GBR and Whitsundays

Where will be coming from, and which mode of travel? Most young backpackers either buy or rent a vehicle, or catch a train or bus from Brisbane north. Some fly straight into Cairns from overseas.

I would strongly recommend you visit Cairns / Port Douglas / Cape Tribulation (a week is good) and also at least five nights in Airlie Beach ... which is the hostel centre of the Whitsundays. I also recommend you see the GBR from the Cairns region (better and closer reefs) and just do a 1,2,3 night sailing cruise in the Whitsundays.

Between Airlie Beach and Cairns (a distance of 400 miles) there is the city of Townsville, the best feature of which is Magnetic Island, which is popular with backpackers and has hostels.

The weather will be excellent ... that is the reason it is the high season ... sunny and 28°C. I would pre-­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­book my hostel bed. Have a look at Magnums in Airlie Beach and Gilligan's in Cairns, but there are plenty of options.

So pleased that the weather will be nice as further south Adelaide and Melbourne and Sydney I'd imagine it be cold. What about Gold Coast / Brisbane weather?
Would you recommend pre booking GBR tours?

Yes, Adelaide, Melbourne, and to some extent Sydney, will be cool to cold in August (maximums of 12°C to about 16°C), and as you would expect, Brisbane and the Gold Coast are somewhere in between ... around 23°C, and usually very nice indeed (we frequently holiday there in July).

Unless you wish to do a specialist small-group liveaboard reef trip, I wouldn't think there's a need to pre-book anything ... there are a lot of shops and kiosks selling tours everywhere.

Other than some certainty that it ought to be and likely will be warmer the further north you go in Australia in the month of August, you ought to know that our weather can be rather unpredictable at times, this year for instance, northern area wet season rains have come later and a lot of central Queensland is right now having a wet period which it does not usually get this time of year, the main Bruce Highway being reported as flooded yesterday.
Hopefully the weather will have cleared and settled back to more normal patterns by next month.

As to what you have asked about, bookings in August will not be required, there being no school holidays and here is an abundance of accomodation and trips to the Great Barrier reef from the Queensland coast, you able to do trips to the GBR from as far south as Bundaberg and even from the Brisbane area for those that are prepared to pay for a light aircraft flight to Lady Elliot Island, it being on the southern end of the GBR.

The Whitsundays is renowned for the good sailing amongst coastal islands and a few of the islands have resorts or allow camping which is often how trips are arranged for backpackers and of all the islands, Whitsunday Island with Whitehaven beach is arguably the best known and the jewel in the crown you could say, it having near talcum powder like sand and even having a bit of what is called fringing coral reef.
You will find that there are some package deals available which include some nights accomodation and various sailing trips so a good idea is to arrive in Airlie Beach in the morning and have a look around the several tourist shops in the main beach to see what is on offer, there also at times being standby rates which are substantially reduced from booked ahead prices.
As for Cairns being the best place to visit the GBR, there may be more boat trips that go either to closer in atolls/islands or to the outer reef which means nearly two hours of boat travel each way and they will be more expensive but usually worth it for the closer in reefs are likely to be affected more by farmland runoff and generally more tourism, the water becoming much clearer the further away from the mainland you go.
Having experienced reefs from Cairns right down to southern Queensland, I have found that the southern reefs are just as good if not better, Lady Musgrave Island for instance being in an area where there is not farmland and there has been far less tourism.

Yes ... we have been to both Heron Island and Lady Elliot Island, however they are not generally on the "backpacker" trail, being quite expensive.

And in winter the waters can be far from warm. But trav is correct - North Queensland has just experienced an extraordinary amount of unseasonable rain, so let's hope it all settles down soon, and returns to normal warm-dry weather patterns.

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