{"id":45,"date":"2021-07-21T17:12:09","date_gmt":"2021-07-21T15:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/?p=45"},"modified":"2021-07-21T17:12:09","modified_gmt":"2021-07-21T15:12:09","slug":"going-down-under","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/?p=45","title":{"rendered":"Going down-under&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Going Down-Under&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because so many South Africans have re-located to Australia over the years, it was always on my list of places to visit so that I could see what the attraction was, for myself. Well, as it turns out, Oz is not a bad place to at all. They have magnificent beaches (Cable Beach,&nbsp;<strong>Bondi<\/strong>), awesome natural rock formations (<strong>Uluru<\/strong>, Bungle Bungles, King&#8217;s Canyon, Wave Rock), excellent diving (Ningaloo Reef,&nbsp;<strong>Great Barrier Reef<\/strong>), strange wildlife (kangaroos, koala bears, duck-billed&nbsp;<strong>platypus<\/strong>), pretty good wine (white and red), not bad cars (<strong>Holden SS<\/strong>) and some impressive architecture (Sydney Opera House). It is just a pity their cricket and rugby teams are rubbish!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Spending three months covering about 12000km by Greyhound was a good way to see the country. I started in&nbsp;<strong>Perth<\/strong>&nbsp;and travelled up the West Coast, stopping in Geraldton, Carnarvon, Exmouth, Broome, Port Hedland and&nbsp;<strong>Darwin<\/strong>. The diving on&nbsp;<strong>Ningaloo Reef<\/strong>&nbsp;was good, but really hard work due to the surge and strong currents. From what I could tell, they were still mapping the reef when I was there so perhaps these days they may have found more sheltered reefs which would mean an easier dive. I was hoping to see a&nbsp;<strong>whale shark<\/strong>, but it was not my lucky day although we did see&nbsp;<strong>humpbacks<\/strong>&nbsp;on the way to the dive site. From Darwin I headed South to Alice Springs to see Uluru (Ayer&#8217;s Rock) and then to Adelaide which is a pretty town, complete with a tram. Going East from Adelaide took me to Sydney which reminded me of Johannesburg, only it is more clean and on the coast. A modern city with amazing beaches and lovely views, Sydney is spread over such a large area that it would take a few weeks to see everything it offers. I was happy enough to hear an orchestra play in the&nbsp;<strong>Sydney Opera House.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Heading up the East Coast I got to Brisbane and the Gold Coast &#8211; very laid back and tropical &#8211; probably a nice place to\u00a0<strong>retire<\/strong>\u00a0to but I had to move on to Airlie Beach for some diving in the\u00a0<strong>Whitsundays<\/strong>. Surprisingly, the water was cooler than I was expecting, at about 22 degrees. The diving was good with good coral formations,\u00a0<strong>white-tipped reef sharks<\/strong>, heaps of goldies, surgeon fish, triggerfish and morays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"389\" height=\"165\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Travel_to_Australia_Uluru.jpg?resize=389%2C165&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-46\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Travel_to_Australia_Uluru.jpg?w=389&amp;ssl=1 389w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Travel_to_Australia_Uluru.jpg?resize=300%2C127&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Travel_to_Australia_Uluru.jpg?resize=141%2C60&amp;ssl=1 141w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Travel_to_Australia_Uluru.jpg?resize=212%2C90&amp;ssl=1 212w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 389px) 100vw, 389px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><figcaption>Uluru<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Going Down-Under&#8230; Because so many South Africans have re-located to Australia over the years, it was always on my list of places to visit so that I could see what the attraction was, for myself. Well, as it turns out, Oz is not a bad place to at all. They have magnificent beaches (Cable Beach,&nbsp;Bondi),&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelstarter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}