In November, I took a detour from living in my van and traveled to Australia. I was not planning on taking a major trip outside the US in my first year of vanlife, but the opportunity came about when my brother, Marty asked if I wanted to go Down Under in 2025.
Even though I did not take my van to Australia, I decided the blog site was a great place to document the trip and organize my photos. So, I created an Australian map that shows everywhere I traveled and gallery pages with my videos and pictures.
On November 1st, I departed Chicago with my brother, Marty and sister-in-law, Susan for Los Angeles where we met up with my sister, Peggy Ann, and my brother-in-law, Brent. The five of us then boarded a plane for Australia and arrived in Sydney roughly 16 hours later on November 3rd.
It was a great trip, and I was able to get a glimpse of many parts of the country. In 18 days, I traveled to five (5) of the eight (8) states and territories that are part of the Australian continent. I took so many photos that I ended up organizing them into five (5) pages by major city, state or territory:
- Sydney | New South Wales
- Port Douglas | Queensland
- Darwin | Northern Territory
- Adelaide | South Australia
- Melbourne | Victoria
Australia is big. It is only slightly smaller than the lower 48 US states. To get around we traveled by plane, train, automobile and boat. Since we were in southern hemisphere, we were there in late spring / early summer. And just like the US, the weather varied a lot from the hot and humid north, the hot and dry desert of the center, and the cool and moderate temperatures of the south.
We spent the first four (4) days in Sydney seeing the city including the iconic opera house and Taronga Zoo. One day we hiked along the beautiful coast line from Bronte Beach to Bondi Beach.
From Sydney, we flew to Cairns and rented an SUV to drive to Port Douglas in Queensland. In Australia they drive on the left with the steering wheel on right side, so this was an interesting experience. Some of the highpoints were taking a boat to the outer Great Barrier Reef to go snorkeling and hiking in the Daintree Rainforest.
After Port Douglas, we flew from Cairns to Darwin on the northern coast of the country. At Darwin we boarded “The Ghan” train for a 3 day / 2 night, 2979 kilometer (1851 mile) journey to Adelaide on the south coast. The train took us through the “Red Centre” of the country. In addition to seeing “The Outback”, a highlight of the Ghan was the food served in the Queen Adelaide dining car for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
In Adelaide, I took a self-guide tour of the city with stops at the South Australia Museum, State Library and Rundle Mall. However, my favorite activity in South Australia was kayaking at the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary.
My last stop in Australia was Melbourne, Victoria. My first day was an excursion to the Moonlit Sanctuary Wildlife Conservation Park where you could hand feed the kangaroos and wallabies and ended with the famous Penguin Parade on Phillip Island with the hundreds of little penguins leaving the ocean at twilight to go to their burrows. I spent another day experiencing Melbourne on foot and by taking a cruise on Yarra River.
As an architect, I really loved both Sydney and Melbourne. However, one of the highlights of the trip was definitely the tour of the Sydney Opera House. The building and the story of its design and construction is remarkable.
Please check out my Australian Trip by visiting the Map and Gallery pages.
