Brisbane to Melbourne and you will see why most visitors to Australia travel around Australia by airline services, even if you are used to driving on the right hand side of the road. (Australia drives on the same side of the road as the UK) However - even flying is rather formidable - for instance Cairns (Great Barrier Reef) to Brisbane is a two hour jet trip - and you are still in the same state! - And Cairns to Melbourne - a 4 hour trip plus a one hour time change - total 5 hours - equivalent to flying from London to Cairo!
Whether you are looking for beaches, cities, desert, action and adventure or more sedate pursuits, Australia has it all. For first time UK travellers with only 3-4 weeks to spend, the most popular itinerary is still Sydney, the Outback, Ayers Rock (The ’Rock’) and the ‘Reef’, (Great Barrier Reef) although Australia’s wine regions and tropical islands are now also a “must see” on any visit.
OK - So where on this web site are the huge reams of information on Australia? Our Australian Travel Guide is a good start - it’s got a cracking list of stuff: weather, what to see, what to do, best time to visit Australia, what’s on, where to visit, accommodation - choices and costs, tours, attractions, New Year’s Eve on Sydney Harbour, rental cars, airline schedules and costs, currency, best buys, worst buys, buying a car, backpackers, designer factory outlets (incredible prices with your UK ££s) electrical appliances and voltage, roads and driving, taxis, where to see safe critters (koala bears and ...), where not to go to step on dangerous critters (snakes, crocodiles, jellyfish and all that stuff..!) surfing in Australia... answers to lots of other important questions and recommendations that you need to make your decisions with...
So get cracking! - In closing - what best sums up OUR Australia are two of our favourite Australian poets:
(acknowledgements to:)
Dorothea Mackellar “ I Love a Sunburnt Country”
“I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!” Complete Poem Here:
Banjo Patterson: “The Man from Snowy River”
“There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses — he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stock-horse snuffs the battle with delight.” Complete Poem Here:
“Waltzing Matilda” (Complete Poem Here:)
And of course - our un-official National Anthem: WALTZING MALTIDA! Actually - so it is sometimes held - a song about a German girl and an itinerant swagman (“swaggie or tramp”).. maybe.. Anyway - whatever - we love it - and sing it lustily at every occasion (whether asked to or not!) So there you have it. We know Australia. Frontwards. Backwards. Sideways. Top to Bottom. And we love it. AUSTRALIA!
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