Australia is the smallest of the continents and also the flattest, the lowest, and, apart from Antarctica, the driest. At the same time, it has more beaches – over 7,000! – than any other nation, and the world’s longest stretch of straight railway track – nearly 300 miles crossing the Nullarbor Plain.
One of the continent’s great mysteries lies at its center in the Northern Territory. Uluru (Ayers Rock) is the 1,141-foot peak of a sandstone monolith, its remaining two-thirds buried beneath the surrounding plain. A walk-around – or a Harley Davidson circuit – of Uluru is a must for visitors to the Northern Territory or you can taste camel, emu, kangaroo, buffalo and crocodile at the Overlander Steakhouse in Alice Springs. Alice Springs also hosts the Henley-on-Todd Regatta, a wacky race of bottomless boats on a dry riverbed! Ever seen a crocodile jump vertically out of the water? Stand back as the mighty reptiles jump for their supper on the Jumping Crocodile Cruise.
If you’re visiting the Great Barrier Reef, you can take a rainforest walk over the treetops in Queensland, or take your candle and walk along a flame-lit trail beneath the canopy of the oldest rainforest in the world.
New South Wales is the place to see Australia’s tallest building – the Sydney Tower at Centrepoint – or to climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The Blue Mountains offer great hiking, mountain biking, abseiling, and canoeing.
Among its many attractions, Victoria is known for the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant – the world's first traveling tramcar eatery – and the Penguin Parade, where the world’s largest collection of fairy penguins return from a day’s fishing to their nests on Phillips Island.
In South Australia, don’t miss the Cooper Pedy Opal Festival, a celebration complete with Beer Belly competition, Outback Beach Volleyball contest, Sausage Tossing, Bomb Throwing Challenge and Miners Tug-O-War. Or try cave diving on the Limestone Coast in a spectacular network of more than 600 limestone caves and sinkholes. You can even spend the night in the world’s only underground hotel!
If Australia’s creatures call, there are marvelous zoos and preserves where you can see them up close. Known for its marsupials – most famously kangaroos (47 varieties), wallabies, and koalas – Australia is also the home of monotremes – the spiny echidna and platypus. The emu is a large flightless bird; like the kangaroo, it cannot walk backwards, earning the two creatures a place on the Australian coat of arms.
Don’t miss the shrieking of the devils (Tasmanian Devils, that is!) in Tasmania, where you can also take a “ghost tour” of an early prison, where Australia’s ancestors (English convicts!) were sent.
Ride a Huka Jet boat up to the very base of the Huka Falls in Taupo, New Zealand, or try the world's highest tower-based jump at the Sky Tower in Auckland. You can also visit locations made familiar by recent movies, such as “Lord of The Rings,” or see the nocturnal lizard-like Tuatara, a living dinosaur that inhabits offshore islands where it feeds on insects.
Their much-photographed beauty and visitor-friendly appeal aside, Australia and New Zealand are uncommon destinations packed with unusual details.
CLIA Certified (Cruise Lines International Association)
