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Australia Travel Guide

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Down Under Gears Up For The Melbourne Cup

October 28, 2009 at 2:09 PM | by amandak | 0 Comments

It might be fall in States, but spring has just sprung up Down Under and we're ready to get out and play at some of the continent's best seasonal festivals. The biggest event this season is definitely the Spring Racing Carnival in Melbourne. You might wonder that a bunch of horse races grabs the attention of so many Aussies and anyone visiting at the time, but the highlight of the carnival—the Melbourne Cup—is correctly dubbed "the race that stops a nation".

And you don't have to know the slightest thing about horses to get involved. Come next Tuesday afternoon, you won't be able to get service in any shop in Australia as everybody will have their eyes glued to the TV to watch the Melbourne Cup race. Over 100,000 people attend the race in person, and most of them get dressed up either in their best dress or a crazy costume; like at the Kentucky Derby, the most important thing is to have a great hat.

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V Australia Can't Wait To Get You Down Under With An Aussie Rock Band

October 23, 2009 at 8:58 AM | by amandak | 0 Comments

The always spunky Richard Branson and his Virgin team are no slouches at putting together clever promotions, and this time his Aussie long-haul airline V Australia has got a smart one going called Jet with JET.

One jet, of course, is the plane that V Australia is going to fly you in from Los Angeles to Sydney. The all-capitals JET is the great Aussie rock band that will be on the plane with you, and then will perform at the Homebake Music Festival once they back to Oz.

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Queensland Will Let You Act Out The Movie Stunts Of Your Dreams

October 22, 2009 at 2:05 PM | by amandak | 0 Comments

When we're on vacation, being set alight or jumping off tall buildings is not exactly high on our list of must-dos. But everybody's different, and if you've dreamed of performing stunts like you see in the movies, then on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, you can find just the right place to spend a day.

The Movie Stunt Experience is a day out that still has the thrills and spills of a typical Gold Coast theme park, but you're the one doing the spilling. If you book the A$299 ($275) full day program, experienced stunt people will first teach you and then let you try film fighting choreography, flying on a wire, commando-style abseiling, falling from a pretty great height and, perhaps scariest of all, being set on fire. So far, every tourist has come out alive. See if you can break the record.

Related Stories:
· Movie Stunt Experience [Official Site]
· Move Over Lara, This Is My Scene [The Age]
· Queensland Travel Guide [Jaunted]

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Get Comfy En Route Down Under With Qantas' Biz Class Sale

Where: Australia
October 21, 2009 at 9:23 AM | by amandak | 0 Comments

Australia seems like a long way from just about everywhere, right? (Maybe not from New Zealand!). So if you want to get there in a bit of comfort, it would be great to splash out on a business class seat. Aussie airline Qantas wants to make this financially easier for us for a while, with a 40% off sale on business class seats from Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York down to Sydney or Brisbane.

Business class is certainly a nicer way to travel on those long, long-haul flights, although the funny thing is that Qantas claims to have invented business class back in 1979; if you prefer to believe Wikipedia, it was actually British Caledonian in 1978.

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Aussie Gal Off To Sail The Seven Seas, Solo

October 20, 2009 at 8:58 AM | by amandak | 0 Comments

Headlines down in Australia these past few weeks have been heavily littered with opinions on how 16-year-old Jessica Watson will fair with her attempt to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world solo. While there were plenty of experts saying she shouldn't even try—not a good omen that she crashed into a huge ship on her way down to Sydney to start the voyage—she finally set sail on Sunday.

Jessica's journey should take her around 240 days, following the recognized southern hemisphere "round the world" route which includes some mighty difficult sea conditions. But she's not as alone as past solo sailors have been; she's got plenty of communications and she's even keeping a blog, which is now getting hundreds of comments per post.

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Where To Start A Rumpus In Melbourne, Australia

October 19, 2009 at 1:28 PM | by cmb | 0 Comments

Director Spike Jonze chose to film "Where The Wild Things Are" on location with puppets, rather than in front of a blue screen; an expensive gamble that paid off, considering the movie brought in 32.5 million dollars this weekend. To get the location just right for his adaptation of the beloved children's book, Jonze considered locations in Argentina, Hawaii, New Zealand and California before settling on Melbourne, Australia. Here's a look at where you can go "wild" in Melbourne.

What to Do:
Jonze took full advantage of Melbourne's unique surroundings for the film. He used a burnt-out forest near Gembrook, just outside of Melbourne, as the movie's primary location. He also filmed scenes at the cliffs of Bushrangers Bay in Victoria and among the boulders of the You-Yangs. The You-Yangs are a series of granite peaks that rise dramatically in the Werribee lava plains and can be explored on foot or by bike. The You-Yangs Regional Park is perfect for a day of hiking, biking or picnicking off the beaten path. The park is open daily until sunset, mountain bikes can be rented via All About Mountain Bike Tours.

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Take The Hop, Skip and Jump Route On A Private Qantas Jet To Australia

Where: Australia
October 14, 2009 at 10:23 AM | by amandak | 0 Comments

It seems hard to believe that it is almost 75 years since the first regular flights from Britain to Australia began, but it's apparently true that as far back as 1935, the wealthy were skipping the long boat trips and flying Down Under. To celebrate the 75th anniversary of Australia flights next year, Qantas Holidays are putting on a real "trip of a lifetime" vacation on the historical "Nostalgia" and "Classical" routes.

Flying with a group of just 22 passengers on a classic Convair CV580 plane, the 22-day trip from London to Sydney (or the 21-day reverse journey) will be something quite special. With a maximum flying time of four hours per day, there are numerous stops in countries as diverse as the Czech Republic, Syria and Vietnam. Daily excursions could take you over the Himalayas, by water taxi to stilted houses in Brunei, or on a dawn cruise on the Ganges.

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Facial Recognition Technology Will Check You Out At Sydney Airport

October 1, 2009 at 5:24 PM | by amandak | 0 Comments

Sydney Airport has just gotten smarter: passengers with modern e-Passports arriving in Sydney now have the option of going through SmartGate, which means they can go through passport control without speaking to a real person.

At the 12 SmartGate kiosks now operating at the airport, travelers can insert their e-Passport to be scanned, then answer the standard declaration questions on a touchscreen. After that they are issued with a ticket, take it to the exit, insert it there and then the camera scans them to check they are the person shown in the passport.

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Sydney Takes 'Shrimp On A Barbie' Seriously During International Food Fest

September 25, 2009 at 4:28 PM | by amandak | 0 Comments

No visitor to Sydney will go hungry next month: October is the Sydney International Food Festival and there will be numerous ways to satisfy your foodie cravings.

What used to be the local newspaper's Good Food Month has now become something grander. But not too grand; being Aussies, they're kicking off the festival with a free barbecue at lunchtime on Saturday, October 3 in Taylor Square and at the same time, a not-quite-free barbecue which they're calling an Opera Beer-b-cue because it takes place near the Sydney Opera House and your A$12 ($10) charge includes a barbecue plate "matched with a beer".

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Clive Owen Is Outback Bound in 'The Boys Are Back'

September 25, 2009 at 12:28 PM | by cmb | 0 Comments

In The Boys Are Back, opening today, Clive Owen plays a macho sportswriter living in Australia and raising two sons on his own after his wife dies. Though the content of the movie sounds like a downer, the South Australian setting is sure to be uplifting. It even sounds like The Boys Are Back could be the next Sideways. Take a look at the fabulous wine country that serves as the movie's background and judge for yourself.

Where to Stay, Eat and Drink, after the jump.

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Canberra's 'Floriade' Flower Fest Welcomes Spring With Giant Fire Organ

September 24, 2009 at 5:08 PM | by amandak | 0 Comments

Australia's tiny capital city of Canberra is somewhere tourists often stop by to simply visit Parliament House or the national War Memorial, but in the Down Under spring (which would be now), it actually comes alive with something better than stuff from the history and geography curriculum: it's time for Floriade.

This month-long festival is now in full bloom and runs right through until October 11. From its origins as a rather stuffy garden show, Floriade has turned into a hip reason to head to Canberra and even has the Floriade NightFest up and running—it's this week until Sunday, and has outdoor films, a Glow Bar, live music and most impressively, the "Pyrophone Juggernaut"—the largest hand operated multi-octave fire organ in the world, which basically spews fire while making noise.

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Sydney Duststorm Gives Preview Of Armageddon

September 23, 2009 at 8:56 AM | by amandak | 0 Comments

With the September equinox upon us, yesterday began talk about the end of the world, and when people in Sydney woke up this morning, a lot of them thought it was true. Massive red dust storms hit the city and made it look like something out of an apocalyptic movie.

Basically, super-strong winds from the west of the country picked up a pile of red dirt from the dry outback in South Australia and western New South Wales and then stormy weather dumped it all on Sydney and surrounding areas; when the sun shone on the dust, everything turned red. Visibility problems stopped the ferries and caused traffic chaos, and many flights were diverted to Brisbane and Melbourne.

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