Not exactly dissuading is here.... just means we will have to spend as much time as legally permitted seeing the awesomeness! And I want to see it all (well, except for the spiders...)@CrazyChookChookLady : I'm going to answer your comment here rather than on MJ's thread because if I'm going to rabbit on I'd best do it on my own thread. I'm going to state a couple of obvious points first because I have heard of tourists who expected to do The Sydney Opera House, The Great Barrier Reef & Uluru all in the same day so: Australia is BIG.
In winter it snows in some places [some places it's been known to do that in summer] so depending on what you want to see you need to plan your time & whether you are going to do your travelling by car, train or plane. That will decide where a lot of your money goes & how long you can stay.
That all said I am going to assume you want to see the country, not do the culture vulture shuffle. Because we are so big every state is different & has a different climate.
To quote a favorite comedic band re CanadaJeannie, you've done a wonderful integration. The girls are doing great. Your assessment of visiting AUS is akin to visiting the states. Where to start and where to go. I've lost all hope of visiting AUS as I would need at least a year to see everything I wanted to.
I'm doing great and love seeing how things are with you.
Bob, I now hate flying, but I don't fly American. Last four flights, well 3 and almost flights I had with them convinced me that I'm not going back. First three, I see structural defects as we're in flight and just pray that we land in one piece. When we landed I told the crew what I saw, quietly and was politely told "that's normal". NO THAT IS NOT NORMAL! I have a degree in aviation and am an aviation maintenance officer. Then for the icing on the cake.... I'm boarding a flight and the captain is greeting the passengers. As he greeted me we went eye to eye.. Yea, the reason he was no longer flying for the US Air Force was because I took his wings. I looked at the head flight attendant and told her to get me on a different flight, same class, same times, etc or I would happily tell the entire passenger contingent why I was not going to get on this bird. She initially pushed back, but the pilot told her to give me what I want. He really didn't want me to share.
“The economy is lousy, we barely have an army
But we can still stand proudly 'cause Canada's really big
We're the second largest country on this planet earth
And if Russia keeps on shrinking then soon we'll be first
(As long as we keep Quebec)......
Most people will tell you that France is pretty large
But you can put fourteen France's into this land of ours
(It'd take a lot of work, It'd take a whole lot of work)
We're larger than Malaysia, almost as big as Asia
We're bigger than Australia and it's a continent”
The arrogant worms
Lol, but sadly a lot of that is really cold and tundra-ie. As DH says “we burnt your fries, so we gave you extra”
And as to the whole captain incident etc.... great, you’ve now reassured me that trains are probably safer... but I still don’t think I’m going to take a boat to AUS, even if that was how my mother travelled to Canada.