Australia
Small ship oceangoing cruises have widely varying itineraries that may include a few East Coast ports en route to South East Asia, to complete circumnavigations. Sydney, with its harbor, ranks as the Southern Hemisphere’s most dynamic and successful city. Linger for its neighborhoods, the Opera House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Harbor Bridge climb, and Bondi Beach. Head north to the Queensland Coast for Brisbane, a fast growing river city and Queensland’s semi-tropical capital, and Cairns, gateway to the 1400-mile-long Great Barrier Reef. A very few small boat cruises take the Southern Ocean route around the bottom calling at Melbourne with its arts, entertainment, and lovely residential suburbs, all easily reached by the city’s famous green and yellow trams. Adelaide is noted for its four terraces enclosing the city center, lovely parklands and seaside beaches, and in the west, Fremantle reveals a splendid art deco historic district and is the gateway to western Australia’s largest city, Perth, just inland.