Enjoy an active vacation to the "Land Down Under". Australia and New Zealand tours offer cosmopolitan cities, desert outback, tropical rainforests, majestic mountains, awesome fjords, thermal geysers, unparalleled barrier reef, indigenous cultures and unique wildlife. Travel through the South Pacific, a true exotic vacation destination. Fill your exotic island vacation with scuba diving in pristine waters, walking along deserted beaches, visiting mist-enshrouded rainforests or journey to special spots where time stands still.
Have an active vacation or do nothing at all...the choice is yours.
AUSTRALIA:
Australia's biggest attraction is its natural beauty. The landscape varies from endless sun-baked horizons to dense tropical rainforest to chilly southern beaches. Its cities, scattered along the coasts, blend a European enthusiasm for art and food with a laid-back love of sport and the outdoors.
Tour Canberra
Those who go to Canberra find a picturesque spot with beautiful galleries and museums as well as excellent restaurants, bars and cafes. As Australia's capital, Canberra has a variety when it comes to sightseeing: art galleries, war memorials and libraries. The city's impressive sights are ringed around its focal lake.
Tour Adelaide
When the early colonists arrived and began building Adelaide they used stone. They wanted to build a solid, dignified city with a manner no other state capital in the country could match. The "city of churches" has a superb setting with a center ringed by green parklands and a backdrop of hills with museums, fine galleries, metropolitan beaches and historic houses.
Tour Brisbane
Brisbane has shucked its reputation as a backwater and emerged as one of the country's most progressive centers. It has several interesting districts, a good street cafe scene, a great riverside park, a busy cultural calendar and a thriving nightlife. It also has gracious architecture and tranquil parks. Its galleries and museums are legendary.
Tour Cairns
Cairns shines with the carnival atmosphere and the city is positively booming. In 2003 the foreshore was given a Hollywood makeover, with lagoons and the spanking Pier Marketplace, equipping Cairns to be a truly international tourist destination. This area of far north Queensland will amaze you with its awesome natural beauty both on land and sea. With its lush rainforests and stunning reefs, Cairns' attractions can suit the coddled tourist and the active vacationer alike.
Tour Darwin
The 'capital' of northern Australia is closer to Jakarta than it is to Sydney, and closer to Singapore than it is to Melbourne, so it should come as no surprise that it looks outward to Asia as much as it looks inland to the rest of Australia. The city's museums focus on everything from pearling to crocodiles.
Tour The Great Barrier Reef
One of Australia's greatest assets is the magnificent reef that runs along almost the entire coast of Queensland. Considered one of the world's natural wonders, it is the most extensive reef system and the biggest structure made by living organisms on earth.
Tour Hobart
Hobart is Australia's southernmost capital city. The fact that it is also the smallest is the key to its particular charm. A riverside city with a busy harbor, its mountain backdrop offers fine views over the beautiful Georgian buildings, numerous parks and compact suburbs below. Many say that Hobart's history as a demonically harsh penal colony and the site of some of Australia's worst massacres of indigenous people lingers in the form of melancholy ghosts, lending an eerie chill to the idyllically peaceful colonial buildings and Irish-looking landscapes.
Tour Melbourne
Melbourne's easy-going pace is perfect for enjoying its gracious Victorian architecture, its green wealth of parks and gardens, and its many cultural highlights. Most of the city's main sights are just a short walk or tram-hop apart.
Tour Perth
Perth is a vibrant and modern city sitting between the Indian Ocean and the ancient Darling Ranges. It claims to be the sunniest state capital in Australia, though more striking is its isolation from the rest of the country - Perth is over 4400kms (2750mi) from Sydney by road. Go looking for the beauty that makes visitors fall for Perth: Indian Ocean beaches, hillside hideaways, romantic Fremantle, cosmopolitan Subiaco and the select, comfortable suburbs which fringe the Swan River.
Tour Sydney
Sydney is Australia's oldest city, the economic powerhouse of the nation and the country's capital in everything but name. It's blessed with sun-drenched natural attractions, dizzy skyscrapers, delicious and daring restaurants, superb shopping and friendly folk. Sydney Harbor's sandstone headlands, dramatic cliffs and stunning beaches define the city.
Tour Uluru
Uluru is the most famous icon of the Australian outback and a site of deep cultural significance to the Anangu Aboriginals. The 3.6km (2.2mi)-long rock rises a towering 348m (1141ft) from the flat surrounding scrub. It is especially impressive at dawn and sunset when the red rock spectacularly changes hue.
NEW ZEALAND:
New Zealand is a country of rare seismic beauty: glacial mountains, fast-flowing rivers, deep, clear lakes, hissing geysers and boiling mud. There are also abundant forest reserves, long, deserted beaches and a variety of fauna, such as the kiwi, endemic to its shores. Enoy an active vacation with any number of vigorous outdoor activities - tramping (hiking), skiing, rafting and, of course, that perennial favourite, bungy jumping. You can swim with dolphins, gambol with newborn lambs, whale-watch or fish for trout in the many streams.The people, bound in a culture that melds European with Maori ancestry, are resourceful, helpful and overwhelmingly friendly.
Tour Auckland
Auckland’s bewitching location on a thin stretch of the North Island, which is surrounded by the Pacific on just about every side, is complemented by the lush subtropical forests of the nearby hills and islands. Auckland's tourist attractions are based around all things maritime. When you've had enough of aquariums and the history of sailing, go looking for Maori culture and dinosaur skeletons, lie in the gardens or try stargazing at the Observatory.
Tour Christchurch
About halfway down South Island on the East Coast is the island's capital, Christchurch, settled in the early part of the 19th century and still the most English of the nation's cities.
It's a lively place, with plenty of nightlife, cultural events, and easy access to beaches, ski fields, white-water rafting, and, oddly, Antarctica. Chch (as it's abbreviated) is the main departure point for scientists and explorers to the Great White South, and a visit to the Antarctic centre is a novel way to spend a day.
Tour the Northland
Northland is the cradle of both Maori and Pakeha (European) culture: it was here that the Pakeha first made contact with the Maori, and where the first whaling settlements were established. Often referred to as the 'winterless north' because of its mild year-round temperatures, Northland has a number of interesting museums (Kauri Museum), glorious, blonde beaches (Ninety Mile Beach) and diving spots (Poor Knights Islands Marine Reserve, reckoned by Jacques Cousteau to be among the top 10 diving sites in the world), historic towns (Paihia and Waitangi), game fishing (Bay of Islands) and flora and fauna reserves (Waipoua Kauri Forest).
Tour Otago & Southland
Three highlights dominate Otago and Southland: Queenstown, set in a glacial valley, with a bevy of adrenaline pumping activities for those seeking an active vacation; the walkways of Fiordland National Park; and Otago Peninsula, which boasts New Zealand's first foray into ecotourism. Queenstown, on Lake Wakatipu, is a town synonymous with parasailing, white-water rafting and bungy jumping. Fiordland National Park is a wilderness of mountains, ice and beech forests. The scenic climax is undoubtedly Milford Sound, situated in the shadows of towering mountains and waterfalls.
Tour Wellington
Wellington is situated on a splendid harbor at the southern tip of the North Island. Wellington is a lively city of culture and arts and great ethnic restaurants and cafes. It is also home to the country's government and national treasures. Buildings of interest include the modernist Beehive (the executive wing of Parliament), the old Government Building (one of the largest all-wooden buildings in the world), the National Library (housing the most comprehensive collection of books in the country), and the Katherine Mansfield Memorials (the property where the famous author was born in 1888). In addition, there are museums (including the excellent Te Papa museum), a zoo and stunning views of the city from the top of Mt Victoria.
Ball Pass Crossing
The 2121m (6957ft) Ball Pass Crossing is a demanding two- to three-day alpine route in the South Island's Mt Cook National Park. The terrain takes in steep snow slopes set against the dramatic backdrop Mt Cook. A must for one seeking an active vacation.
Tour Great Barrier Island
This island at the mouth of the Hauraki Gulf has acres of long, white sandy beaches on its eastern shore, deep-water sheltered inlets on its western shore, and a rugged spine of steep ridges running down the center. The 80,000ha (197,684ac) reserve has a number of walking tracks that combine old logging trails and tramways. Natural hot springs, towering kauri forests and a serene aura make it an exotic vacation destination.
Tour Harihari
Harihari is a small town on the west coast of the South Island, and it made world headlines in 1931 when Guy Menzies completed the first solo flight across the Tasman Sea from Australia. The town is known as a base for coastal walks, birdwatching, and trout and salmon fishing.
Tour Stewart Island
New Zealand's third-largest island, Stewart Island is an ornithologist's delight: tui, parakeets, kaka and bellbirds abound. The kiwi, rare in both the North and South Island, is common over much of this island, particularly around beaches. A good network of walking tracks and huts exist on the northern part of the island while the south is largely undeveloped and isolated.
THE EXOTIC ISLANDS OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC:
Cook Islands – The Cook Islands range from towering Rarotonga, the country’s largest island, to low oval islands to solitary atolls. Scuba diving and snorkeling are popular activities, along with windsurfing, hiking, horseback riding and deep-sea fishing.
Easter Island – Barren and detached, Easter Island lies between Chile and Tahiti. No other populated island on earth is as isolated as this. The mystery of Easter Island and its indigenous inhabitants, the Rapanui, has intrigued travelers and archeologists for many decades. Hiking and surfing are the big activities on the island. There are unique caves, walls, fish and corals for the advanced scuba diver.
Fiji – Once notorious as the “Cannibal Isles”, exotic Fiji is now the colorful crossroads of South Pacific travel. Fiji offers a wide variety of accommodations, from the posh resorts to simple cabins. Activities such as hiking, kayaking, camping, white-water rafting, surfing and snorkeling keep visitors entertained. Fiji has been called the “soft coral capitol of the world”, offering some of the finest scuba diving in the world.
French Polynesia - Exotic French Polynesia consists of five great archipelagos: the Society, Austral, Tuamotu, Gambier and Marquesas Islands. Tahiti is the main island of this group, with Papeete as its capital. Attractions include the stunning landscapes of Tahiti, Morea and Bora Bora, the archeological wonders of Huahine, the unspoiled Polynesian life of Raiatea and Taha'a, the rift diving of Rangiroa and the mystery of the Marquesas. Any island is perfect for an exotic island vacation.
New Caledonia – New Caledonia’s greatest attractions are its glamorous capital, the scenic north coast and the colorful neighboring islands. Noumeia, the capital, combines the ambience of a French provincial town with the excitement of a Cote d’Azure resort. The high mountains of the north coast drop dramatically into the sea and are a haven for hikers. The neighboring islands boast of exquisite white-sand beaches backed by towering pines and crystal clear waters. The sheltered waters are prime cruising areas and are popular for yacht charters.
Samoa – Samoa is the very heart of the South Pacific islands. Travelers long lasting impressions of Samoa are of people living in harmony with nature, and there’s no better way to experience it than by sleeping in a Samoan fale. Samoa is a surfing paradise. One of the best ways to view the natural beauty of the island is on bicycle.
Solomon Islands - No other Pacific Island group has a greater diversity of landforms: jungle-clad peaks, mighty volcanoes, uplifted atolls, crashing waterfalls, mist-enshrouded rainforests, dark lagoons, scattered islands and brilliant coral reefs. The variety of cultures and customs is striking and the traditional ways are remarkably alive. The Solomons offers some of the finest scuba diving, unlimited possibilities for hiking, lagoons for sea kayaking and very productive game fishing.
Tonga – Tonga stands out for its living Polynesian culture. Its foremost natural feature is its coastal cliffs, especially its striking limestone formations. It is home to one of the South Pacific’s largest yacht charters. It is a mecca for reef-break surfers and sea kayakers. The annual migration of humpback whales occurs in June or July, when hundreds of whales mate and bear their young before heading back to Antarctica.
Tuvalu – Tuvalu is one of the worlds smallest and most isolated independent island. This remote group of coral atolls gets only a handful of tourists each year which makes it one of the most idyllic and unspoiled areas of the South Pacific. Tuvaluans love dancing and most nights are filled with singing and dancing. A true exotic island vacation.
Vanuatu – No other South Pacific country harbors as many local variations. The glamorous duty-free shops, casinos and resorts of the cosmopolitan capital, Port Vila on Efate Island, contrast sharply with unchanged, traditional villages on nearby islands. For an active vacation scuba diving, game fishing, golf and horseback riding are all available. There are many possibilities for mountain climbing, especially the active volcanoes of Ambrym, Benbow and Marum.
