TRAVEL GUIDE | Australia 10-Day Itinerary from Sydney to Gold Coast & Brisbane
Sunday, June 24, 2018
Cute koalas, jumping kangaroos, flying boomerangs, the immense Great Barrier Reef, the mysterious Ayers Rock, and the iconic Sydney Opera House—these are the things that flash through ones mind when one mentions Australia. But the so called Land Down Under is so immense, like a whole continent immense, that there’s virtually no limit to the things you can see and do around it.
Some months back, we embarked on a ten-day trip to Australia. We really didn’t have Oz in our sights, but a chance presented itself for us to go, and we took it. The country is so vast that planning to cover even just its major places would probably take months of traveling.
With limited amount of days and money, we settled for ten days, targeting the cities around its eastern coast, Sydney, Gold Coast, and Brisbane.
UNDERSTAND AUSTRALIA
Australia is originally populated by aboriginals before fleets of ships from Great Britain landed on its shores and established a penal colony around what is now New South Wales. By 1901, the six colonies consolidated into a federal government, forming the Commonwealth of Australia.
Currently, the nation is divided into six states—New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia—plus two major mainland territories, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. The capital of Australia is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney—both of which are in New South Wales.
Located on the southern hemisphere, the weather in Australia are opposite to countries above the equator—summer from December to February, autumn from March to May, winter from June to August, and spring from September to November. Average temperature goes as high as thirty degrees Celsius during summer and drops down to minus five during winter. Snow falls at the highlands of the east coast along the states of Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, and the Australian Capital Territory.
HOW TO GET TO AUSTRALIA
Three airlines in the Philippines fly directly to Australia—Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific, and Qantas—with routes going to Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. There are, however, almost thirty other carriers, including budget airliners, that flies to Oz with one or two stops in nearby countries like Singapore (Scoot), and Kuala Lumpur (AirAsia), to name a few. Keep in mind that most of the time, it’s much cheaper to book a non-direct flight than a straight one.
AUSTRALIA VISA REQUIREMENTS FOR FILIPINOS
Filipinos are required to present a visa to enter Australia. Although visa on arrival isn’t an option, it’s not that hard to obtain one, granted that you have all the necessary requirements. There are two ways to apply for an Australian tourist visa, one is by DIY on their website with a fee of AUD140.00, and the second one is by utilizing third-party visa processing agencies like One Vine Migration which ensures more chances of having your visas approved.
HOW TO GET FROM SYDNEY AIRPORT TO SYDNEY CBD
We planned our ten-day Australian trip to commence on Sydney and end in Gold Coast. Our flight departed in Manila, stopped for a sixteen-hour layover in Singapore, before continuing to Sydney. The main area for tourists in Sydney is the Sydney CBD, about nine kilometers away from Sydney International Airport.
There are numerous ways to get from the Sydney International Airport to the city. By car, it’s roughly thirty minutes away with light traffic, about the same via rental cars, taxis and rideshare services (AUD45.00 to 55.00) which can be found in front of all the terminals. There are also shuttle services available on both Terminals 1 and 2, we personally availed of this in advance via Klook.
Public city buses also ply Terminals 1 and 3 along the arrival area, but you’re gonna need an Opal card to board. The fastest way to the city is by train, about thirteen minutes, which can be found at the northern end of the terminal via the Arrivals area. Like the buses, you also need to purchase an Opal card to board it.
HOW TO GET AROUND AUSTRALIA
The main modes of transportation around Australia, at least those we visited—Sydney and Gold Coast—is by trams, trains, and buses. Besides using single journey tickets, you may also opt to use an Opal card which you can purchase on the stations or at selected outlets. For out of the way places, there’s no recourse but to either walk, bike, take a cab, or hail Uber services. Like most anything else in Australia, transportation—even public ones—are expensive.
Moving from one state to the next, you can either take the Greyhound bus, which offers hop-on hop-off services, but it is quite expensive. In fact, it’s cheaper, both money and time-wise, to take a plane ride, which is what we opted for.
SAFETY IN AUSTRALIA
During our ten-day tour around Sydney, Katoomba, Byron Bay, Ballina, Gold Coast, and Brisbane, never once did we feel unsafe on the streets of Australia. Like most big cities in the world, there are of course crimes here and there—as we see on Aussie news TV—but generally Oz is extremely safe for tourists. Besides that, locals are quite friendly. One thing that stuck to me was how people inside bars would leave their mobile phones right on the table and dance away without worrying about their belongings being taken. That’s how safe it is in Australia.
STAYING CONNECTED IN AUSTRALIA
Sim cards are available right at the airport with options from Vodafone, Optus, and other networks. A typical data plan is at AUD20.00, with 15GB worth of data that’s good for seven days. We personally didn’t avail these, utilizing our lodging’s free wi-fi connection and those at the malls and public places whenever we needed to connect online instead.
WHERE TO STAY IN AUSTRALIA
We stayed for four nights on two accommodations in Sydney—a hostel, Sydney Central Inn on the first two nights—then transferred to a midrange hotel, Rydges World Square Hotel, on the second half of our stay.
For Sydney, the Sydney CBD is where most tourists head to for accommodations. Backpacker districts can be found on the Southern area of the CBD and Haymarket, Glebe and Kings Cross. For those wanting to stay on the beach areas of Sydney, there are also cheap accommodations at the Eastern Suburbs of Bondi and Coogee, and the Northern Beaches in Manly. Mid-range and luxury hotels run aplenty at the Sydney CBD area, some of the most expensive ones having a view of the harbour and the Sydney Opera House.
Flying in to Gold Coast, we stayed for a night at the Byron Bay Hotel and Apartments before transferring to two lodgings in Surfers Paradise, Rhapsody Hotel and Raffles Place Royale.
There are budget hotels and hostels around Byron Bay for those looking for a cheaper place to sleep. As for Surfers Paradise in Gold Coast, don’t let the glitzy high-rise hotels and apartments intimidate you, motels and hostels are available for those wanting to save a bit on lodging.
WHAT TO SEE AND DO IN AUSTRALIA
Australia is huge, so we concentrated our ten-day tour around Sydney, Katoomba, Byron Bay, Gold Coast, and Brisbane—generally just walking around the city, taking daytrips to national parks, and visiting beaches and a few sights on the smaller towns. For a detailed list of the things we’ve visited during our trip, check out the links below:
KATOOMBA
• Three Sisters & Katoomba Falls at the Blue Mountains
• Scenic World Blue Mountains
SYDNEY
• Sydney Harbour Cruise
• Sydney Opera House
• DIY Sydney Walking Tour
CURRUMBIN
• Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary and Beach
BYRON BAY + BALLINA
• Byron Bay and Ballina DIY Tour
GOLD COAST
• Surfers Paradise DIY Walking Tour
• Brisbane Day Tour from Gold Coast
TOURS IN AUSTRALIA
Most of our tours on our ten-day Australian trip were pre-booked on Klook since it’s far more convenient than booking after arriving in Australia. Good thing most of the cities we went to were covered by Klook, plus they always have discounts, making it much cheaper compared to actual real-life prices.
• Tours in Sydney
• Tours in Gold Coast
• Tours in Brisbane
WHAT TO EAT IN AUSTRALIA
Food isn’t really Australia’s biggest draw—steaks, burgers, and fish and chips being the usual fare on most restaurants. Besides these, what usually abound along its streets are Asian food—Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, you name it, they have it. But we really didn’t go to Australia to eat Asian food, so we made do with steaks, lol. What I really miss during our stay in Oz are the street food, they virtually have none.
Eating out is expensive in Australia, the cheapest meal we could get was at around AUD5.00, and that’s just a sandwich. To save on food cost, what we do is shop on groceries, usually at Coles or Woolworths, for discounted items like breads, sandwich spreads, instant noodles, canned corned beef and meatloaves. We prepare and eat these in our lodgings and pack some when going out.
Buying bottled water is also very expensive, good thing tap water is potable in Oz, so no problem on that front.
AUSTRALIA 10 DAYS ITINERARY
A ten-day trip to Australia is short, but being one of the most expensive countries in the world, it’s kinda hard to travel here for an extended period of time. I guess the best way to tour Australia is to focus on certain areas, then probably come back to see the others on another time.
Our itinerary in Australia involves flying in to Sydney, touring the city and nearby towns, then flying in to Gold Coast to visit Currumbin, Byron Bay, Ballina, and Surfers Paradise. For Brisbane, which is just an hour away from Surfers Paradise, we visited via a day tour.
In hindsight, should we be given a chance to replan our trip, we would’ve stayed at least two nights in Byron Bay instead of one, cut our stay at Surfers Paradise to two nights instead of four, and actually spend a night or two in Brisbane instead of visiting it on a day tour.
For this Australian itinerary, I purposely changed the accommodations, finding the cheapest possible places instead of those we actually stayed on. Also, our visit timed with the annual Sydney Mardi Gras, so a day of our stay in the city was spent entirely on this—I added an optional tour since the event is celebrated only once a year. For the food, I omitted the restaurants we ate in, since it’s actually a lot cheaper to buy food on groceries and pack meals when going out—which we did a lot, by the way. Regarding our transportation, there were a lot of times when our friend and fellow blogger, G of Pinay Travel Junkie, helped us in getting from one place to another using her car. I included that on the itinerary below since I have really no idea how we could get to the places she drove us to through public transportation (but I’m pretty sure you can).
DAY ONE - SYDNEY | AUD 244.80 FOR TWO
• Arrive in Sydney around noon
AUD 19.00 x 2PAX – SHUTTLE TRANSPORT VIA KLOOK
• Check in at Sydney Central Inn
AUD 65.00 x 3 NIGHTS – CHEAPEST SYDNEY ACCOMMODATION VIA AGODA
• Walk around the Sydney CBD
• Shop for Groceries
AUD 11.80 – GOOD FOR FOUR DAYS IN SYDNEY
DAY TWO - BLUE MOUNTAINS | AUD 121.80 FOR TWO
• Depart for Katoomba at 5:00AM
AUD 10.20 x 2PAX – ONE WAY SINGLE JOURNEY TICKET TO KATOOMBA
• Arrive in Katoomba and walk towards Echo Point
• Hike around the Three Sisters
• Hike to the Katoomba Waterfalls
• Hike to Scenic World
• Take the Scenic World rides
AUD 35.00 x 2PAX – SCENIC WORLD TOUR VIA KLOOK
AUD 11.00 – SHARED LUNCH AT SCENIC WORLD
• Depart for Sydney
AUD 10.20 x 2PAX – ONE WAY SINGLE JOURNEY TICKET TO SYDNEY
DAY THREE - SYDNEY | AUD 60.00 FOR TWO
• Walk around Sydney
• Take the Sydney Harbour Cruise
AUD 30.00 x 2PAX – HARBOUR CRUISE VIA KLOOK
• Visit the Harbour Bridge
• Sunset at the Sydney Opera House
DAY FOUR - SYDNEY | AUD 0.00 FOR TWO
• Attend the Sydney Mardi Gras *IT WAS MARDI GRAS DURING OUR VISIT
• Visit Bondi Beach or Manly Beach *OPTIONAL ACTIVITY
DAY FIVE - CURRUMBIN + BYRON BAY | AUD 313.80 FOR TWO
• Fly to Gold Coast
AUD 59.00 x 2PAX – FLIGHT VIA JETSTAR
• Airport transfer
AUD 0.00 – COURTESY OF OUR FRIEND G
• Visit the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary
AUD 49.95 x 2PAX – ENTRANCE FEE
• Lunch at Currumbin Beach
AUD 25.90 – SHARED CHEAPEST MEAL FOR TWO
• Drive to Byron Bay
AUD 0.00 – CAR COURTESY OF OUR FRIEND G
• Visit the Cape Byron Lighthouse
AUD 0.00 – CAR COURTESY OF OUR FRIEND G
• Check in at Byron Bay
AUD 70.00 x 1 NIGHT – CHEAPEST BYRON BAY ACCOMMODATION VIA AGODA
• Night out in Byron Bay
AUD 0.00 – OPTIONAL
DAY SIX - BYRON BAY + BALLINA | AUD 296.00 FOR TWO
• Visit Seven Mile Beach
• Visit Lake Ainsworth
AUD 40.00 – UBER FARE
• Visit Ballina
AUD 0.00 – CAR COURTESY OF OUR FRIEND G
• Drive to Surfers Paradise
AUD 0.00 – CAR COURTESY OF OUR FRIEND G
• Late check in at hotel
AUD 64.00 x 4 NIGHTS – CHEAPEST SURFERS PARADISE ACCOMMODATION VIA AGODA
DAY SEVEN - SURFERS PARADISE | AUD 10.00 FOR TWO
• Shopping at Harbour Town *RAINED THE WHOLE DAY
AUD 0.00 – CAR COURTESY OF OUR FRIEND G
• Shop for groceries at Woolworths
AUD 10.00 – GOOD FOR FOUR DAYS IN GOLD COAST
DAY EIGHT - SURFERS PARADISE | AUD 0.00 FOR TWO
• Walk around Surfers Paradise
DAY NINE - BRISBANE | AUD 282.00 FOR TWO
• Day tour to Brisbane from Surfers Paradise
AUD 141.00 x 2PAX – BRISBANE TOUR VIA KLOOK
DAY TEN - FLIGHT HOME | AUD 38.00 FOR TWO
• Early check out
• Shuttle ride to airport
AUD 19.00 x 2PAX – SHUTTLE TRANSPORT VIA KLOOK
• Flight home
TOTAL BUDGET: AUD 1,366.40 (USD 1,010.84 | PHP 54,290.04) for two persons
AUD 683.20 (USD 505.42 | PHP 27,145.02) per person
AUD 68.32 (USD 50.54 | PHP 2,714.50) per person, per day
* BASED ON TWO PERSONS TRAVELING TOGETHER FOR TEN DAYS IN AUSTRALIA
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