Australia puts its best face forward

As you take a stroll on the streets of Cairns, one of Australia's prettiest towns, a pub welcomes you with the following lines: "Liquor is man's worst enemy. But as the Bible says, Love Thy Enemy." That sums up the mood in this sleepy little town which is just three hours flight time away from Sydney.

For Indian tourists, reaching Cairns is simple: take a direct Qantas flight (11 hours) from Mumbai to Sydney. And after spending a few days of savouring the gay abandon of Sydney, with its beautiful beaches (Bondi is a must-see), the Harbour, the Opera House and the old sandstone architecture, take a flight to Cairns.

Places like Cairns give ample reasons why Indian tourists should visit Australia. Take for example. the Great Barrier Reef, the largest reef in the world measuring 2011 km in length and 72 km across at its widest point.

Rising off Northeastern Australia, the reef can be reached from many coastal points and can be explored on private charters, daily cruises, by seaplane, air charter and now, on special helicopter flights. We travel with

Quicksilver, Australia's most awarded reef cruise company. With a choice of day trips or extended cruising options, it's the ultimate way to see nature's finest idylic, unspoilt Low Isles.

For your experience of a lifetime, Quicksilver's friendly crew will take you to a reef at the very edge of Australia's Continental Shelf, to an underwater world that i s a dazzling kaleidoscope of colour and brilliance.

Exploring the Great Barrier Reef proved to be both exhilarating and easy. You can snorkel or scuba dive with equipment provided and a trained crew on hand to assist, or view the reef from the comfort of a semi-submersible or underwater observatory to watch the fish feeding.

With new fish species found in the Great Barrier area every year, the total is approaching 2,000. It will likely keep rising. So will the estimates of 4,000 mollusks and at least 350 hard, or reef-building, corals.

The glamour of the Reef is simply unending; the wonder beneath the cobalt sea a magnet that draws you to a place of quiet lagoons, palm-fringed beaches, faraway islands and the temperate waters of the Australian tropics.

As we take a helicopter ride, we get a breathtaking view of the Green Island a few kms off the coast of Cairns. It's a beautiful, picture perfect coral island in the Reef. The pilot informs us islands like these form and build up over the years.

Ocean currents and winds gather sand and form small sand cays. If conditions are right, the sand continues to form. Birds making the cay their home deposit seeds and coconut palms also begin to take root. The vegetation attracts more life and assists in stabilizing the sand. Depending on the environmental conditions, the newly formed island continues to grow or erodes away.

A day at the Great Barrier Reef isn't enough, but the chance of visiting the rainforests nearby was simply irresistible. Approaching the rainforest by road is an unforgettable experience.

The mountain road twists its way through the thick jungle of the World Heritage forest, a scenic drive along the side of rocky waterfalls and the buttress roots of giant trees, home to a million humming cicadas. A gap in the trees and, suddenly, a look-out, and there is a breathtaking panorama of the coastal plain and the Coral Sea.

The Rainforest of the Kuranda region is one of the oldest on this planet and is home to palms & ferns that date back thousands of years.. It includes around 1200 species of flowering plants, eight hundred of which are rainforest trees.

There are also orchids, ginger plants, strangler figs, palms and an immense variety of climbing plants. At any time of the year you will wonder at the richness and diversity of the lush foliage.

With an air of adventure, we explore the newly constructed walking tracks. Easy trails take us on a gentle walk to the river, discovering some rare flora and fauna on the way. For those who enjoy a more strenuous bushwalk, the Barron Falls walk takes a little longer, but the view is spectacular.

You can also take the opportunity to relax in your cottage deep inside the rainforest and listen for Australia's many night roaming creatures: wallabies, pademelons, bandicoots, flying foxes, owls and curlews, and the scrub hen. The wet season from December through April is a time for frog music - the real sound of the tropical rainforest.

If Australia is putting its best face forward for Indian tourists, the response shows Indian tourists are warming up to the overtures. Consider the figures: For the first 10 months till October this year, tourist arrivals from India went up at a healthy pace of 21 per cent compared to last year. In 2004, Indian tourists accounted for 22 per cent (the second highest) of the total Asian (excluding Japan) arrivals in the country.

Visit Australia. You will only feel like going back - again and again.

(The correspondent's trip to Australia was sponsored by Tourism Australia)