Australia trip

[Tassie_Rohan]

....I would recommend the diving much further south of Cairns....

...like Tasmania, for instance.


Much better diving than that warm water stuff, and our waters are completely uncontaminated by coral.

Cheers,
Rohan.

 

[tracy_from_oz]

...like Tasmania, for instance.


Much better diving than that warm water stuff, and our waters are completely uncontaminated by coral.

Cheers,
Rohan.

I would certainly include Tassie in there if you head south, although I am not sure Rohan that he ment that south.

 

[klpscubagirl]

well the current "plan" which is subject to a lot of change is to spend 5 days in Sydney, 2 days in Brisbane, 5 days in cairns, hopefully at least three of them on a liveaboard, and then we heard Perth has great diving, so we hoped to fly over there for a few days. From Perth is it all live aboards or can you do single day diving?

 

[almitywife]

Perth would be single day diving... IF you can, head far north to Ningaloo, about a 10hr drive or a small plane flight

cheers

 

[Azza]

well the current "plan" which is subject to a lot of change is to spend 5 days in Sydney, 2 days in Brisbane, 5 days in cairns, hopefully at least three of them on a liveaboard, and then we heard Perth has great diving, so we hoped to fly over there for a few days. From Perth is it all live aboards or can you do single day diving?

Well I am heading to Byron bay for some diving in a few days so will let you know how that is. I had a friend that lived in Byron and she rated the diving there as you get the warm tropical currents meeting the temperate currents and a massive array of different life as a result.

 

[adza]

I think Seal Rock (about 350kms north of Sydney) has some good Grey Nurse Shark diving. (Only heard about it - haven't been there myself).

 

[TSandM]

A major vote for Byron Bay here! We spent three days diving there last fall, and I wish it had been thirty.

We stayed at an reasonably priced B&B that caters specifically to divers and was very pleasant, and we dove with Sundive. The profusion and variety of fish was better than anyplace else I have been to date.

 

[alcina]

Just my two cents, but don't try to squeeze in the West Coast. With the flights etc you are looking at a good chunk of time.

All of the diving out of Perth is single day based; in fact, pretty much all the diving in WA is done on day trips/half day trips with two tanks. Very few liveaboards. The Perth dive season should be warming up over the next few weeks - contact the local operators to see what they have on offer as sometimes they will only be offering weekend trips.

Ningaloo is about 12 hours drive straight through from Perth, stopping for fuel and a stretch only. Check your rental agreement and insurances carefully to make sure there are no "catches" for crossing the parallel. There are two towns that access Ningaloo Reef: Coral Bay for the southern portion and Exmouth for the northern portion. There is great diving and marine animal interaction from both areas. As it's such a long/expensive trip, I would highly recommend at a bare minimum two diving days in Coral Bay and three diving days in Exmouth. You will need a day of travel on each end so there's a week right there. Of course, you can do less, but boy it's pricey Skywest is the only airline and you fly via Perth www.skywest.com.au - book online as there aren't cheap seats via agents...they access the same fares, I've been told. Not all flights from the East Coast meet up to allow you to fly to/from on the same day, so you may also need to overnight.

HTH

 

[Jez]

good choices in places to visit. you can just about walk into any backpacker hostel in any of the places you've chosen and get cheap accom. with perth i would prob cut it away. i grew up there my whole life and love the place but wouldn't go there for a diving holiday. it's a great place to visit but you can get big seas and of course the fremantle doctor(the strong sea breeze which sets in every arvo) which both don't mix well with the diving. when you come to sydney there is awesome shore diving everywhere. i dive heaps in the cronulla area which good to go.

 

[dry heat diver]

I am planning a trip to australia and was just wondering if anyone had any advice of the best relatively inexpensive places to stay and dive.

It may be a little too late if you were going to travel soon, but we were in Port Douglas north of Cairns the last week of September and had a wonderful day of diving on Poseidon. It was our first ocean diving experience after completing the OW in a murky local lake so I suppose our reference point is somewhat jaded. Nonetheless we found Port Douglas to be quite charming and the crew on Poseidon to be very friendly, attentive and professional. We dove 3 sites on the Agincourt Reef and thought it was spectacular.