Australia Travel Guide
5/13/2008 at 12:30 PM
Tags: Sharks, Animals, Killer Beaches 2008, Beaches, Dangerous Travel, Killer-Beaches-2008 (all tags)
We love Australia. It's gotta be the only country in the world where a swimmer who gets attacked by a shark laughs off the experience from his hospital bed.
After the 16-foot animal--believed to be a great white--bit swimmer Jason Cull on Saturday, he calmly tried to work himself out of trouble:
It banged straight into me ... I sort of punched it, and it grabbed me by the leg and dragged me under the water. I just remember being dragged backwards underwater. I felt along it, I found its eye and I poked it in the eye, and that's when it let go.
Ah, the old poke-it-in-the-eye trick: Works every time!
As for Middleton Beach, it was closed after the attack, and a couple more sharks were reported in the wake of Cull's encounter. Sounds like a good candidate for our Killer Beaches Map.
Related Stories:
· Australian Pokes Shark in Eye to Survive [AP, via Google]
· Sharks coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: natmeister]
by pbb
5/12/2008 at 9:30 AM
Tags: Big Things, Australia Travel (all tags)
If you travel around Australia and order an orange juice on the way, the chances are good that at some stage you'll be drinking Berri. This famous brand of juice is backed up by one of those ridiculously over-sized food sculptures the Aussies are renowned for: That's right, near the town of Berri, you can visit the Big Orange.
That is, you can at the moment. But the Big Orange, one of Australia's most recognized big things, is under threat. Apparently numerous owners in the past decades have struggled to attract enough visitors to the South Australian town to make running the Big Orange worthwhile; the current owner is thinking of selling.
There are a few ideas in the pipeline: There's one potential buyer who's considering moving the Big Orange to a more profitable site. Perhaps even a Jaunted reader with a spare A$100,000 (that's less than $95,000) could be the new owner of the Big Orange? You'd have to be ripe for a few juicy jokes though.
Related Stories:
· Big Orange May Find New Home [ABC]
· Big Banana Just Got Bigger [Jaunted]
· Koalas--Scary When Big [Jaunted]
[Photo: joshnunn]
by amandak
5/08/2008 at 9:30 AM
Tags: Australia Travel, Islands, Sharks, Animals (all tags)
Most travelers exploring the Queensland coast Down Under are looking for the Great Barrier Reef, but they might be missing a beautiful spot that we heard about in the weekend papers: Hinchinbrook Island, off the coast between Townsville and Cairns.
The first explorers actually thought Hinchinbrook was part of the mainland, which gives you an idea of how close it is to the coast, and that makes it easy to get there by boat. Nowadays you can splurge at the resort, go hiking and beachcombing, or you can hit the Thorsborne Trail.
The 20-mile hike takes four days and there's a good chance you won't see another human--only 40 people are allowed to be on it at any one time. Whether you'll see crocodiles, sharks or just gorgeous scenery depends on which of the locals you believe. We vote for scenery.
Related Stories:
· Living It Up on Hinchinbrook [Sunday Mail]
· Queensland Travel coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: RedHQ]
by amandak
5/05/2008 at 9:00 AM
Tags: Airport Security, Australia Travel (all tags)
In these days of super-sensitive airport security, you can't really be too surprised that four boxes of plastic flowers could shut down an airport for half a day. That's what happened over the weekend at the international airport in Perth, Western Australia, when four suspicious boxes were unloaded from a flight arriving from Kuala Lumpur.
We're pleased that the authorities didn't want us to get blown up or anything, but these incidents do tend to get drawn out into major catastrophes. The alarm was raised about these boxes because an employee thought he felt something vibrating; they didn't get x-rayed for another 9 hours, by which time eight international flights had been canceled and thousands of passengers and staff had been evacuated.
We hope plastic flowers don't get added to the long list of can't-take-on-airplane objects. Or should we just make it a whole lot simpler and ban everything from planes? Then we'd all be safe from fake vibrating flowers.
Related Stories:
· Thousands Evacuated from Perth Airport [Herald Sun]
· Perth Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· Airport Security coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: Andreas Solberg]
by amandak
5/02/2008 at 11:00 AM
Tags: UFO-Travel-Map, Australia Travel, Weird, UFO Travel (all tags)
Five miners in the Northern Territory of Australia say they spotted a UFO last week. In the early evening, worker Arnold Murray noticed a light silently flying towards his work site and alerted his coworkers as the object swooped in:
The plant's pretty quiet at night. (It made) no noise whatsoever...All of a sudden it shot off and left a long orange trail behind it. That orange trail just faded out like a shooting star.
It wasn't a chopper, it wasn't a plane--we knew that much--and it definitely wasn't a shooting star.
Interestingly, the mine is on Groote Eylandt, close to where Australia's most famous UFO sighting was recorded. In 1964, the "light wheel" appeared off the coast of the island, causing a ship's compass to malfunction as a rotating circle of lights descended from the sky.
Related Stories:
· Miners "Saw UFO" [NT News]
· UFO Travel Map [Jaunted]
by pbb
4/29/2008 at 9:30 AM
Tags: Trains, Train Travel, Australia Travel, Luxury Travel (all tags)
Taking The Ghan right down through the center of Australia is a journey already reserved for those with a fair bit of time and cash, but it's one of those once-in-a-lifetime train trips that are really worth doing. The Ghan's just come up with an option that makes it even more likely you'll only do it once: The new Platinum version costs a whole lot more than the original.
Traveling by rail from Adelaide to Darwin takes two nights and three days, and starting on September 10, 2008, passengers on the Ghan will have the option of booking Platinum Service in one of 24 refurbished cabins. We're talking ultra-luxury for a train here, plus 24-hour in-cabin steward service to satisfy your every whim.
It all sounds wonderful, but it comes at a price--A$2,975 (almost $2,800) for a twin share for the two nights. Not cheap when you consider you could fly that route for a few hundred bucks and just a few hours. Either way, all you'll see in between is vast, empty desert. We'd still probably be game to try it.
Related Stories:
· The Ghan [Official Site]
· Ghan Takes Rail Travel to Platinum Class [The Australian]
· Train Snobs Flaunt Self-Proclaimed Good Taste [Jaunted]
[Photo: leekelleher]
by amandak
4/25/2008 at 9:35 AM
Tags: Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson, Space Travel, Space Tourism, Australia Travel (all tags)
Got your spaceflight booked yet with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic? They're still saying the first space tourist flights should take off next year at a cost of $200,000--or two million frequent flier points.
Initially, the suborbital space flights will blast off from the Californian desert, but if the government of South Australia has any say in it, that might change. The SA Tourist Commissioner has suggested to Branson that the vast nothingness that makes up much of the south-central Australian state would be the perfect launching pad for Virgin Galactic flights.
If Branson considers all those nasty nuclear tests that happened in the area in the 60s, he might be able to increase his profit line by not even taking off--some of that desert probably looks just like outer space already.
Related Stories:
· South Australia Wants Space Tourists [ABC]
· Virgin Galactic Unveils Space Ship Two [Jaunted]
· Virgin's Free Space Flight [Jaunted]
[Photo: wouter!]
by amandak
4/22/2008 at 9:30 AM
Tags: Qantas, Frequent Flyer Programs, Airlines, Australia Travel (all tags)
While we accept that all frequent flyer programs are, presumably, skewed to favor the airlines rather than the passengers, Aussie carrier Qantas has just announced a raft of changes to their loyalty program which actually sound good.
Among them is a program called "Anyseat," which is a solution to that problem of never being able to book a "frequent flyer seat" on the flight you wanted. Now, even if you want to use your points for the most heavily-booked flight on the schedule, you can--it just costs you more points. Exactly how many points is hard to determine and you can find out by trying to book it.
Along with Anyseat, Qantas is making the use of points plus cash to redeem flights much more flexible. And, you'll now be able to use points to pay for the taxes and charges component of the flight as well. Add the ability to earn points by shopping at a much longer list of retailers, and it's all sounding pretty friendly. They're like that Down Under.
Related Stories:
· Qantas Frequent Flyers to Cash In [The Australian]
· Frequent Flyer Programs coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: cronus]
by amandak
