Australia
Oceangoing cruises have widely varying itineraries that may include a few East Coast ports en route to South East Asia, to complete circumnavigations. Sydney, with its harbor, ranks as the Southern Hemisphere’s most dynamic and successful city. Linger for its neighborhoods, the Opera House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Harbor Bridge climb, and Bondi Beach. Head north to the Queensland Coast for Brisbane, a fast growing river city and Queensland’s semi-tropical capital, and Cairns, gateway to the 1400-mile-long Great Barrier Reef. A very few cruises take the Southern Ocean route around the bottom calling at Melbourne with its arts, entertainment, and lovely residential suburbs, all easily reached by the city’s famous green and yellow trams. Adelaide is noted for its four terraces enclosing the city center, lovely parklands and seaside beaches, and in the west, Fremantle reveals a splendid art deco historic district and is the gateway to western Australia’s largest city, Perth, just inland.
Coastal Cities
Most Australians live on or near the coast with its main cities major tourist destinations — Darwin and nearby wildlife parks, Cairns for the Great Barrier Reef, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart on the island of Tasmania, and Fremantle for Perth.
Great Barrier Reef
Sadly, Australia’s Great Barrier, strung along the Queensland Coast, has been badly damaged from global warming yet large sections are still well worth visiting, and so are the island resorts.
Kimberley Coast
Small-ship expeditions cruise the remote Northern Territories for the savage beauty of this rugged coastline, inland Outback, ancient aboriginal art work, towering waterfalls following the wet season, only-in-Australia birdlife, creatures of the sea, and virtually no human population.
Murray River
River cruises ply the Murray that forms part of the border between New South Wales and Victoria and enters South Australia to then empty into the sea near Adelaide. Attractions are historic towns and the sometimes green ribbon that flows through the Outback.