Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand
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Australia and New Zealand in One Trip
By Suzanne Bopp
Glaciers and geysers. Snow-topped peaks and golden beaches. Bustling cities and hushed forests. Aboriginal philosophy and Maori culture. Flora and fauna found nowhere else in the world. Experience Australia’s and New Zealand’s differences, whether you travel on a group tour or on a cruise, where pre- and post-cruise extensions allow you to create authentic, deeper connections with locals and their land.
AUSTRALIA
Holland America ship in Sydney Harbour
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While many cruises depart from New Zealand, the majority of voyages originate in Australia, as do many land tours. Sydney and Melbourne are easily accessible and are among the top destinations in the country. They were both contenders for the federal capital, but Canberra earned the title. Nevertheless, they’re capitals in their own right.
Jewelry shoppers in the Queen Victoria Market, Melbourne
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Melbourne claims to be Australia’s cultural capital. Cosmopolitan and trendy, the city hums with creative energy, readily apparent in its vibrant arts and music scene. It also has a reputation as a shopping destination—don’t miss the two-block-long Queen Victoria Market, a Melbourne institution since 1878, with its endless stalls of fresh local meats, fish, produce, sweets and clothing.
Melbourne is also known as a city with secrets; to unearth them, rely on an experienced guide. As part of its 18-day Contrasts in Australia and New Zealand vacation, AAA partner Trafalgar treats guests to a private walk through the city’s hidden laneways. In this city behind the city, you can escape into a maze of alleyways, a world of small, quirky restaurants, boutiques, art galleries and hole-in-the-wall bars, where you’ll be mixing with the locals.
Oceania Cruises offers something similar through two Oceania Select Excursions: Urban Heart of Melbourne, which follows a local around the city’s eccentric Fitzroy neighborhood, and Melbourne Through the Eyes of a Local, which has participants riding the tram with a local guide to out-of-the-way places that truly reflect Melbourne’s heart.
Sydney skyline
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Sydney, where AAA Member Choice Vacations’ 20-day Australia’s Outback to New Zealand’s South Island land tour begins, is one of the most recognizable port cities in the world because of the sail-shaped architecture of its famous opera house in Sydney Harbour. Tours of the Sydney Opera House are widely available as cruise excursions and as part of Member Choice Vacations and Trafalgar vacations. Because Trafalgar works quietly behind the scenes to provide concierge-style services, guests are able to tour the opera house at their leisure and without wasting time waiting in line. Beyond the opera house, participants on a Member Choice Vacations itinerary have a chance to join a special presentation at the National Opal Collection. Australia accounts for 95% of the world’s supply of opals, and this collection showcases some of the world’s most spectacular specimens.
Surfing is a way of life at Bondi Beach, Australia.
Another iconic Sydney sight is busy Bondi Beach, where the surf life saving club has a storied history dating back more than 100 years. The life savers’ distinctive red and yellow caps and flags are familiar sights. The beach is a crescent-shaped sandy expanse, a popular destination for locals and tourists. The waves are good, and the December through April water temperatures are consistently comfortable, making for an invigorating swim.
Cruise lines’ shore excursions, such as Princess Cruises’ Debark Tour: Spectacular Blue Mountains—which whisks cruisers to Featherdale Sydney Wildlife Park to see Australian koalas, emus, kangaroos and others, and to the Blue Mountains for a hike and aerial cable car ride—can venture a bit inland. But, given their sea-bound Australia-New Zealand itineraries, major cruise companies usually call only in these two major cities before sailing on to Tasmania or New Zealand (or both, depending on the itinerary).
That said, Viking Cruises offers pre- and post-cruise extensions in Sydney for more in-depth exploration, or to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory and to Uluru, the famous formation in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Member Choice Vacations flies travelers on both of its itineraries—the 22-day Australia and New Zealand Uncovered and Australia’s Outback to New Zealand’s South Island—to this part of Australia to hike to the base of the natural landmark and enjoy a Sounds of Silence dinner, a gourmet meal savored against a backdrop of the rock at sunset.
Koalas nesting in a tree
Trafalgar and Member Choice Vacations both travel north to the laid-back, tropical city of Cairns, where the great outdoors is the main attraction. With Trafalgar, a local specialist takes you on a private journey to a sanctuary for unique Australian fauna of all kinds. Koalas, wallabies, snakes and birds, including cassowaries—large, flightless birds with brightly colored heads and necks—surround boardwalks through woodlands and rainforest. A boat cruise on a lagoon takes you close—but not too close—to native crocodiles.
Get acquainted, even immersed in, the country’s indigenous culture at the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park. Guests witness the native people’s ancient dreamtime story of the world’s creation as well as aboriginal dancers performing in a traditional corroboree celebration and a fire-making ceremony. Get hands on and learn how to throw a boomerang and play a didgeridoo, possibly the world’s oldest musical instrument.
Lady Musgrave Island, Southern Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia.
Cairns’ main claim to fame is its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world. To get here, Trafalgar guests board a high-speed catamaran and have the chance to snorkel or stay dry in a semisubmersible craft. Either way, the tableau stuns: the world’s largest coral reef system with more than 400 types of coral, along with sponges, mollusks, rays, dolphins and more than 1,500 species of tropical fish. Some visitors are lucky enough to glimpse the threatened species that live here, such as the dugong and the green turtle.
Member Choice Vacations puts visitors up close to the Great Barrier Reef via a glass-bottomed boat and by offering an optional excursion to the outer reef. It also gives travelers an extra day in Cairns to explore on their own, perhaps to ride the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway for a literal bird’s-eye view of the rainforest canopy or to board a cruise at Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures to see the toothy reptiles in their natural habitat.
Member Choice Vacations tours pack in more destinations in Australia, including Alice Springs and Adelaide (depending on your selected itinerary), because they use air travel for speed and convenience. Thus, travelers stop in the major cities and often have an extra day to roam about and indulge a personal interest separate from the planned itinerary.
Cruise line Silversea is similar in that its intimately sized ships are able to access Australia’s and New Zealand’s smaller cities, such as Geelong in Australia, from where passengers can sip and swirl at wineries on the Bellarine Peninsula, among other possible shore excursions.
The cruise line, like its large-ship counterparts, also calls in Hobart, Tasmania. The capital of this island state in Australia boasts a beautiful waterfront set against a scenic inland view of Mount Wellington. Walking tours show off the architecture, tidy gardens and vestiges of the city’s past. Visits to wildlife sanctuaries introduce the island’s famous animal, the Tasmanian devil.
NEW ZEALAND
Cross the Tasman Sea to New Zealand, a country roughly the same size as Colorado packed with hot springs, glaciers, rainforests and volcanoes. The cityscape of Auckland, framed by two harbors, is dominated by the more than 1,000-foot-tall Sky Tower. With Trafalgar or on a break from your cruise ship, step into its glass elevator and zip up to the highest viewing spot at 643 feet for a panoramic view of the city and surrounding farmland and wineries 50 miles away, if the weather is clear.
Mangapohue Natural Bridge near Waitomo Caves
Meanwhile, with Member Choice Vacations’ Australia and New Zealand Uncovered tour, you land in Wellington, the country’s colorful capital, where you are treated to a traditional powhiri, an elaborate Maori welcoming ceremony. Enjoy exclusive access to an archaeological site not open to the public during a guided exploration of a waterfront pa, which means “village” in Maori. Taste Maori heritage in a hangi dish and discover the roots of the indigenous culture at the Te Papa Museum.
Still on the North Island roll the green hills of Waitomo; underneath those hills lies a maze of underground rivers and caves. Trafalgar invites you to enter the Waitomo Caves to explore the Glowworm Grotto. Unique to New Zealand, these tiny creatures shine their luminescence down from the cavern’s ceiling by the thousands, creating a galaxy of glowing specks of light that illuminate your way as you move through the dark cave. Celebrity Cruises leads you to them on a hike, but at the Ruakuri Caves, on one of its small group experiences.
Like some murky primeval soup, the eerie landscape near Tauranga around Rotorua bubbles and churns. Mud boils, geysers erupt and steam hisses from the earth, leaving a sulfurous scent. All this volcanic activity has drawn people here for hundreds of years; few places in the world can boast geothermal phenomena so extensive and intense. Guides leading land tours and cruise excursions explain what’s going on beneath all this activity and show you New Zealand’s biggest geyser.
Maori man performs a welcome dance on Muriwai Beach, New Zealand
On the South Island, Member Choice Vacations’ Australia’s Outback to New Zealand’s South Island tour spends two nights in Christchurch, allowing you to appreciate the beautiful flowers and green spaces of the country’s “Garden City.”
The thing no one wants to miss, however, are the island’s glaciers. Member Choice Vacations whisks you to the ice fields surrounding Mt. Cook and over to its west side to see the Franz Josef Glacier. Most every tour—be it land or a cruise excursion—wants to show it off. The glacier stretches from the heights of the Southern Alps down into a temperate rainforest less than 1,000 feet above sea level, more than seven miles away. It’s one of the fastest moving glaciers on the planet and is known for turning a river at the glacier’s lowest altitude to a beautiful milky blue: As the glacier moves, it grinds rocks together, creating a fine sediment that ends up suspended in the river.
Bungee jumping at Kawarau Bridge
Continuing to Queenstown, travelers with Trafalgar and Member Choice Vacations discover a picture postcard of a city, perched beside the clear waters of Lake Wakatipu, flanked by soaring mountains. This breathtaking landscape also provides opportunities for every type of adventure; in fact, Queenstown is known as the adventure capital of the world. It’s the birthplace of bungee jumping, after all, but also an ideal location for skiing, hiking, biking or just basking in the views.
While sailing with Holland America Line, you can book the Milford Sound to Dunedin Overnight Adventure, which includes a visit to Queenstown as well as to a former gold mining village and the Old Kawarau Bridge in Kawarau Gorge. Here, you may see a bungee jumper in action.
The famous Champagne Pool of Waiotapu in New Zealand
Similarly stunning views mesmerize at Milford Sound, arguably the crown jewel of the entire country. Cruise lines, Member Choice Vacations and Trafalgar alike visit this 9-mile-long fjord that was carved by receding glaciers about 20,000 years ago; today the sound is lined with dramatic steep-sided mountains rising straight out of the water, dominated by Mitre Peak, towering more than 5,500 feet above sea level. Awe-inspiring is not an overstatement, and it’s the perfect end to a journey with no shortage of superlatives.
Get going to the land down under. Speak with a AAA Travel Agent and let AAA plan every detail from start to finish.