Best things to do in Australia
21.07.2023 - 07:43
/ roughguides.com
More than most other countries, Australia seizes the imagination. For many visitors, its name is synonymous with endless summers where the living is easy. This is where the adventures are as vast as the horizons, and the jokes flow as freely as the beer. A country of can-do spirit and laidback friendliness. Read our run-down of the best things to do in Australia.
The information in this article is inspired by The Rough Guide to Australia , your essential guide for visiting Australia .
Regarded as Australia’s last frontier, the Kimberley is a sparsely populated, untamed wilderness that contains some stunning landscapes. A region of red dust, endless skies, stunning sunsets, big rivers and huge gorges, the Kimberley is often romantically described as Australia’s last frontier. It’s a wilderness dotted with barely viable cattle stations, isolated.
When the dry season sets in around April, tourism in the Kimberley gradually comes back to life, with tours running mainly between thriving Broome and Kununurra along the iconic Gibb River Road, or down to the mysterious Bungle Bungles, south on Highway 1 near Halls Creek.
Bungle Bungle Massif © Philip Schubert/Shutterstock
The giant dunes, freshwater lakes and sculpted, coloured sands of the world’s largest sand island form the backdrop to popular 4WD safaris. A glorious offshore Eden, Fraser Island (or K’gari) is the world’s largest sand island. It measures 123km from top to bottom. Accreted from two million years’ worth of sediments, swept north from New South Wales.
Fraser Island’s colossal scale is best appreciated as you travel the 90km length of its razor-edge east coast. With the sea as a constant, the dunes along the shoreline seem to evolve before your eyes. In places low and soft, elsewhere hard and worn into intriguing canyons. On the beach itself, 4WD vehicles race along the open sands.
Find more accommodation options to stay at the Fraser Island
Fraser Island beach, Australia © Benedikt Juerges/Shutterstock
The Franklin River provides one of the wildest white-water roller coasters on Earth. It is also the only means of access to an astounding rainforest wilderness and offers endless things to do in Australia. To really experience the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park’s utterly pristine scenery and awesome sense of remoteness, you need to raft the Franklin River.
One of the great rivers of Australia, it was saved from destruction by protests in the early 1980s. It is the only major wild river in Tasmania. The river races through canyons in grade 3 to 4 rapids – even grade 6 in places – and through thick inaccessible rainforest. No wonder this is known by rafters as one of the greatest paddle adventures in the world.
Nelson Falls,