Romantic Australia in 12 days: harbour, desert, island
Three places, four hotel changes, and a deliberate decision to do less than the map allows. The strongest romantic trips we build in Australia are not the ones that see the most. They are the ones where you stay long enough in the right three rooms that you stop packing.
- Duration
- 12 days
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Hotel changes
- 4
- Best months
- Apr, May, Jun, Sep, Oct, Nov
- From
- $6,240 per person
The shape is a city, a desert and an island, in that order, because it runs from busy to quiet and finishes horizontal.
Who it suits: honeymooners and couples on an anniversary, with a preference for good rooms and privacy over the number of places visited.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive Sydney. A harbour-facing room in Walsh Bay or at Circular Quay. Nothing scheduled beyond dinner within walking distance, because nobody is charming after twenty hours in the air.
Day 2: The harbour, privately. A morning on a small chartered yacht out through the heads and into one of the beaches you cannot reach by road, with lunch on board. Afternoon free. Evening at the Opera House if there is something on that you would actually choose to see, and nothing if there is not.
Day 3: Sydney, slowly. The Bondi to Coogee walk before the heat, about 4 miles (6 km), swimming in the ocean pools on the way. Afternoon in Paddington. Dinner at Watsons Bay with the ferry home across the harbour after dark, which is the single best twenty minutes in the city.
Day 4: To the red centre. Fly to Ayers Rock Airport, about three hours, and transfer to a desert lodge outside the Yulara village where the tents look out at Uluru and nothing else. Sunset from your own deck rather than a car park.
Day 5: Uluru. Sunrise from Talinguru Nyakunytjaku, then the base walk in the cool of the morning, about 6.6 miles (10.6 km) and flat, or the shorter Mala and Kuniya sections if you would rather take your time. Afternoon off. Dinner outside under the desert sky, which at this latitude with no light pollution is the reason people come back.
Day 6: Kata Tjuta. Valley of the Winds at first light, about 4.6 miles (7.4 km), which almost nobody walks and which is the better of the two rock formations up close. A helicopter circuit in the late afternoon if you want the scale of the place, and the Field of Light installation in the evening, which has been extended repeatedly and which we confirm is running on your dates before we include it.
Day 7: To the reef. Fly to Cairns, then a light aircraft or helicopter to a small island. Which island depends on your dates and your budget, and we shortlist three with the honest differences written out: the northern ones for the reef, the southern coral cays for the easiest snorkelling and the turtles, the Whitsundays for sailing and the beaches.
Days 8 to 10: The island. Almost nothing scheduled, which is the point. A private boat to a reef site on one day, a picnic dropped on a sandbank at low tide on another, and two days where the plan is the water and a book. Dinner is wherever the island does it best, and on the smaller ones that is one restaurant, which we tell you before you go.
Day 11: Back to the mainland. Return flight to Cairns and a last night at Port Douglas or in the hills behind it, deliberately placed so that your international departure is not connected to a small aircraft that weather can ground.
Day 12: Departure. Morning at Four Mile Beach, transfer to Cairns.
What is included
Accommodation in the room category we recommend rather than the cheapest one that fits, all internal flights including the island transfer, all private transfers, the chartered morning on Sydney Harbour with lunch, the Uluru and Kata Tjuta park pass, the desert dinner, one private reef boat from the island, a day-by-day document with the reasoning behind each room, and a WhatsApp group with your specialist and our partners on the ground.
What we would change, and when
- Travelling November to May? Stinger season changes island swimming, and the wet season changes island weather. We move the reef half to a southern cay, or we move the whole trip.
- Not interested in the desert? Replace Uluru with three nights in Tasmania: Hobart, the art museum and a lodge on the east coast. It is a completely different romance and it costs less.
- Want a fourth place? We would rather add nights than places. If you have fourteen days, the honest recommendation is four nights on the island instead of three and three in Sydney instead of two.
Related
Shape this trip around us All Australia, planned around the flights, because that is what decides the trip trips
