Australia day trips: Bizarre tours in Tasmania, Sydney, Canberra, Mission Beach & Gladstone
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Australia’s weirdest tours
Catch pigs in Queensland, go behind the scenes of Sydney airport, spot quolls from Launceston, tour alumina smelters and listen to ghost stories… If you want something a little different, then Australia has got the day trip for you.
Mission Beach, Queensland: Big Pig Shindig with Boar Busters
Pest control is really not a sexy business, so kudos has to go to Boar Busters at Mission Beach in Qld, who’ve managed to turn their contract to get rid of feral pigs into a tourism opportunity.
The Big Pig Shindig allows guests to get as involved as the Occupational Health and Safety chaps will allow. And, yes, that means getting dirty.
The Boar Busters try to stagger things so that their guests can set a trap, check devices that have already been set and see pigs that have been caught in the previous day’s traps.
Airside Tarmac Tour at Sydney Kingsford Smith airport
For most of us, spending two hours in an airport is a necessary evil. To do it without getting on a flight afterwards is positively masochistic.
But the Airside Tarmac Tour at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport is a slightly different experience – it gives air travel junkies the chance to watch the planes take off from close quarters, listen to pilots communicating with the tower and peek into the jet hangars.
You’ll also get the chance to see the behind-the-scenes operations, and just how delicate the baggage handlers are when they lob the suitcases around.
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Quoll-spotting in Tasmania
Of all the cutesy Australian animals most people would be gagging to see in the wild, the quoll would be quite far down the list, probably below the pademelon and above the irukandji jellyfish.
But this won’t deter the chaps at Pepper Bush Adventures in Launceston, who spend the best part of their eight to ten hour “Quoll Patrol” following the little critters around in dark.
As part of the trip, there’s a bush tucker and Tasmanian game-heavy dinner, but once that’s out the way, it’s all about scrabbling through the Tasmanian bush, chasing spotty marsupials with torches.
Industry tours in Gladstone, Queensland
Who needs beautiful beaches when you’ve got the world’s largest alumina refinery and the fifth-largest coal export plant on Earth? Yep, Gladstone is that sexy.
Every day a different bus tour goes from the coastal Qld town to one of its industrial delights for behind-the-scenes access to heavy machinery.
On Wednesday, it’s the port; on Thursday, the power station. But the real highlight is on the Friday, when the three-hour tour goes to both the Rio Tinto Alumina Refinery and Australia’s largest smelter.
Tours are free, but bookings are essential via the Gladstone Visitor Info Centre (07 4972 9000).
Weird Canberra Ghost and History Tour with Tim The Yowie Man
Ghost tours aren’t particularly unusual any more – you can find one in pretty much every Australian town. But Destiny Tours’ Weird Canberra Ghost and History Tour is a little bit different.
For a start, it’s led by Tim The Yowie Man – the shorts-clad shameless self-publicist with an almost unhealthy obsession with mysterious creatures.
He’s the Australian National Museum’s resident cryptonaturalist, and he promises that the tour will take in tales of secret tunnels, buried art treasures and coffins in Lake Burley Griffin.
There’s also a hidden cave, a haunted embassy and an old homestead that makes people’s noses bleed.
But the weirdest things are arguably the fellow passengers – the people who book to go on this tour have a tendency to dress in Halloween-esque garb.
This article was originally written by David Whitley for Australian Traveller magazine
