Kiwis & Aussies, Need help planning next R&R

[Greenday]

Instead of going home for my next R&R, I was thinking of travelling and picking somewhere that'd be normally super expensive to fly to. I'm pretty sure Australia and New Zealand cover that. Saw on facebook one of the girls I graduated with and had some bio classes with also wants to go to New Zealand. I said she should wait until March since that's when I figured to go. She said she wanted to go in March too and to research it so we can share ideas.

Thing is, I know jack about either country besides Australia being an ex-prisoner colony and being home to some of the most deadly animals and New Zealand has a lot of sheep.

So any Aussies/Kiwis on here who can give me ideas of where to stay/things to do?

[raw456]

As a born and bred Sydney girl, my city is a must if your heading down under.

We have the bridge, the harbour, the beaches and you're only a couple of hours drive from the mountains and bush.

Yes, we do have 8 of the 10 most deadly snakes in the world as well as other nasties (spiders, blue ring octopus, jelly fish) but realistically, you have to be pretty unlucky to be on the wrong end of one.

The Great Barrier Reef in Nth Queensland is amazing. There is also Ulara in the Norther Territory. We have so many great places to visit. If you google tourism Australia, I'm sure you will find tons of great ideas.

Good luck

[Carsomyr]

First I'm gonna point out that, once you get here, it's really not unreasonable to travel a lot of both countries. It really depends how long you have and where you're planning on staying. The only cost that'll probably stop you is accomodation (unless you want to backpack, which is a cheap and popular method of seeing as much as possible).
If money's a concern you might want to try to hold off until April (depending on where you go there'll be a massive drop in accomodation prices, up to $60 a night looking in the book I have).

Wellington, NZ has the Te Papa museum which, in my opinion, is awesome. It has loads of free exhibits, inside and out, and regular events and temporary exhibits. And it's next to the waterfront, too. We've also got the botanical gardens, Weta Cave and weird as random art scattered about. Some oddball decide to advertise as a culinary place though. IMO, false advertising.
The South Island is great, too. Plenty of historical buildings to check out and heaps of different cruises (we didn't have time for most of it when I went ;-; ). Never actually been to Hanmer Springs, but everyone who ever has insists that you absolutely have to visit it.
And of course you can take the Interislander between them. The boats are small but the trip is really, really nice.

[Greenday]

Money isn't too big an issue. My R&R is paid vacation so I should be still making some money on vacation. Benefits of working 12 hours 7 days a week. By that time, I'll have about a month and a half of R&R built up but I'm just going to use about four weeks. Plenty of time to tour the two countries. Any good wine country? Wouldn't mind hitting up some vineyards.

[Nyoibo]

Yeah, you can get flights from Australia to NZ for about $150-$200 returnThere's a hell of a lot to do in Australia, some idea of your interests would help, can give you ideas from that.

[Greenday]

I wouldn't mind some wine tours. Some sandy beaches. Some places where I can party my ass off (and since it'll be the summer, I figure people may be doing that). I'll have to ask my friend what she'd be interested in.

[Seshat]

March and April are just after our really HOT Summer period; so you should miss bushfire season. Which is GOOD.

Now: warm ocean swimming, you want Queensland east coast, anywhere from Noosa (just north of Brisbane) and north.

WARNING: when ocean swimming in Australia, ALWAYS swim where the Surf Lifesavers are manning the beach, and swim between the flags.
I believe NZ has a similar organisation.

Actually, that's a good basic rule for everything in Australia, if you're a tourist. Stick to places the locals have marked as 'safe'. This does NOT mean you have to stick to 'major tourist spots', however.

For instance, there's a lovely and informative bushwalk at Mary Cairncross National Park in the Glasshouse Mountains (also in Qld), which almost noone other than locals ever uses. I've never heard a non-Aussie or Kiwi accent there! But it's one of my recommendations.
The bushwalk has been created and maintained to be a 'very easy', so much so that most disabled people can manage it (I believe there's a wheelchair circuit as well as a longer circuit that has a few steps). There are volunteer guides available if you want a guided tour (my father is one). It's a great 'introduction to Australian east coast rainforest' bushwalk.

In the same national park, if you want a challenge, you could find a local rock/mountain climbing club that's planning a climb on Mt Tibrogargan ...
There's one face of Tibrogargan that's a challenge even for the best. Extreme sports holiday!
(make sure your travel insurance covers it.)

However:

Sandy Beaches: almost anywhere on the east coast offers that, at least somewhere. If you want to ocean swim, as I said, use a beach that's Surf Lifesaver patrolled.

Along the east coast, we also have amazing rock beaches where you can walk along the rocks and peer in at the gorgeous critters that live in the rock pools. There's also some magnificent cliffs.

Use the surf lifesaver website to find some beaches that look promising. The list of patrolled beaches is under 'Be safe', and a quick look at some of the entries shows an IMPRESSIVE amount of info on each beach.
You can mostly ignore the 'hazards' listing: the area between their flags WILL be clear of hazards. (other than other swimmers, and the possibility of being dumped. )

Wine tours: New South Wales and Victoria both have wineries areas. Being Victorian, I would naturally tout ours. raw456 will tout the New South Wales ones. <boo!>
Trying to be objective, however, I would say flip a coin.

Partying all night long: Any city, and any sizeable tourist town. Why do I emphasise city? Because we're as thinly spread on this continent as vegemite on toast.

Basically, we have the population of New York City (not state), spread over an area the size of the contiguous US states. So most of our towns are quite small, and not likely to have more than a couple of hotspots for partying.

However, the major tourist towns (eg Cairns, Noosa, most of the Gold Coast, Bondi Beach) have constant nightlife, as do all the actual cities.

The cities would be Brisbane, Ipswich, probably Toowoomba, Newcastle, Sydney,
Canberra, Melbourne, Geelong, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth, probably Fremantle, Alice Springs and Darwin. (That's mostly off the top of my head.)

Yes, Australia has few enough places that can truly be called cities that it's possible to remember them all off the top of one's head. Now, which are cities and which are towns IS debatable: I'm half expecting people from Rockhampton or Bendigo or Broome to come to this thread and be offended.
But .. well. In the States, even Sydney or Melbourne are small enough in population that some wouldn't call them 'cities'. So... <shrug>.

Anyway: that's where the beaches, wine tours and nightlife are.

For other nightlife, Melbourne has the 'moonlit sanctuary', which is actually a small rehab facility for injured wildlife that specialises in nocturnal animals, and does after-dusk torch tours where the rehabbers show you the animals they're rehabbing, and talk about them.
We also have Healesville Sanctuary, which is a combined rehab centre & zoo, and one of the major ones here.
For a tourist, I'd recommend Healesville over the Melbourne Zoo, Werribee Zoo, or NSW's Dubbo Zoo: the latter three are all world-animal zoos. You can see world-animal zoos back home. Go to Healesville or one of the other Australian-animal specific rehab/zoo crosses.

[Mishi]

Seconding Mt. Tibrogargen as a suggestion - I climbed it when I was in one of my healthy times, and it is FUN!

There are wineries up here in the Granite Belt section of Queensland, and loads of them down around Adelaide, South Australia as well as the Margaret River area of Western Australia. Just a tip, the water at the beach in Margaret River looks lovely but it is freezing cold.

Fremantle has awesome markets and a very interesting old jail tour, Broome is just plain gorgeous and snorkling the Ningaloo Reef is a must. Personally, I'd stay off the Gold Coast because it's getting pretty bad at the moment. Fortitude Valley is the clubbing section of Brisbane, with the benefit of many cuisines to choose from as well as loads of hotels and backpackers hostels.

Tipping is pretty random here, it's caught on in some places and is ignored in others. In the bars/clubs keep an eye out for a tip glass full of liquid near the register to drop your change into if you wish to tip.

[Greenday]

Tipping is pretty random here, it's caught on in some places and is ignored in others. In the bars/clubs keep an eye out for a tip glass full of liquid near the register to drop your change into if you wish to tip.

Interesting. Back home, for tipping at bars, usually I just leave a dollar per beer on the bar. No tip jars or anything.

I'm guessing it wouldn't be a bad idea to just convert a bunch of USD to local currency once I get there? I didn't need to when I was in Dubai or Amsterdam, but I didn't venture out far there.

I'm pretty accustomed to cold water for beaches. The ocean doesn't get too warm by us in New Jersey.

[ApolloSZ]

NZ has Martinborough, and Malbrough for wine country.

Also depends what your looking for. South Island has some amazing natural scenery (So does North island ofcourse) - The Alps, Fjiordland, Malborough Sounds.

Wellington (my home town, woo!) has like someone else said, Te Papa, Carter observatory, Cable car, Weta workshop (which has a store I so need to visit).

Northwards you have Taupo, Rotorua both big Tourist places. Waiouru Army museum and Desert Road (Again, depending on your tastes on Scenic vs party :P )

Tipping isn't a big thing here either, but yeah some places have jars etc. And you would need NZD currency here, I've seen like one place that accepts US money and that is because is specifically a Tourist/Souvenir shop.

((on a side note, wow my spelling feels atrocious today)).

[fireheart]

Seshat you forgot Adelaide, we have some good wine tours as well. Yes, there is more of Australia than the east coast

There are two main regions with wine tours in South Australia, one area is McLaren Vale which is located south of Adelaide (and coincidentally I don't live far from there) Lots of good wineries and wine tasting.

The other region is known as the Barossa Valley and is located sort of north-east-ish of Adelaide. That area is sort of known as the wine region of South Australia.

Tourism wise, Handhorf is worth a visit, as well as Melba's chocolate factory. *drool* If you're around McLaren Vale area, Victor Harbor is a good sandy beach. Other busier beaches are Christies Beach, Glenelg, Henley Beach, Moana...

We have a zoo, an art gallery and a museum. Ignoring the overhyped pandas, the zoo is generally worth a visit.

Interstate, for Victoria, there's the Gold Museum and Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, the Twelve Apostles somewhere between Apollo Bay and Portland and the Melbourne Aquarium and Queen Vic Markets in Melbourne.

For Queensland, there's the Gold Coast which in itself is worth visiting. We have the theme parks located there and Movieworld is worth a look at. There's also a Hard Rock Cafe located there.

As far as prisoner colonies go, Adelaide wasn't founded by convicts, but we still have the Old Adelaide Gaol around. Adelaide also has a bunch of festivals and the Clipsal 500 in march, the month is known as Mad March.

[Seshat]

I'm guessing it wouldn't be a bad idea to just convert a bunch of USD to local currency once I get there? I didn't need to when I was in Dubai or Amsterdam, but I didn't venture out far there.

It will be essential. Outside of the airports, you won't find anywhere that accepts USD. (Well, other than banks and currency exchanges....)

As for tipping, all service industry personnel here are paid a proper wage*. However, tips are welcome, and usually there's a tip jar near the till. If you're paying the waiter/waitress directly, you can leave the tip with the payment.
* Technically. Having delivered pizzas in my healthier days, I can tell you that no wage is enough compensation for delivering pizzas in a Brisbane thunderstorm.

Fireheart: it's not so much that I forgot the SA wineries as that I know very little about wineries. My parents dragged me around a couple of the NSW ones, and my partner to a couple of the VIC ones....
But yes, all of my personal experience is East Coast. I've never been west of the Twelve Apostles, and my inland experience is limited to the inland route from Brisbane to Melbourne.

OOooh! Speaking of which: if you or your partner are into astronomy, you WILL want to visit Siding Springs and Parkes. Southern sky visual and radio astronomy. Google will tell you a lot more about them.

Caving: my husband adored the Jenolan Caves. I .. well, I could see what he liked in them, but I also discovered that caves make me claustrophobic.

[raw456]

If your keen on wineries, there are 2 areas in NSW I am familiar with and can recommend:

The Hunter Valley region which is about 2.5hrs drive from Sydney (north and inland a bit) Hubby and I love it up there. You can even do tours from a horse drawn cart which is a great way to see the area and not have to worry about tasting too many wines. This is probably the best known NSW wine area. There are lost of hotels and resort type places there to stay

The other place we like is about 2-3hrs west of Sydney around the Orange / Mudgee area. They get very cold winters and very hot summers there and you get all these wonderful flavours in the wine.

If you like nightlife - Sydney has everything from ballroom dancing to disco to raves to goth to reggae and more..... you name it - you will probably find it in a club somewhere.

Seshat is right - outside of the major cities, you may not find a lot of nightlife beyond the local pub band or musical act at the local RSL club.

And yes, when it comes to our beaches ALWAYS swim between the flags. It's just safer that way.

Another place to consider is Tasmania (The island south of Mainland Oz)

It has some of the most beautiful national parks and heritage areas in the world.(i think about 60% of the island is national park)

[fireheart]

There are caves located at Naracoorte in South Australia and it is also worth having a look at Coober Pedy.

[Rhion]

...
Another place to consider is Tasmania (The island south of Mainland Oz)

It has some of the most beautiful national parks and heritage areas in the world.(i think about 60% of the island is national park)

Freycinet National Park is really nice, and the walk to Wineglass Bay is great.

Around Hobart there is a tonne to do, historical attractions, nature walks, and Victoria Docks/Salamanca Place have some really nice galleries. The Botanical Gardens is worth checking out. Hobart is the only place in Tasmania with a decent night life though.

Launceston has the Cataract Gorge, pretty place with some nice walks, or great for a picnic in summer. I think it also has a cafe or two.

Cradle Mountain is worth checking out, very pretty place.

In Western Australia I visited the Margaret River region, some very nice wineries there, and some nice natural attractions. Definitely worth visiting if you want to head west.