The Golden Gumboot is a large boot shaped tourist attraction in the town of Tully in Queensland. Tully sits between Cairns and Townsville, so its right in the Australia’s tropics, hence the reason for the gumboot as the town’s average annual rainfall exceeds 4000mm. A bit of a rivalry exists between Tully and Innisfail and Babinda on who has the most rain with a gumboot given to the wining town each year. Tully is also know for its gumboot festival that is held each September as well as being Australia’s answer to Roswell, with more UFO sightings in the town than any other place in Australia. The Golden Gumboot stands at stands at 7.9m tall and represents the record rainfall received in 1950 at Tully, a spiral staircase leads visitors to a lookout at the top of the boot. Read the rest of this entry »
Crown Casino in Melbourne is Australia’s largest entertainment precinct being home to the one of the world’s biggest gaming facilities, the city’s best restaurants, clubs, bars and exclusive shopping. Another huge attraction is the nightly fireball or Gas Brigades show which explode into the night sky every night between dusk and midnight (except for bad weather). The huge flames explode out of eight 10 metre high towers and the gas flame can reach sizes of 7 metres in diameter and are the largest ever created in the world all programed with a state of the art computer system. Crown Casino is currently planning the biggest Australian hotel to accompany it’s already huge complex. The $300 million dollar project will feature another 658 rooms bringing the Casino’s rooms to more than 1600 and will feature new convention facilities, bars, restaurants and a huge new retail showcase. It is hoped the new wing will open in May of 2010 in time for the $140 million dollar refurbishment the Casino is currently undertaking. Read the rest of this entry »
Airlie Beach in Far North Queensland is the gateway to the magnificent Whitsunday Islands on the Great Barrier Reef. Airley Beach is a town of about 3000 and growing rapidly with some of the most beautiful beaches, scenery and access easy access to the larger cities of including Mackay it is not hard to see why. The town is a very popular destination for backpackers and travellers wanting to experience the reef and all it has to offer. The town has a vibrant centre with great dining and plenty of bars and entertainment areas for visitors. Nearby Shute Harbour offers boarding points for the many ferries and water transport to the nearby islands while the rural ‘Beef’ town of Prosepine is only 30 minutes away offers access to air service to the larger east coast cities and regional Queensland centres. Read the rest of this entry »
Tasmania is a pretty cool place that the rest of Australia often forget about especially when drawing a map of the country, often annoying the Tasmanians, Recently Tasmania has fought back with a clever ad campaign that mimics the trailer for the Baz Luhrmann film Australia. The movie has been hyped a fair bit as being the next big thing with tourist operators hoping it will attract a bit of extra coin into the country. Watch the Tassy ad above and you can check out the trailer for the movie via the link below. Read the rest of this entry »
In June 1770 His Majesty’s Bark Endeavour in the charge of Captain Cook limped into a safe harbor on Australia’s vast Cape York Peninsula after reef damage, this harbor was to become Cooktown. Cooktown today is the northernmost town of the east coast of Australia being around 300 km north of Cairns and home to about 1600 people. The town grew to over 7000 during the gold rush in the 1870’s and during the 1940’s was an important base for the Second World War with some 20,000 Australian and American troops based around the township playing important roles in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Today the town is a popular tourist destination with the Lakefield National Park and Great Barrier Reef in easy reach and with the road now sealed from Cairns to Cooktown many more people are enjoying the laid back charm of this lovely tropical town. Cooktown is also an important a service centre for the residents in the remote regions of the far north.
If you have ever traveled anywhere near where you may find a backpacker you may have seen a Wicked Camper, ie: an old delivery van or people mover converted into a camper with graffiti artwork all around it. While they look pretty cool are a cheap mode of transport for thousands of backpackers, they have recently landed themselves in hot water with the slogans on the vans. Several of the vans have the slogans “save a whale harpoon a Jap”, and other things like “if God was a woman, sperm would taste like chocolate” or similar. According to this news.com.au article today the Advertising Standards Bureau has asked the company to remove the slogans they think are offensive. What do you think? Offensive or a bit of fun, hit up our comment form below. Read the rest of this entry »
This week His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI and thousands of visitors from all around the world have flocked to Sydney to be part of the World Youth Day celebrations and one of the major locations for the celebrations was Barangroo on the Northern edge of Darling Harbour, offering spectacular views of one of the world’s most scenic cites. Over the coming years Barangroo will be come an extension to the growing city and the Darling Harbour leisure precinct. Darling Harbour is a huge recreational precinct stretching nearly the whole length of the city. Packed with restaurants, shopping, hotels and apartments the area has many of Sydney’s premier attractions including the Star City Casino, The IMAX, Sydney Aquarium, National Maritime Museum and the magnificent Powerhouse Museum, plus many conference and convention centres like the Sydney Exhibition Centre, Convention Centre and Sydney Entertainment Centre. The Precinct is also the gateway to Sydney’s vibrant Chinatown, Australia’s largest. Darling Harbour is linked to the city with a monorail, a light rail system and plenty of watercraft which travel to all parts of Sydney’s magnificent harbour. Read the rest of this entry »
You have probably noticed here at Tripandom love big things and on a recent road trip to central Queensland we have found another, this time a giant mango. The Big Mango is located at the Bowen Visitor’s Information Centre about 4 km south of Bowen. Built around 2002, the Big Mango celebrates Bowen as the home of well what else the Bowen Mango. The upside down fiberglass fruit isn’t the only thing Bowen has to brag about, it is also the home of much of the filming of Baz Luhrmann’s $130 million dollar outback epic called Australia, which features Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. This 1940’s romantic period piece looks like becoming one of the biggest films ever to come out of Australia, if the hype and the big name stars are anything to gauge it by. It is expected the film will be released around November this year. We just wonder if Nicole and Hugh had their photo taken beside the Big Mango..our guess is they wouldn’t have been able to resist it. Read the rest of this entry »
The surrounding area of Rockhampton on the central coast of Queensland, Australia is home to an estimated three million head of cattle making the city Australia’s beef capital. The city has a rich heritage of beef farming and as you will see from the dozen’s of cattle statues and monuments throughout the city beef is what makes this city tick. Their pubs not only serve ice cold beer but some of the best beef burgers, and steaks found anywhere in the world. One of the most famous of the Rockhampton pubs is the Great Western Hotel which is home to a 3000 seat undercover rodeo stadium where champion riders test their skills against fiery eyed cattle. Just out of town at Gracemere is one of Australia’s biggest livestock markets and home to huge cattle sales on Fridays. Here some of the country’s finest cattle is auctioned to become dinner all around the world. Read the rest of this entry »
St Kilda is a seaside suburb of Melbourne Australia and is home to two of the city’s most iconic buildings Luna Park amusement park and the Palais Theatre. When built in 1927the theatre was one of the largest in the southern hemisphere and was used primarily for a picture theatre but today it is used for live performances hosting some of the world’s biggest names, they have included the likes of the Rolling Stones, Kiss, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and INXS who used the theatre in their Listen Like Thieves video clip. The building is one of Australia’s finest examples of Art Deco and has been placed on the Victorian Heritage Register. The building is planned to be restored to it’s former glory as part of a controversial redevelopment of the area surrounding the theatre. Read the rest of this entry »
