Our Itineraries

On our carefully put together and diverse Platypus trip, you'll traverse the tropical east coast of Australia. It's a multi-activity trip, with plenty of options to suit your fancy! We'll visit Australia Zoo - home of the famous "Crocodile Hunter", hike some of Australia's most amazing coastal walks, learn to surf, visit an outback cattle station, go dry-caving, and try our hand at Platypus spotting. You'll also have a choice of two different 3-day options - a diving/snorkeling trip on the Great Barrier Reef or a guided hiking/kayaking trip around the Whitsunday Islands. After two weeks of non-stop adventure within the most beautiful parts of Australia's tropical coast, you won't want to go home!

The Emu is a short multi-activity trip between Sydney and Melbourne. We climb Mount Kosciuszko – the highest mountain in Australia, and one of the Seven Summits – and go hiking in the Blue Mountains. We go canoeing at the aptly-named Kangaroo Valley, where we also spend a fun evening with the locals. We go snorkeling at Jervis Bay, with its pod of 60 resident dolphins, and head into the Snowy Mountains for some horse riding. We also explore the slot gorge river systems behind Katoomba, either by hiking in the area, or canyoning – a fairly new sport that has to be tried to be properly explained – sort of a combination of abseiling, sliding down waterfalls and jumping into deep pools of water.

The Wombat is a 7-day hiking trip, taking in the highlights of Tasmania, which is a relatively untouched mountainous island on the other side of Bass Strait. We designed the trip for keen hikers, but it’s well within reach of anyone with sturdy boots and a smidgen of enthusiasm. Many Australians consider the hiking in “Tassie”, as it’s affectionately known, to be the best in the country, and its remoteness means we often have the trails to ourselves. Certainly the hiking here is more rigorous than our other trips, with elevation gains of between 1500 and 2500 feet on several days of our Wombat trip. A steep climb, of course, generally yields awesome views, and the hikes on this trip are no exception – you’ll enjoy grand vistas in all directions.

"And I thought only devils came from Tasmania. Little did I know I would experience extraordinary views, the bluest water I have every seen, fossils, friendly kangaroos, incredible hikes, new friends from around the world, beautiful birds & flowers and a trip that challenged and inspired me every day. Two Thumbs Up."

Margaret Evans (Portland, OR), 2002 Wombat

The Koala is a family-friendly trip, designed as a more relaxed version of our Emu trip, with a few goodies added for the kids. We’ve been running family trips for many years now, and we’re well aware that a good family trip is more than just a regular trip for small people! Our family trips have specialist experienced guides, who have a lot of experience dealing with children, and who get a real kick out of sharing their country with the young ones. The Koala starts in Sydney and ends in Melbourne, and like the Emu, it includes some great hikes, albeit shorter than those on our adult trips, but just as fun! It also includes some family-friendly horse trekking, snorkeling and canoeing.

The Kookaburra is by far our most physically rigorous trip – it’s a demanding cycling and hiking expedition from Melbourne to the Twelve Apostles, and it’ll knock your socks off! After a great cup of coffee in one of Melbourne’s most upmarket cafés – the last civilization we’ll be seeing for a week – we start by cycling around Port Phillip Bay and along the Great Ocean Road, then we hike the full 55 mile length of the Great Ocean Walk, through Otway and Port Campbell National Parks. We traverse a series of cliff tops, and enjoy fantastic views of the ocean and the surrounding forests. All the cycling and hiking is consecutive, so there’s no shuttling from one place to another.

If you’ve always dreamed of visiting Ayers Rock, which punctuates the stark interior of the vast Australian desert, this is the trip. We have four days in the Red Centre of Australia, and we’ll spend most of our time on the Dingo hiking in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and the spectacular King’s Canyon – Australia’s version of the Grand Canyon. Of course we visit Ayers Rock (known to the Aboriginal people as Uluru) and take a stunning hike around its base. We also hike to the Olgas known as Kata Tjuta – a collection of impressive natural monoliths, visit a local Aboriginal community, and you can take a stunning scenic flight or even have a go at riding a camel!

Our Bandicoot trip starts and ends in Perth, but heads out of town right away, to get you into the wilderness immediately. The Bandicoot is a multi-activity trip, with plenty of great hikes, including a day’s hiking on the famous Bibbulmun Track. You’ll be pleased it’s only a day and not the whole track – it’s a full 600 miles long! As well as the hikes, we paddle to Penguin Island to go snorkeling amongst sea lions and dolphins, and see the island’s namesake, the adorable little penguins. We try sand boarding on the dunes not far from Perth, and offer a day’s surf lessons as well. Few people make it to Western Australia, but those that do rave about it!