Southern Hemisphere – Australia

By Ruohan Zhang, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Singapore➡️Australia➡️Singapore, from middle to the south of the Earth

Toward the end of my exchange, I went to Australia with my friends and in this post, I’m going to share about pre-trip preparation and experiences.

My Visa Application Process～

Because I’m Chinese so I do need a visa to enter Australia. The visa application process is quite simple, most of the process was online and all you need to do was fill in the form and upload you documents, the one thing you need to go offline is to get your biometric done. However, if you do need a visa and your STP is about to expire, remember to upload your student status letter of UoM not NUS (I got rejected the first time because of my STP expiration date).

Trip to Australia~

The flight to Singapore was only 7 hours to Melbourne and our plan for the trip is Melbourne to Cairns to Sydney. In Melbourne, we joined a small tour group and went around Great Ocean Road on the first day, then we went on the Puffing Billy Railway, Cowes and Philip Island to see penguins and on the last days we went to places and shopping malls that our friend recommended us, if you are unsure which one to go, you can ask hotel staff, they will know!

Our second stop was Cairns, because Cairns was raining for the first two days when we arrived so we went to the Great Barrier Reef on our last day. We went for rafting adventure and went to a crocodile farm for the first two days, the crocodile farm was okay, we went for a tour in the farm and watched a feeding show, but I prefer rafting.

On the last day at Cairns, we went to the Great Barrier Reef, there are lots of different cruise company go to the reef, you can choose different packages according to your preference and which reef you want to go for, I think we went for Sun Lover, which go for the Moore Reef and went for the package with 10mins helicopter ride.

Our last stop is Sydney, we only stayed for 2 days in Sydney and saw some classic attractions and souvenir shops, and the weather wasn’t very nice on those days, which we decided to relax ourselves.

Our transportation was mainly on foot in the cities and flight when traveling between cities. Also, I brought my water bottle with me the whole time, as it was quite warm and sunny most of the days.