Australia
June 2025
Exploring Down Under
The excitement always builds in the weeks leading up to any trip, but this one in particular because it would be the longest one we have ever taken. This also made the planning aspect more challenging, both in terms of packing and due to the season shift from Northern to Southern hemisphere (as well as distanct climate zones during the trip). But these are nice problems to have. We were able to find award tickets from CLT-LAX for a mere 8K AA miles for economy and were given an upgrade offer a few weeks prior to flight for $200 which seemed reasonable for the 5+ hr flight. We had also booked the trip via 2 seperate reservations because of the prohibitive cost of booking directly from CLT-SYD. 4 months prior to the trip, there was a special offer from LAX-SYD nearly 50% below prevailing business class rates for the route, so we decided to splurge. It was a 14 hour flight (leaving a 3 AM our time, 12 AM from LAX), so this greatly helped make the day of arrival pleasant.
Sydney
- American Airlines LAX-SYD
- Vivid Sydney
- Park Hyatt Sydney
- Blue Mountains
- The Rocks Walking Tour
- Bondi-Coogee Beach Walk
The flight from LAX arrived about 45 minutes early to SYD and the immigration and customs process was relatively quick. We took the train from the international airport to Circular Quay, which was a simple 20 minute ride. From there we walked for about 10 minutes to the Park Hyatt Sydney. Along the way, we passed by the bustling cruise terminal weaving through the disembarking passengers from a Carnival ship that had just arrived.
The location of the Park Hyatt made it an ideal spot for our time in Sydney, but the view from the room were really what made it stand out.
The Vivid Sydney festival was going on during our stay which meant the evenings were lit up with projections and there were food trucks and music nearby. We jumped on the ferry to Darling Harbour, mainly to take in the views from the water.
After a busy first day, we decided to take a later tour the second day to the Blue Mountains. It was a meant to be a small group eco tour, avoiding the touristic Scenic World and planned to see the 3 Sisters site at sunset. The advantage of the tour was it started at 9:30 AM instead of 7! It gave us more time to enjoy the breakfast at the Park Hyatt (which also had the best flat white of all the places we went). The tour to the Blue Mountains ended up being a private one as we were the only ones booked that day! We had the opportunity to adjust the schedule to our pace and had plenty of opportunities for hiking and getting away from the crowds.
And we had the chance to see wild kangaroos!
Uluru - Kata Tjuta
- Jestar SYD-AYQ
- Longitude 131
- Uluru
- Field of Light
- Kata Tjuta
Far North Queensland
- Qantas AYQ-CNS
- Cairns to Port Douglas drive
- Silky Oaks Lodge
- Great Barrier Reef Snorkle
- Solar Whisper Crocodile Cruise
- Daintree Rainforest
- Port Douglas
- Virgin Australia CNS-SYD