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January Tour Feedback
My husband and I are looking at booking this specific tour for mid-January. We fully understand that it will be incredibly hot in Uluru at that time of year but we would love to hear from anyone who has actually done this trip in mid-January. Weather: Aside from the extreme heat in Uluru, how was the weather for the rest of the tour stops? Was it generally okay and manageable? Flights: Did your flights and transitions go smoothly or did you face any seasonal delays? Overall Experience: Did you enjoy the trip overall? Would you recommend it? We would really appreciate any insights or tips you can share before we lock it in. Thanks in advance!
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I did this trip in Sept. Great trip.
Personally, I think it's nuts to do this trip in January, unless you're a fan of AZ or FL in summer. Not only Uluru, but Sydney and QLD will be very hot and humid.
Check out weather stats on one of the historic climate web sites that have been mentioned on the forum hundreds of times
I have been to NZ twice with Tauck in January February. Perfect touring weather. We went to Australia with Tauck in an August. Uluru was perfect and no pesky flies at that time of year and no cyclone risk in the Barrier reef areas. We deliberately avoided the hot Australian summer
Flights are private charters. You just arrive at the airport and go straight to the plane, no security to go through.
+1 for Australia in January will be a problem. We did Australia end of March this year and it was still very hot several places other than Uluru and the rain forest. For example, in Sydney we walked from the hotel down to the harbor to do a jetboat ride and got completely soaked and walked back to the hotel in our wet swim stuff and it was fine because it was very hot out.
Thanks so much for letting me know. Change of plans for us then!
With all due respect, I appreciate your thoughts on the weather, but there is no need to call my plans "nuts". I am already fully aware of the climate data and telling me it has been mentioned "hundreds of times" comes across as rather sharp.
I did search the forum first for about 25 minutes but clearly that was not enough. I am simply looking for firsthand, personal stories from Tauck travelers who chose to take this specific trip in January.
Yeah, guess I overdid it. My apologies. It's been very hot where I live and I've been leaving for my daily bike ride between 7 and 7:30 AM to beat the heat (even though it's dry heat). And I returned about a month ago from a trip to France, which started in May, and we hot caught up in their first heat wave. So I guess a question about Australia during their summer hit a nerve.
Tauck usually doesn't offer tours during bad weather seasons, but I guess they do in this case because NZ would be tolerable.
Thanks, I appreciate your response. And sorry it is so hot
there!
Hi, Mowie! We did this tour in September/October but we have friends who went in both January & February. I know in both cases, they couldn’t fully appreciate Uluru not just because of the heat, but because there were a LOT of flies. We didn’t have that issue at all and really enjoyed the full experience there. Also that time of year there is a risk of monsoons in Queensland which could interfere with the Great Barrier Reef trip. We had perfect weather for the GBR and we didn’t have to worry about the stingers. But our friends were fortunate and had good weather in the GBR as well. (And you would just wear a stinger suit.) New Zealand was cool for us but would be warmer in January/February. So I think for New Zealand, that time of year would be nicer (although we were there early spring and saw tons of newborn lambs - so cute!!) but for Australia we preferred going in their spring. We absolutely loved this tour and would most definitely recommend it!! Spectacular sights and the charter flights are awesome, too!
Also - I would highly recommend arriving in Melbourne two days early and doing a tour of the Great Ocean Road. It’s a full (long) day but well worth it and you’ll see beautiful scenery that is different from what you’ll see on the tour.
Tons of flies in Uluru when we were there in late March. GBR is hit or miss....tour soon before ours didn't get to go but then our tour late March had a beautiful day on the reef and my husband got in 3 scuba dives.