I missed this as I have been away travelling, but I'm from Sydney and now live in Brisbane, so I have lots to say! Please feel free to PM me with any questions.
Sydney will still be warm in Feb and March, I would almost say Feb is the warmest month. Sydney tends to get quite warm and then a southerly wind comes through and then it cools down. If you come to Brisbane it is still very warm and humid - the humidity makes it seem much hotter here, even if the temp is not that much higher than Sydney.
It also rains more in Brisbane, especially in the afternoon - it's getting towards tropical weather.
There are lots of amazing places to go in Sydney and beyond, and also Brisbane has some marvellous trips. I'd be happy to show you around

Thanks Lucy. Sounds like I definitely need to pack enough summer stuff then. And get myself a pair of sandals... I've already found a lightweight rain jacket, so that's a good thing! Right now it looks like we might head south to Melbourne after Sydney because we can possibly stay in a holiday apartment somewhere on the way for free. We might then fly to Cairns or Brisbane and end the tour in Sydney again for our flight home. But it's all just vague plans for now.

as you suspected, sunscreen sunscreen sunscreen. australia is the only place in recent memory where i tanned / burned while using spf50. thick water-resistant formulations are not the most comfortable but safest.

i adore australia and am trying to find a way to spend 2 months out of the year there. university of sydney has a physically very beautiful campus and the area is gentrifying fast fast fast. the eastern suburbs are tonier and beachier. bondi is out that way. great (long) walk from bondi to coogee beach along the coast, really beautiful. walk swim eat, walk swim eat until you get to your destination.

public transit is super and exceptionally convenient. the sydney central yha is unbelievable...rooftop pool anyone? book early if you are hosteling. my restaurant reccos are out of date. but i did have a few favorites after 2 months in glebe.

Oh yeah, I second that, definitely try to book early (I learnt that the hard way in my recent trip to Sydney where we paid much more than I'd have preferred because I booked it a few days beforehand!)

Thanks, you two! I'll keep that in mind. I think we're going to spend some time in the city just before our flight home, so it should be possible to book in advance because there is that fixed date. I looked up the Sydney Central YHA and it looks great (I've been a DJH member for years).

This must be so exciting for you, Astrid. I have no advice, as I've never visited that part of the world, but I wish you a wonderful trip.

Astrid, I am so excited for you. You are wise to start planning early.

Hi Astrid, what great news! Nothing much to add, but I'll be following this thread with great interest.

Picked my backpack today! It's going to be a Christmas present from my parents. I went back and forth but in the end I decided to go for this 45 litres Deuter backpack. I think the size is going to be big enough but not so big that I won't be able to carry it comfortably. I will try if I can manage to stay under/around 10 kg. I hope I'm not too ambitious.

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How exciting Astrid!

Oooh, one step closer!

Yes, definitely exciting! Too bad I will soon need to part with it and then wait until Christmas to see it again. My friend has the same color, just in a bigger backpack (didn't know that when I bought it), so we'll match. She said you always know the Germans at first glance because they have Deuter backpacks most of the time...

Plans are getting more concrete, we have now booked a flight from Wellington to Dunedin and then the ferry from Picton back to Wellington one day before our flight to Sydney. So we are going to be on the South Island for ten days, with our own car. I will also be travelling around ten days on the North Island on my own.

How exciting! Such a fun time gearing up for a long vacation , enjoy this time!

Hope you can get up to Port Douglas from Cairns and take a Quicksilver boat out to the reef for snorkeling -- it would be an incredible experience to see the Great Barrier Reef. And any chance of getting out to Uluru and the Olga Mountains? The Olgas look so prehistoric -- I half expected to see dinosaurs running by.

I love Australia and New Zealand and am glad that you have the opportunity to visit both countries.

Thanks Tracey.

Thanks Ginkgo! We definitely want to do some snorkelling. I'm prepared to spend some money on that. We won't visit Uluru, it's just too expensive and doing it would take too much time to fit into our itinerary with the plans we have so far.

Exciting times Astrid...feel free to PM me re any dates we can catch up when you are on your own in the North Island of NZ... We have a spare outside room at our house where you could easily stay for a night or two, or I could meet you in Auckland or Rotorua or similar depending on your plans.

Thanks Sally. I haven't made any specific travel plans for myself yet because I was so busy with other things, but I'll PM you.

Astrid

Living vicariously thru you! Sounds like a fantastic trip.

Hi, Astrid! You have an amazing plan! I've never been to Australia, but I have 2 pen friends from there. They live in a countryside and they invited me to be their guest. But the cost of flight scares me a bit I hope you will write us a lot of stories about Australia! If you want to save on living costs, why not to think about couchsurfing? You can use a hospitality of other people: http://swap-house.com/host/australia/ I had guests in my house from Poland onece and heard many stories about traveling with free living from my friends. I've never traveled in such way cos I'm shy of strangers.
Do you think about making photos? Maybe you will have a special Instagram account where we can follow you.

Thanks bj1111!

Hi Britney, the flights were expensive, that's true. But actually less expensive than I thought, my sister paid more for her tickets to and from Canada. I'm really glad I get the chance to do this! I haven't done couch surfing, but I have friends who did. I personally would probably pick the bed in a hostel dorm over sleeping at a strange place even if it would save money. I'm not very into social media, although I do have a private Instagram account, mostly to keep up with a few people. But I'm definitely going to post about it here in the OffTopic section afterwards and also post pictures - I've been posting pics of most of my recent holidays. If I find the time I'll write something about my packing too, but not sure yet that will be possible. I haven't been super active on YLF lately because real life keeps me busy.

How does the earthquake shift your plans?

Probably not at all. We planned to miss Kaikoura and Christchurch anyway, with our flight going to Dunedin. I think that's were the most damage was?

We have booked flights and the car for Australia now, we'll drive from Sydney to Melbourne and then do another round trip on the Great Ocean Road. Then we'll be two or three days in Melbourne before flying to Cairns for some snorkeling. After a few days there we'll fly back to Sydney where we will have another three full days before flying back. Super exciting.

All packed (well almost) and ready to go! Just weighed my stuff and my small backpack (carry-on) is just under 3kg, without water bottle. My big backpack is just over 8kg, with the heavier hiking shoes inside. Packing was fairly easy because I didn't really have all that many options to pick from because of weight gain - I'm probably going to buy another pair of shorts in New Zealand.

And I still have to decide whether I should pack my wool pullover or my sister's fleece jacket. I'm wearing my grey wool BF cardigan on the flight and want another option for warmth. The pullover is one of my favourites, the fleece jacket looks less fab but is probably more practical when it comes to washing and hiking. Or I could buy a fleece in NZ. I still have a few hours to think about it.

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Astrid, how exciting! Nice packing to get it down to that
I'm not sure about NZ - I think it's been cool there - but I can't imagine needing wool anywhere on the east coast of Australia. Maybe if you are going to Tasmania, but it's still hot in Sydney and everywhere in Queensland. It's been a super hot summer, a heatwave really.

Hopefully one of the New Zealanders will pipe in.

Thanks Lucy! I plan to ditch the wool cardigan before flying to Australia, it has a worn through patch in the back. That would leave me with one warm pullover/jacket to carry along. The wool pullover takes less room than my sister's fleece. I definitely need to buy more summer stuff, but first I'm going to check if I can wear some things of my friend's, she is lugging around a lot of stuff and told me I could borrow if it's needed. It's too bad that most of my favourites don't fit right now. I borrowed one pair of linen/cotton shorts from my mum, but that was it for warm weather bottoms. Maybe there will be something in NZ on sale, going on autumn. Otherwise I might need to sink wash the shorts and let them dry overnight.

Oh wow! You're off already?!

Yes! Right now I'm in Dubai and pretty exhausted, I hope I can get more sleep on the next flight. Feels like the middle of the night to me.

I went with the pullover and left the fleece behind. Having the pullover was good for my comfort zone.

Have a wonderful time. I hope that you get some good rest on the next leg of your flight.

Have a great trip, Astrid!