International Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Australia tips please! And side trips?
So, we're starting to get organised for our Australia trip (i.e. I'm starting to look around or we'll end up spending a month with the ILs & not visiting anything!)
The idea is now to fly to Sydney first (cheaper/allows for some us time), we then need to get to Brisbane for at least 2 weeks (where the assorted ILs are), and Adelaide to see friends.
Do you have any hotel recs for Sydney? And any tips of things to see/do in Sydney and Brisbane?
On top of this, we want a long weekend/week just the two of us somewhere dreamy & beachy.
We had thought of going to French Polynesia as we'll never be closer but it's still not quite affordable 
What I've seen up to now in our price range:
Cook Islands
Fiji
Cairns
Any thoughts/recs?
Thanks a million!
Re: Australia tips please! And side trips?
Oh, can I jump on your bandwagon
? We are also planning a trip to Australia, the main reason is to visit my uncle and his family in Melbourne but we want to travel around a bit as well so I am all ears too. We'll be going in July/August, I know this is not the ideal time to visit Australia but due to DD's school this is our only option.
Sorry for butting in Valerie
!
If you are going to Adelaide, I would go to the Barossa Valley, for wine tours. There's an Argentinean restaurant my husband goes to in Adelaide. I forget the name but he loves their food. Also there is a boutique chocolate shop in the Adelaide airport. He always brings me chocolates from there. If he doesn't he doesn't get picked up from the airport.
Cairns is a place that you could spend 3 days at, IMHO. It's the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. We planned to go on a glass bottom boat tour but I got too seasick to do it. AMrsin09, lives up there and she had a lot of good recommendations for us. We did a lot of the things she suggested. Also look up Port Douglas, it's not too far from Cairns.
I'm sorry about not going to the French poly. I looked into Tahiti and that about blew our travel budget for an entire year. I feel your pain. It's sucks to be so geographically close and yet still so far away. I think we'll bite bullet one year in the future, I don't know when the next time will be that we'll be so close.
Sorry to be a very infrequent lurker butting in (I lurk/delurk around the MM board more), but I'm someone who lives in Sydney so I thought I'd offer my name up if you wanted info.
For both of you what are you interested in doing?
Melbourne is meant to be the city that is best for shopping, sydney has the beaches and harbour (and a bit more convict history), and both seem to share the other historical/museum options. Adelaide has wineries and churches. Brisbane/Queensland is again beaches.
What sorts of things are you wanting to see or do specifically? Let me know and I can try be a bit more specific about what to see and do. Feel free to PM me
What time of year are you going?
For a beachy holiday, I'd definitely check out the Whitsundays or Cairns or Port Douglas. If I were you, I'd just concentrate on Australia as Fiji is about an 8 hour flight. But that's just me. I hate flying.
I lived in Sydney and I suggest going to the Rocks, Darling Harbour, Manly, the Bronte to Bondi walk, the Zoo, and Featherdale if you can. I really love the Blue Mountains and the Hunter Valley to get out of the city. I've never been to Melbourne or Adelaide or Perth, so I'm not much help there, sorry.
If you need some suggestions for restaurants in Sydney let me know. I'm going there for Xmas and I can't wait to eat at all our local places.
ditto port douglas - I personally do NOT like Cairns.... pt douglas is a much better point for exploring the reef
Ditto on her sydney suggestions too - I was going to suggest fetherdale - it's awesome (you can get SO close to the animals) they sydney zoo is gorgeous too. And Manly of course (that's where I live at the moment - it's gorgeous - do the walk down to Shelly beach!)
don't know about restaurants any more though - sorry - we don't go out much
although I have heard the newly refurbed Manly Pavillion restaurant is AMAZING!
Thank you so much! We're hoping to go in February to catch up with other ILs that will be there too, which is adding to the logistics nightmare...
I will look into Port Douglas, Hamilton Island and the Whitsundays: the thought of another 8 hours on a plane already brings tears to my eyes.
As of me reading your answers the plan is:
Days 1-5 Sydney (hook up with some ILs/do our own thing/play tourists)
Days 6-8 visit friends in Adelaide
Days 8-20 Brisbane (staying with assorted ILs & hopefully getting to travel around some)
Days 20-as much as I can get off work one of your suggestions within Australia
Does 5 days in Sydney make sense? And a weekend in Adelaide? I can't escape a minimum of 12 days in Brisbane (negotiated down from 2+ weeks...) and am really keen to get to visit the country at our own pace/own choice of attractions, which we won't get to do there much :-(