Discount travel australia

My wife and I had planned to spend a week on Midway Island in February 2002. Ten days before departure we were notified that the Midway Phoenix Corporation had decided to suspend operations at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, citing "an unacceptable relationship with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service." After receiving this notice my wife said, "What is Plan B?"

Remembering that I had read an article in ITN about the Indian Pacific rail trip from Sydney to Perth, Australia, I immediately began inquiring as to whether we could book space on the train at the last minute. To our surprise, accommodations were available.

We spent three days in Hawaii before flying to Sydney from Honolulu,. arriving three days before our scheduled departure on the Indian Pacific.

A taste of Tasmania

Having visited Australia before, we were looking for something a little different. On our previous trip we visited most of eastern and central Australia, but we did not have time to visit the island of Tasmania. We checked -with our travel agent and found that we could fly from Sydney to Tasmania and back before departing on the train. (Domestic air tickets in Australia are quite expensive for a single ticket, but if you buy a packet of two or more there is a discount of' almost 60%, so our side trip to Tasmania was' very inexpensive.)

We flew into Hobart, Tasmania, and stayed at Macquarie Manor. It is a converted medical clinic but was extremely warm and cozy. Management was very accommodating, and it was an enjoyable visit for two nights. The rate was approximately $125 a night, double.

We had hoped to take a sightseeing tour but found that many tours were only offered twice a week. Our host at the hotel arranged for a taxi to take us for a 5-hour trip throughout the Hobart area for about $90. This was a delightful personal excursion which took in all the highlights.

Of course, any visit to Tasmania would have to include seeing a Tasmanian devil. We visited the Bonorong Wildlife Park about 25 minutes north of Hobart where we encountered a number of Australian species. They included the devils plus wombats, wallabies and quolls.

On the third day we returned early to Sydney. We took a commuter train from the airport down to the quay, where we took a cruise around Sydney's harbor before our train departure about 2 p.m.

The train

The Indian Pacific runs twice a week from Sydney to Perth and covers over 2,700 miles. We spent three night's and three days on the train. Accommodations were quite good; our bedroom included a small bathroom with shower. First class cost about $800 per person, with meals. (The airfare from Sydney to Perth is about half that amount.)

Our train had 33 carriages but could pull as many as 40. It traveled between 50 and 65 mph:

Train personnel were very accommodating and looked after their passengers well. We had a total of eight meals on the trip. Each was nicely served in the dining car and nobody went away hungry. We had excellent lamb on a couple of occasions; it's one of the main meat dishes in Australia. The public spaces in first class were quite nice, and most of the passengers spent a fair amount of time in the club car where free coffee and snacks were provided.

There were a number of Canadians on the train because the conversion from Canadian dollars to Australian was fairly favorable. Only four other Americans were on the trip.

Whistle stops

After departing Sydney, we took in views of the hilly country immediately to the west before eventually retiring to our bedroom. The next morning we made a short stop at Broken Hill, which is known s "the silver city." Once an area of silver mining, it is set in a remote, vast landscape of rugged ranges, desert and plains that is home to kangaroos, emus and wedge-tailed eagle . We' had an hour-long tour of this area before departing westward toward our next stop, the city of Adelaide.

A large metropolitan area of about a million people, Adelaide is the capital of South Australia. It enjoys a Mediterranean-type climate and is an elegant city with fine parks, galleries and colonial buildings near the beaches. We took a bus tour before continuing our rail journey.

The next morning we arrived at the town of Cook, which is on the Nullarbor Plain in Outback South Australia. Since Cook currently has a population of only four people, this was primarily a stop to service the train. This very isolated outpost about 670 miles west of Adelaide and 940 miles east of Perth today is little more than a ghost town.

Proceeding west that evening, we came to our final stop at Kalgoorlie, which in 1893 was the home of one of the largest gold rushes in Australian history. The town currently has a population of about 30,000, and it has one of the world's largest open-cut mining operations for recovering precious metals.

Perth

Overnight from Kalgoorlie we arrived in Perth, the capital of Western Australia. Perth, with a population of 1.5 million people, is about three hours by air from Singapore and about four hours from Sydney. Talking with the local people, we really got a sense that they feel isolated and a long way from any other major population area.

Perth is a thriving city that is still developing mineral resources all over Western Australia. Nearby is the fabulous port of Fremantle, which has many historic buildings and a very cosmopolitan atmosphere. We stayed two nights at the Duxton Hotel, one of Perth's finest, at a rate of about $200 per night, double.

We enjoyed a sightseeing tour of Perth that revealed much open parkland, very modem architecture and a thriving metropolis. There is an extensive war memorial honoring all of the soldiers from Western Australia who had fought in many of the European wars.

In Perth we enjoyed two dinners that were very well prepared and of modest cost. (They ran about $20 per person.) The first night we ate at the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Perth and the second evening we took short taxi ride to an Italian restaurant called Perugino. This was a delightful little place owned by an Italian named Giuseppe Pagliaricci, who opened the restaurant about 17 years ago. Their specialties include, pasta with prawns and prawns with pork. They also had quite an array of local wines. I highly recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting Perth.

We also took a sightseeing trip outside the city to see the wine-growing areas and Caversham Wildlife Park. This park had a number of uncaged animals, and my wife had an opportunity to have a wombat sit on her lap.

The next morning we went out to the port of Fremantle and spent some time looking around at the open markets, the historic buildings and the waterfront area. We stayed overnight and started our return the following afternoon, flying from Perth to Sydney and spending the night at the Stamford Hotel at the airport ($120 per night, double). The following morning we flew from Sydney to Honolulu, staying there one night before continuing home.

This was a unique adventure and I would certainly recommend the train trip. To see the Outback of Australia by rail is really quite an experience.

We were advised that the Australian train the Ghan, which now runs from Adelaide to Alice Springs, will continue their line to Darwin; it should be completed sometime in the latter part of 2003. We just might return to Australia in a few years to take that trip.

So, even though we didn't get to see the island of Midway, we did enjoy our alternate itinerary. It just goes to show that you have to be very flexible because many times things don't go exactly the way you planned.

Contact information

* MACQUARIE MANOR, 172 Macquarie St., Hobart, Tasmania 7005, Australia; phone 61 3 6224 4999, fax 61 3 6224 4333, e-mail email@macmanor.com.au or visit www.macmanor.com.au.

* BONORONG WILDLIFE PARK, Briggs Road, Brighton, Tasmania 7030; Australia; phone 03 6268 1184 or fax 03 6268 1811.

* DUXTON HOTEL, 1 St. George Terrace, Perth, Western Australia; phone 011 61 8 9261 8000 or e-mail am@perth.duxton.com.au.

* PERUGINO RESTAURANT, 77 Outram St., West Perth, Western Australia; phone 08 9321 5420 or visit www.perugino.com.au.

* STAMFORD HOTEL, Sydney Airport, Sydney, Australia; phone 011 61 2 9317 2200.

* CAVERSHAM WILDLIFE PARK, Lot 3, Arthur St., West Swan, Perth, Western Australia 6055; phone 9274 2202, fax 9250 2274 or email cwp@iinet.net.au.