Australia with AAT Kings Tours

When the company with which we had scheduled our November ’03 tour to Australia went bankrupt, we contacted AAT Kings Tours, Inc. (U.S. office, 801 East Katella Ave., Third Floor, Anaheim, CA 92805; phone 866/240-1659, e-mail info@aatkings.com). They had a 16-day tour called “Australian Outback Wonders,” which was quite a different itinerary but in the end much more satisfying. The land cost was US$2,740.

(We had paid for our first tour with a Visa card and our money was refunded. We were told that had we paid with a check, we probably wouldn’t have seen a refund. An important lesson — there may be an extra charge, but the use of a credit card can provide valuable coverage!)

We arrived in Melbourne on Nov. 2, ’03, and had a day on our own. A “must see” in this city is Federation Square, Australia’s most controversial edifice since the Sydney Opera House. It covers an entire city block with large rectangles, triangles and razor-sharp edges alongside landmarks from the Victorian era such as the Flinders Street Station and the open-air promenade with its many unusual arts-and-crafts booths.

We met our tour group of 25, from Europe, Canada, the U.S and England, and boarded the bus. Highlights of our tour included an overnight stay in an underground motel room in the opal-mining town of Coober Pedy (if you want dark at night, this is the way to go).

Uluru (Ayers Rock) is indeed a “must.” All the pictures you’ve seen don’t do it justice. We were in the area long enough to see sunset and sunrise and to take the 6-mile walk around its perimeter.

Although brochures stated that UFO sightings in Wycliffe Well, 180 miles north of Alice Springs, are so common that you have to be unlucky not to see something, we didn’t, but it was still a fun place with many exhibits. It looks a lot like Roswell — why do aliens choose such lonely, out-of-the-way places for their landings?

Devil’s Marbles was an interesting stop with enormous piles of smooth granite boulders, many as big as houses.

Cruises in the Katherine Gorge and an encounter with leeches at Wangi Falls in Litchfield National Park were also memorable (it had rained recently and four people in our group required salt treatment to remove the critters).

The tour ended in Darwin, where we stayed two nights, after which we had an additional 3-night package (US$430) on our own with AAT Kings that included a day at the Great Barrier Reef, a day on the Kuranda train, Skyrail return and Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park — all terrific.

We have nothing but kudos for our tour guide, Sharon Hinton, and bus driver, Derek Choong.

JACK & ANNE DINI
Livermore, CA