East Coast Australia Travel Guide

More than 18,000km end to end, Australias East Coast is a rippling ribbon of beaches and rampant wildlife. Offshore, the astonishing Great Barrier Reef is a 2000km-long hypercoloured haven for tropical marine life. Also here are hundreds of islands, from craggy nature reserves to palm-studded paradises. Fringing the land are brilliant beaches, with Australias best surf breaks peeling into the shore. Inland are bewitching national parks with lush rainforests, jagged peaks and native critters that rate from cute and cuddly (koalas) to downright fearsome (saltwater crocs).

Traversing the East Coast is an exercise in, well, exercise! The sun is shining and the locals are outdoors, running, swimming, surfing, cycling, skating, snorkelling and hiking. Why not join in? Explore the Great Barrier Reef, the most photogenic underwater landscape on earth. Rampage down some white-water rapids, kayak across a lagoon, or set sail through a tropical archipelago. Propel yourself up a mountain, through a national park or alongside a rushing river. Or just head for the beach, where the locals let it all hang out, as democratic as sand.

Home to Indigenous Australians for millennia, Australias East Coast is also where modern Australia kicked off. The first European settlement was in Sydney, and the city remains a honey-pot lure for anyone looking for a good time. Sassy and ambitious yet unpretentious, Sydneysiders eat, drink, shop and party with hedonistic abandon. To the south, Melbourne is Australias arts and coffee capital a bookish, Euro-tinged town with a bohemian soul. Wrapped around river bends, boomtown Brisbane is a glam patchwork of inner-city neighbourhoods. And dont forget Australias capital, Canberra so much more than a political filing cabinet!