GBR & Sydney diving questions

[Schwim]

Please help us design a 15 day Australian trip. We'd like to spend a few days on a liveaboard and do the GBR and wind up in Sydney for a bit. Should we fly into Cairns and take a day or 2 and drive to Sydney and fly home from there?? Once in a lifetime trip so, it has to be great!! Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[JT91]

Hi Schwim,

Despite spending alot of time in North Queensland (Townsville to be precise) I have not actually done much diving up there, although I do have numerous friends who rave on about how good it is.

Just a few things which may be helpful with your plans:
Firstly, to my knowledge, most flights to/from North America will fly you in/out of Sydney, where you would then get your domestic flights to Cairns. I would highly recommend spending some of your time in Sydney diving as theres loads of fantastic dive sites in Sydney.

Secondly, while your idea to drive from Cairns to Sydney is a great idea, it may not fit in with your limited time in Australia. It takes just over 28hrs non-stop to drive from Townsville to Sydney (a drive which I have completed a number of times, most comfortably in 3 days) and Cairns is between 5-6hrs drive north of Townsville. Despite this, if you do have the time on your hands there are plenty things to see and do along the way. Otherwise, I would recommend flying as it should only be around 4hrs.

Hope this helps

 

[OnTheSpot]

Hi Schwim,

I have to agree with JT91, better to spend your limited time underwater rather than sitting in a car.

You have a few choices with liveaboards out of Cairns. You must dive Ribbon Reefs and Cod Hole (three nights) and even better Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea as well (four nights). The ultimate would be back-to-back trips (seven nights).

Have a look at Spoilsport, Spirit of Freedom and Taka as the boats that make these trips.

Enjoy your stay.

 

[scubajoe86]

We just returned from a 15 day trip to Cairns and Sydney and I can tell you it was wonderful. From the US a number major carriers fly out of LA direct to Sydney and then you have to switch from the international terminal in Sydney to the domestic terminal. We flew VAustralia who partners with Delta for the Detroit to LA leg, and with Virgin Blue on the Sydney to Cairns leg.

In Australia, we did the 7 day trip on Spirit of Freedom. No way we were going all the way to Australia to only dive 3 or 4 days. If you were only going to do half the week diving on a live-aboard, I recommend the 4 day trip and hopefully the weather is good enough to get out to Osprey reef. Cod Hole was fun but Osprey is less dived and on the 4 day trips you will do some of the ribbon reefs on the way back to Cairns. As a note SOF did do a dive at Cod Hole on our 4 day trip before steaming out to Osprey. I'm not sure if this is the norm, but it was how it worked out for us.

Our basic itinerary was: leave USA on Thurs and arrive in Cairns on Sat. Recover from jet lag and visit Rain forests outside Cairns on Sun. Dive on SOF 7 days Mon-Mon. Early evening flight from Cainrs to Sydney on Mon. Tour Sydney on Tues-Thurs. Fly back to States Thursday afternoon. Arrive back home by late Thurs with all the time changes. Recover from jet lag on Fri. So 15 days total with all the flights and time changes.

Hopefully this helps, I did a lot of trip advisor research before going and with some good insight from the scuba board members it all went fairly smoothly. Feel free to send me a message if you'd like more info on hotels, restaurants, and non diving things to do in the Cairns and Sydney areas.

 

[Lunahippo]

hi scubajoe- i'm planning a similar trip in july- how were the water temps? what type of suit did you wear?

thanks!

 

[KY]

Cairns to sydney = A Frigging long drive.. plan 4 days straight, without stopping, even for a p'ss break...

NO ONE in Australasia, except for those with a vested interest in Cairns, or are holiday divers, reccomends diving off Cairns.. why?? because its shy'te...

The daintree rain forest is nice however ;-)

Dive sites on east coast not to be missed:

No. 1 Yongala
No. 2 Wolf rock
No. 3 Lady Musgrove
No. 4 Whitsundays from the back of a yacht, which has just spent 3 - 4 days sailing around the whitsundays
No. 5 South West rock

And voila,, you've dived the best of the east coast (note how none of these are any where near Cairns???

 

[bracko]

luna-the temps are around 15 degrees at their coldest +- 1

don't drive from Cairns to Sydney, it's a bastard of a drive, and it's 3,000 km, you'll need more than a day or 2!!

I'd suggest mike ball simply because I've been on it and it was fantastic, check their website.

sydney, there are great shore dives and boat diving. Shelley beach, the north head of Freshwater beach (might want to hook up with a dive shop for that one though, it can be a challanging dive in less than perfect conditions), bare island, Kernell, the list goes on...

boat diving... just hook up with a dive shop (I dive with Frogdive Willoughby) and jump on the boat! it only runs on weekends, so you might want to either plan around that or see if others run during the week.

if you want to do land based travel, catch the Cairns Tilt Train from Cairns to the sunshine coast [or stop along the way if you desire], dive the HMAS Brisbane, spend a night in Brisbane, hire a car drive to Byron Bay, dive Julian Rocks, drop the car off at lismore (after seeing wategos beach, Lennox head and other areas around there) fly to sydney and dive.

NO ONE in Australasia, except for those with a vested interest in Cairns, or are holiday divers, reccomends diving off Cairns.. why?? because its shy'te...

Rubbish. don't put your opinion down as fact.

 

[scubajoe86]

hi luna the water temps were in the low 80's but we went in early dec so things were warming up july is winter in Australia so the water temp will be a few degrees cooler pretty much everyone was wearing 3mm full wetsuits we did 26 dives in 7 days and i tend to get cold and so I brought a 3mm vest too and was very comfortable My wife who tends to stay warmer than me only wore her vest on the two nights dives since they were the 5th dive of the day if you have any other questions i'm happy to share what info I have

 

[chasisia]

Schwim,

I just finished booking a dive vacation to the GBR (7 days boat (Spirit of Freedom)), 2 days in Cairns and a finish in Sydney (2 days) for this coming September. We (my wife and I) had heard there were so many great places to go and things to see that we were to overwhelmed to make any rational decisions.

We ended up contacting About Australia Diving and they were very helpful in making all the arrangements for us. Tell them where and when, what you want and don't want and they will make it happen. We priced it ourselves - air to and from Australia, air in Australia, hotels in Cairns, Boat dives, hotels in Sydney, and then went to them with the same itinerary and was actually less expensive.

I've heard nothing but rave reviews for SoF and everthing else planned is the standard tourist stuff. Their website has a lot of suggestions also.

The proof will come this September!

Chas

 

[bracko]

for internal australian flights and hotels

Cheap Flights & Airfares - Compare Domestic and International Airlines - Webjet.com.au

is a good resource.

are you diving in sydney Chas? although, I'd suggest with only 2 days sticking to land, but if you want to have a dive, more than welcome to PM me closer to the date.

any tips for places to go in sydney that are a little less beaten i might be able to help.