Main image: Sydney Harbour is home to some of Australia’s big-name attractions

rom swimming with sharks and cuddling koalas to sleeping behind bars or in the shadow of Uluru, there are certain

destinations every backpacker must visit on their gap year Down Under...

SYDNEYSydney is most backpackers’ first stop in Australia and the jaw-dropping view of the Harbour City from the plane window provides an unforgettable first impression. Australia’s largest city is built around its iconic waterway, home to the Sydney

F

www.getmedownunder.com Ma rc h 2017 | 5

GAP YEARTRAVEL

Imag

es: Y

HA

Aus

tral

ia

Australia is the ultimate backpacking destination with endless opportunities for adventures – so make sure you pitch up in all

the right places with this advice from Tom Smith...

places you can’t miss on your aussie gap year6

Imag

es: S

hark

Cag

e C

alyp

so

Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House – buildings whose scale needs to be appreciated up close and personal. Sydney’s long, rugged coastline is made up of towering cliffs and sparkling beaches that roll off the tongue like a British backpacker’s bucket list: Bondi, Coogee, Manly, Bronte, Balmoral, Palm Beach...

If you’re planning a working holiday, check out YHA’s ‘Work in Australia’ package – you get five nights’ accommodation and breakfast at Australia’s largest hostel, Sydney Central YHA, as well as six months of face-to-face job support with their on-site employment services team for only A$495 (£300).

PoRT LiNcoLNYou can’t say you’ve really visited Australia until you’ve stared a Great White Shark in

its beady little eyes with nothing but a thin metal cage standing between your trembling body and a razor-sharp set of pearly whites. Port Lincoln – a picturesque fishing town overlooking Boston Bay on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula – is one of the few places in the world where you can square off with the fearsome predators and live to tell the tale.

If taking a dip with Jaws doesn’t sound like your idea of a holiday, go swimming with adorable sea lions or tuna instead – Port Lincoln is also Australia’s self-proclaimed seafood capital, catering to visitors who prefer the idea of eating fish for dinner rather than becoming dinner for fish once the Great Whites are done with them. Port Lincoln YHA is a great base to explore this adventure paradise, a nautical playground of snorkelling, diving,

kayaking, surfing and swimming (it’s safe, we promise).

MAgNETic iSLANDIf snapping a selfie while cuddling a koala isn’t on your Australian to-do list, then grab a pen and add their furry little faces ASAP. The perfect place to do it? Bungalow Bay Koala Village on Magnetic Island (www.bungalowbay.com.au), the only resort in Australia boasting its own on-site wildlife park, with timber A-frame bungalows neighbouring a hammock-lined pool and the wildlife sanctuary.

Just a half-hour ferry from Townsville on the Queensland mainland, ‘Maggie’ is a real-life incarnation of every desert island cliché you’ve seen in the cartoons: turquoise water lapping on white-sand beaches, rock wallabies populating granite

headlands, colourful coral and vibrant tropical fish, 20 kilometres of walking track shaded by gum trees and hoop pines criss-crossing an island a little smaller than Guernsey.

Maggie is a convenient stop halfway down the popular backpacker route between Cairns and the Whitsunday Islands – both unmissable gap year destinations, as well as popular places for working holiday makers to look for farm work (three months’ work in a regional area allows UK residents to apply for a second 12-month working holiday visa).

THE gRAMPiANSIf koalas are the friendly, furry face of Australia, then snakes, reptiles and crocodiles are the scaly suckers that give the country its reputation as a place

www.getmedownunder.com6 | Ma rc h 2017 www.getmedownunder.com M a rc h 2017 | 7

GAP YEAR

get over your fear of snakes by heading to The grampians

TRAVEL

get close to a great White in Port Lincoln and (top) marvel at its razor sharp teeth

cuddle a koala on Magnetic island and (top) stay in a YHA with its own wildlife park

View the Twelve Apostles, by the great ocean Road in Victoria

where everything is trying to kill you. And there’s only one way to get over your fear: rub shoulders (and scales) with pythons, baby freshwater crocs, and southern forest dragons (don’t worry, these tiny ‘dragons’ are much smaller than the Game of Thrones variety) at the Grampians Eco YHA – an eco-friendly lodge on the doorstep of a national park three hours’ drive north-west of Melbourne.

The Grampians are only a two-hour detour off the Great Ocean Road, a spectacular coastal route that winds along dramatic limestone cliffs and windswept beaches. You will find YHA hostels in sleepy seaside towns Port Fairy and Apollo Bay, either side of the famous Twelve Apostles rock formation.

ULURUTo get the full flavour of Australia’s Red Centre, many backpackers start their pilgrimage to Uluru at Alice Springs – which, to give you an indication of the

continent’s vastness, is about as far to drive (450 kilometres) as London to Newcastle.

Known as Ayers Rock in English, Uluru is sacred to the local Indigenous population, who believe ‘The Rock’ was created at the beginning of time. An Aboriginal guide sharing stories of the Dreamtime is one of the many ways you can experience Australia’s spiritual heart – you can also fly over Uluru in a hot air balloon or a helicopter, ride around it on the back of a camel or a Harley Davidson, or take a longer tour winding through the stunning desert landscape. Whatever you do, be there at dawn or dusk, when the majestic sandstone monolith – 348 metres in height and 9.4 kilometres in circumference – glows red.

FREMANTLEThe British settled Australia as a penal colony in 1788. FYI, Australians just love to be reminded of their convict roots – and you can relive these colonial days by sleeping behind bars at Fremantle Prison.

Decommissioned as a maximum-security gaol in 1991 after 140 years of locking up Western Australia’s meanest crooks, the women’s wing since 2015 has housed an even more debauched group: backpackers. A 200-bed YHA hostel now combines modern facilities with WA’s only World Heritage-listed building, with cell blocks transformed into comfortable dorms plus private digs in the old guards’ cottages (www.fremantlecottages.com.au) overlooking the port of Fremantle.

While you’re in ‘Freo’ (noticing a theme with this Aussie slang?), visit Rottnest Island (the locals call it ‘Rotto’). Half a million visitors a year catch the 25-minute ferry to cycle between the island’s 62 beaches and snap pictures of quokkas, intrepid marsupials that look like miniature kangaroos.

n For more information on the accommodation and activities mentioned in this story visit www.yha.com.au.

www.getmedownunder.com8 | Ma rc h 2017

TRAVEL

A road trip to Uluru is an absolute must-do

Images above: get a taste of prison life at Fremantle Prison YHA