Today is the day you set off from your chosen airport. You’re heading to Australia with connecting flights on the way.

Welcome Down Under!

You land in Sydney, where you are transported from the airport to the hotel.

The day is yours to do as you please and to find your feet again after the flight.

If your room isn’t ready for you when you arrive, the hotel will be happy to store your luggage for you while you head out into the city and enjoy your first impressions of Australia.

Most people experience a bit of jet lag the first few days in Australia, and it can be tempting to have a nice long nap. But the best cure for jet lag is to drink plenty of water, and to get some fresh air and light!

You’re probably already eager to get down to Sydney’s famous waterfront today, where light and fresh air are precisely what you get – not to mention Utzon’s world-famous opera house, which from the right angle is beautifully framed by the world’s largest steel arch bridge, Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Opera House has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2007, joining the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China on the list, and the building takes most people’s breath away.

Sydney is built up around the world’s largest natural harbour, where the water is a hive of activity. Chubby little ferries transport “Sydney-siders” across the harbour between the suburbs and their workplaces in the city centre. Water taxis zip back and forth. Sailing ships large and small cruise around with their white sails set. And giant cruise ships can suddenly come into view.

Sit yourself down at a café, order a “flat white” (Australia’s answer to a cappuccino) and tune into the Aussie drawl, and the expressions they use that you don’t hear back home!

Sydney buzzes with life from the early hours of the morning. People flock to the city and workplaces from the suburbs, grabbing breakfast at their favourite café on the way. Join them and enjoy the fact that you’re on holiday.

In the early morning, it’s time for a half-day guided tour of one of the world’s most scenically situated cities. There are many highlights, and the tour will give you a good introduction to the city, making it easier for you plan what you want to return to and explore further. The Opera House, the Botanic Garden, the old quarter The Rocks, Darling Harbour, Hyde Park, Chinatown, etc. are all on the list today. Along the way, the guide will tell you about the culture and history of the city

The rest of the day is yours to do as you please. If you’d like to learn a little more about the history of Sydney, we recommend a visit to the Museum of Sydney, an exciting, interactive museum, built on the ruins of the house of Sydney’s first Governor.

The Australian Museum is also a fabulous museum! It is the world’s fifth oldest natural history museum, where you can learn more about the Aboriginal people and their history and culture.

You can also choose to purchase a guided tour, e.g. a guided tour of the Opera House itself – or if you fancy seeing the bigger picture, perhaps a bridge climb on Sydney Harbour Bridge!

Please note that you have to make your way to the starting point of the guided tour on your own. The address is written on your voucher.

The day is yours to explore the city.

You might like to walk down to the Opera House and continue out to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair and through the Botanic Gardens to Hyde Park Barracks.

Built in the early 19th century, the barracks were to be used to house convicts. Hyde Park Barracks are, along with a number of other colonial buildings around the country, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

And don’t forget to visit the Queen Victoria Building – once a fruit and vegetable market, today a beautiful (and expensive) shopping centre.

The old quarter, The Rocks, is always a pleasant place to visit. This is where the first Europeans settled when they arrived in Australia in 1788. If you feel like adding to your step count, you can walk around Barangaroo Reserve and enjoy the view of the harbour. A former industrial area, it has been converted into a park, so today it looks like it did before the Europeans came.

Incidentally, Barangaroo is named after a powerful Aboriginal woman who didn’t do quite what the Europeans had expected. She was for a time also married to Bennelong – one of the most significant Aboriginal people in the early history of Sydney. The plot of land on which the Opera House is built is called Bennelong Point after Bennelong himself.

Some of the city’s best restaurants are to be found at King Street Wharf, so you might want to head down there after dark.

If you’re interested in guided excursions, see our large selection below. We recommend that you book your excursions from home as they are often extremely popular.

If you haven’t yet visited any of Sydney’s many beaches, this might be the obvious choice for today. There are more than 100 of them, so there are plenty to choose from!

You might like to take the local ferry to Manly, for example. Make sure you sit outside – you’d be hard-pressed to find a more stunning view of the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge. Manly is a cosy little suburb with two beaches, and if you fancy a dip, there are good changing facilities here.

Sydney enjoys many hours of sunshine, and the locals spend most of their free time outside, so there are often good facilities on beaches and in local parks.

Remember to allow time for lunch at one of the cosy cafés in Manly.

Bondi Beach is also worth a visit. This is where you’ll get a good picture of the almost iconic lifeguards from the TV show “Bondi Rescue”.

If you’re up for a walk, we also highly recommend the walk from Coogee Beach to Bondi Beach. It’s about 6 km long, but there are so many stops and beautiful viewpoints along the way that it takes the best part of a day. Round off with fish & chips on the beach – it doesn’t get much more Australian than that!

There is a transfer from the hotel in Sydney to the airport, from which you fly into the red heart of Australia. A free shuttlebus (no booking necessary) drives you into the small town of Yulara, a tourist centre here in the Australian outback.

The small town has a campsite, a few hotels, a supermarket, a gallery and the option of a number of free activities. Several times a day there are, for example, free didgeridoo “concerts”, and you can also learn more about the Australian bush and how the Aboriginal people have been finding both food and medicine here in the dry, red desert for thousands of years.

At the end of the day, another of the absolute highlights of the tour awaits: the sunset over Uluru. It is quite simply magical to witness how one of the world’s largest monoliths changes colour as the sun goes further and further down. The appearance of the stone changes from rusty red to an almost luminous orange, and finally a massive, grey rock – in the middle of nowhere.

And be sure to lean your head back and look at the sky. The stars are brighter here than many other places on Earth due to minimal light pollution.

It’s an early start for you today! Yesterday you saw the sun set over Uluru – this morning you’ll watch it rise again.

As you stand there in the early morning and stare out into the darkness, and the slowly rising rays of the sun suddenly reveal the outline of Uluru, you’ll understand why the place is so sacred to the indigenous Anangu people.

From Uluru, you continue to the Kata Tjuta rock formations, some 50 km to the west. Kata Tjuta means “many heads”, and from a distance, the 36 round rocks do look like bald heads sticking up out of the ground.

The area around Kata Tjuta is also sacred to the Aboriginal people, and there are places you will never get to visit as a tourist. Fortunately, there are also a lot of places that are accessible, and one of the most popular walks through the scenic rock formations is the walk through Walpa Gorge. Along the way, the guide will tell you more about both the geology and the connection of the Aboriginal people to this wonderful place.

The rest of the day is yours to do as you please. Purchase an optional excursion, perhaps?

You depart for tropical Queensland. The transfer bus back to the airport is also free, and departures are timed to fit in with departure times at the airport. Check with the reception at the hotel what time it leaves.

The contrasts today could hardly be greater. From the red desert and a more than 300-million-year-old rock, to the world’s oldest rainforest and the world’s largest coral reef. Australia certainly has the record on that!

The rest of the day is yours to settle into the tropical climate. Cairns is a cosy city with lots of shops, restaurants and activities. You might like to go for a walk to the man-made lagoon, which is located in the heart of the city. There are neither crocodiles nor jellyfish here, just a fabulous, man-made sandy beach.

Please note: The flight will often include a stop-over between Uluru/Ayers Rock and Cairns. For an additional charge, you can fly directly to Cairns on certain days. For pricing, please ask your travel consultant.

The days are yours to explore tropical North Queensland. Below, you can see our selection of excursions. We recommend that you book the excursions you’d like to go on when you book the tour to avoid disappointment if the excursions are fully booked when you get to Cairns.

North of the city is Daintree Rainforest, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The rainforest is believed to be more than 135 million years old. To put that in perspective, the Amazon is reckoned to be around 10 million years old…

Another highlight when you’re based in Cairns is, of course, the Great Barrier Reef, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A good adrenaline kick with a rafting trip might also be the order of the day – or perhaps you’d rather visit the beautiful countryside west of Cairns, which offers both waterfalls and coffee plantations. The possibilities are endless!

The tour to the Highlights of Australia is drawing to an end. It’s time to buy those last souvenirs before heading back to the airport from which you’ll fly home to the UK with connecting flight(s) on the way.

You land in the UK after a lovely, adventure-packed holiday.