East Coast Tour

Sample itinerary and inclusions based on 12-day version of tour:

Touring Highlights in Australia:

• Full day tour of K’gari (Fraser Island)
• Tour and afternoon tea at a historic working Australian cattle station
• Take in the Millaa Millaa Falls lookout & Curtain Fig Tree
• Free time to soak up the rainforest village of Kuranda
• Journey over the UNESCO World Heritage listed rainforest with Skyrail
• Dive into the ocean of the Great Barrier Reef

Day 1: Sydney – Coffs Harbour

Welcome to Sydney! Start discovering the landscapes of Australia’s east coast as you travel northward to the coastal town of Coffs Harbour. On the mid-north coast of New South Wales, this pocket of paradise has some of the state’s most impressive beaches, not to mention the glorious national parkland that surrounds. Tonight enjoy a welcome dinner.

Day 2: Coffs Harbour – Gold Coast

Your tour takes you to the country’s most easterly point. It’s the stuff that postcards were made for, as you’ll discover when you reach the Cape Byron Lighthouse, standing proud over the Pacific Ocean. Dolphins are a common sight year round as well as whales during migration.

Day 3: Gold Coast

Your base in Surfers Paradise is the heart of the Gold Coast, a city that really does sparkle. Today you might choose to explore beaches (there are too many to count), lingering in light-filled cafés and restaurants. Or take a Gold Coast tour to see another side of the ‘Goldie’ in the Mt. Tamborine hinterland – a hub for creatives and foodies. The city also breaks records for its extensive network of canals, which you might opt to explore on a leisurely cruise

Day 4: Gold Coast – K’gari (Fraser Island)

Follow the waves north to World Heritage-Listed K’gari (Fraser Island). The ferry ride across the strait is a highlight, particularly during whale migration when these gentle giants come to the calm, protected waters to calve. Landing on K’gari, expect to see a lot of sand. This is after all the world’s largest sand island, and the only place in the world where rainforest grows from the sand.

Day 5: K’gari

The island also has a really long sand highway, which you’ll get to zip along on a 4WD Fraser Island tour across 75 Mile Beach, all the way up the east coast to the Pinnacles Colored Sands, calm Eli Creek and the Maheno shipwreck, which offers quite the photo op. Just when you thought the island couldn’t get any prettier, Lake McKenzie appears on the horizon, this dazzling patch of blue formed only with rainwater. It’s a hard act to follow, but the ancient rainforest at Central Station and Wanggoolba Creek lives up to the challenge with its huge satiny, scribbly gum and kauri trees.

Day 6: K’gari – Rockhampton

Back on the mainland you’re in Queensland’s cattle country. Case in point Langmorn Station, where a local family will welcome you with afternoon tea and a tour of the immense (and historic) cattle property – the original family homestead was built in 1873. Cross the Tropic of Capricorn to arrive in Rockhampton, the beef capital of Australia.

Day 7: Rockhampton – Airlie Beach

Travel north to the sugar town of Sarina, Australia’s sugar capital.  If you’ve ever wanted to know how sugar cane is processed and distilled, you can choose to take an optional tour of Sarina Sugar Shed (additional cost). Continue, on a high, along the east coast to Airlie Beach, the gateway to the Whitsundays. Life moves at a leisurely pace here. Fall into step and take things slow tonight.

Day 8: The Whitsundays

The Whitsunday Islands are a collection of 74 tropical islands with white sandy beaches and dense rainforest surrounded by The Great Barrier Reef. Today is at your leisure. This tropical oasis offers many bucketlist reasons to get up early, why not take an optional helicopter ride over Heart Reef, to Whitehaven Beach or an optional cruise to relax on the beach.

Day 9: Airlie Beach – Cairns

Head north to Cairns along the Bruce Highway. Enjoy the scenery as you travel past sugarcane fields and farming lands with the ocean to one side and lush rainforests and mountains on the other.

Day 10: Cairns

The Cairns Esplanade is a hive of activity in the morning, with active locals out before the humidity of the day sets in. Keep pace, before cooling off in the Atherton Tablelands, a high tropical plateau of rainforest, including the heritage listed Curtain Fig Tree. And waterfalls, like Millaa Millaa, where enormous iridescent Ulysses butterflies like to dance. Explore Kuranda before getting some perspective on the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway, through and high above the canopy of the Barron Gorge National Park.

Day 11: The Great Barrier Reef

Just when you thought your outlook couldn’t get any better, your Cairns tour sees you zipping over the Great Barrier Reef on a high-speed catamaran. Snorkel with six of the world’s sea turtles bobbing over fans of coral, as well as so many fish you won’t know where to look. If you prefer to keep your head above water, the marine world can also be glimpsed from an underwater observatory and glass-bottom boat.

Day 12: Depart Cairns, Australia

Say farewell to your fellow travellers when your tour comes to an end this morning after breakfast.

Important flight booking information for your tour:

Note: All flights referred to in the itinerary are not included in the tour price. Please be aware there are specific flights required to be booked to take this tour. Ask your Downunder Travel Destination Specialist to assist with adding flights to your tour (additional cost).