Now Australian tax payers are helping to send a bunched of easily excited Americans with the one and only Oprah Winfrey. Check out the video below which shows Oprah making the announcement to her studio audience. The great thing for them is that they get to join her in Sydney, Australia.

Now you have to question is this money well spent for promoting Australia. So far you would have to say it is. When you look at past attempts to promote Australia they have failed miserably.

Who can forget the “So Where the Bloody Hell Are You?” campaign? It was so good it got banned in the UK. It was good for launching the career of Laura Bingle. You can see that video ad below.

So there you have it Oprah is coming to Sydney, Australia. The publicity so far is probably worth the 3 million or so the various government related organisations are paying. That has just come from the announcement. We still have the actual show to be filmed and screened.

As an Australian I think it is a good investment, but can we just leave that audience back in the US?

What do you think?

The big show will take place at the Sydney Opera House on December 13 as part of her eight-day seven-night trip. 3000 Australians will be invited to be part of the audience.

Oprah Winfrey will be filming a show in the Sydney Oprah House on December 13, 2010

Oprah will also visit Queensland to film a separate television special, Oprah’s Ultimate Australian Adventure. Anna Bligh, the Queensland State Premier is already talking about how the tourism operators will be creating Oprah based travel packages.

Bondi beach is one of the best known Sydney beaches, I think Manly has it all over Bondi.

Manly is easily accessed from the downtown area of Sydney. One of the best ways to get to Manly is by a 30 minute ferry ride or 15 minute JetCat ride from Circular Quay.

The ride across the beautiful Sydney Harbour is worth it alone. You will have fantastic views of the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge and the city skyline.

Once you arrive at Manly you can walk for about 10 minutes from the wharf via The Corso through to the beach. The Corso is a shop-lined pedestrian area. Once you get to the beach at Manly you will be greeted by golden sands and a tree lined promenade.

If you want to hang around the wharf area before going to the beach you can visit Oceanworld which is just 200m from the wharf. At Oceanworld you can see many Australian sea creatures. You can even dive with grey nurse sharks and giant stingrays.

If you are planning a visit to Sydney I suggest you take time to visit Manly.

Australia is the place I call home. I love it. Many people I meet who are from other countries say they want to visit.

Are you thinking of coming to Australia? Do you have any questions you want answered by a local?

Now is a great time to visit. We are in spring at the moment and the weather is very pleasant.

Some of the places people normally want to visit include the Great Barrier Reef, Bondi Beach in Sydney, Melbourne, Cairns, Uluru and many places in between.

I love going to the beaches here in Australia. We have some of the best. You do have to be careful if you are not a good swimmer and should always find a patrolled beach. You look for the red and yellow flags and swim there if you want the added security of being supervised and can call on help if you are in trouble.

Right now in Canberra there is the Floriade flowere festival. It is really beautiful to visit but it end in early October.

Just some basic facts are that we drive on the left hand side of the road here. The population is around 22 million with Sydney being the largest and perhaps the best known city. Canberra is the national capital and is located 3 hours drive south west from Sydney.

So if you want to know more now is your chance to ask away. Leave your questions in the comments area below.

The official travel and tourism site is australia.com

About 100 000 pilgrims are said to be in the harbour city for the event. Many of the visitors are staying in schools or are hosted by families. When such events are on it is probably best not to visit Sydney as many streets are closed and it is difficult to get around.

Today in Sydney the largest ever mass in Australia took place. An estimated 150,000 pilgrims made their way to Barangaroo, near Sydney’s Darling Harbour. If you were not aware of this as a tourist you were in for a surprise.

World Youth Day continues for the next few day in Sydney. The highlight for pilgrims will be the service to be held by the Pope who came to Sydney for the event.

Something else that was raised by callers was the fact that the Canberra Airport itself is not running smoothly. The terminal is too small and the flights at times were being canceled. The Qantas regional manager was interviewed on air to give a perspective from the airlines. He said according to statistics things are not really that bad.

The Qantas representative also pointed out that the airport will be opening new facilities in around 3 years. Before that time Qantas will spend around $10 million to upgrade facilities at Canberra Airport.

After hearing all this I come back to the headline for this post. If you are coming to Canberra is it worth flying or are you better off driving your car or getting a hire car? I think a Qantas pilot’s wife gave the answer to this. She called in to say her husband finds it better to drive rather than fly from Canberra to Sydney to take the controls of an international flight.

I tend to agree. For the past couple of years whenever I fly out of Sydney International Airport I choose to grab a rental car and drive up the freeway to Sydney. It is about a 3 hour drive and is quite stress free. Compare this to flying and there is little difference. By the time you travel to the airport, wait for check in, board and then fly it all adds up.

I vote for the driving option.

The ships passed Fort Dennison and headed past the Sydney Opera House before going under the Sydney Harbour bridge. There was a huge crowd on hand to watch. As a contrast from the sailing ships the Pacific Dawn supercruiser was also on the harbour.

A large crowd gathered near the Sydney Opera House as the ships headed west along the Sydney Harbour and under Sydney Harbour Bridge.

In a contrast from the tall ships sailing on Sydney Harbour there was the Pacific Dawn cruise ship. It is a huge ocean liner and was in Sydney to collect passengers before departing on a 10 Pacific cruise.

Pacific Dawn, Australia’s first Superliner, first arrived in Australian waters in November 2007 and is now cruising from Sydney to unspoilt tropical islands. My ideal cruise would be The Pearls of Tahiti which departs 3 June 2008, 28 nights aboard Pacific Dawn.

Later in the evening on Australia Day there was a spectacular show including fireworks at Darling Harbour. Hundreds of thousand of Sydneysiders enjoyed the show.

Cronulla beach was also a popular destination for thousands of party goers. A heavy police presence was on hand to ensure the past problems did not occur. Thousands of young Australians partied while wearing the Australian flag or singlets with the flag.

On day two my wife wanted to go shopping while my daughter wanted a trip on a the harbour. After checking out of our hotel we split up

My wife first went to Paddy’s Market at the end of Chinatown. Here there is a huge market with a wide variety of products including toys, shoes, clothes, make-up and jewellery. Also in the same building there is a fruit and vegetable market and fish market. Above the markets there are several levels of traditional retail outlets including a food court when you start feeling hungry.

Meanwhile my daughter and I headed towards the nearest monorail station. I bought an all day pass for $9. My daughter got on for free as she is under 6. The monorail trains come about every 3-5 minutes so we did not wait long. We now jumped on and did a complete circuit of the track to have a look around. After that we got off at the Haymarket stop and walked to 10 minutes over to Central train station with the aim of getting to Circular Quay as quickly as possible.

From Central we took a train to Wynyard Station. At this station we changed trains and took another one to Circular Quay. Now that we were at the right place to catch a ferry on the harbour I just had to decide which one. As we had an hour to spare I decided to go to Darling Harbour. After a 25 minute wait (the ferry was 15 minutes behind schedule) we boarded the ferry. As it was a nice day in Sydney we sat at the back of the ferry on the outside deck. The ferry pulled out of Circular Quay and headed north and went under the harbour bridge. The views were awesome. The ferry actually docked at Milsons Point for a few minutes. This was right next to Luna Park. It then went back across the harbour to Darling Harbour.

My wife was now heading up George Street where there are shops everywhere. She was having a great time spending money as she went along. Finally she ended up at Myer, one of her favourite Sydney shopping locations. On the way back from Myer she went underground. There are several underground shopping area’s in the city. One starts below Myer and winds its way back to Town Hall.

After getting off the ferry at Darling Harbour my daughter and I walked past the Sydney Aquarium and headed over to the main shopping area. We will visit the aquarium on our next Sydney visit. In the Darling Harbour area there are heaps of shops and food outlets along with restaurants. All of this comes with great views of the Sydney skyline. In the Darling Harbour area you will also find the Chinese garden, Power House museum, Imax theatre and the Sydney Convention Centre.

There is so much to do and see in Sydney. When are you visiting?

On the weekend we spent two nights in Sydney staying at the Capital Square Hotel located next door to the Capital Theatre. Unlike our last visit which was the worst ever stay in a hotel, we enjoyed our stay. The price was $107 per night which I found through a search on the hotels combined website. This price was a lot lower than other Sydney hotels I have stayed at in the past which were around the same price range previously. The hotel room was well maintained and comfortable. It was also roomy.

As we were located close to Chinatown we used that as our base to venture out for our night time meals. One night we tried an authentic Chinese Xinjiang restaurant, on Saturday a Korean BBQ restaurant located at 35-37 Goulburn St. Sydney. Both meals were very enjoyable. When returning to the hotel we passed a very popular Japanese restaurant on the corner of Pitt and Campbell Streets. We have been there in the past and enjoyed the food. This time around there was a huge crowd just waiting to get in.

On Saturday we decided to have a family outing at Luna Park. This entertainment park has been a Sydney landmark for over 70 years. Just the view makes it a worthwhile visit as it is located on the north side of the harbour adjacent to the Harbour Bridge. Admission to the park is free however you need to pay for the rides. We purchased the day pass which was $42 for adults and $32 for our child. There is a good variety of rides and most of them were suitable for our 5 year old. She could not go on one ride because of a height restriction, while another one she decided as too scary. I really enjoyed going around on the Ferris Wheel while enjoying the million dollar harbour views.

Getting to Luna Park was easy. We caught a train from Central Station over to Milson’s Point station. After getting off the train we headed down the hill and into Luna Park. It was a five to ten minute walk from the station. The cost for return tickets for 2 adults and one child was approx $9. In the park there were plenty of choices for satisfying our hunger.

Getting back to my worst ever hotel stay, it was last November staying at the Pensione Hotel on George Street, Sydney. The hotel itself was quite nice. It was a trendy boutique hotel that was nicely decorated. The problem was that they gave us a room on the second floor which looked out at George Street. In case you don’t know this street gets extremely busy at night time. The noise of cars, people and sirens made it near impossible to sleep. Some thick glass windows would be a welcome improvement.

For day 2 of our Sydney weekend getaway check back here in a few days.

The catch is that you don’t know exactly what hotel you are going to be staying at until you have made your booking. That is the concept behind the Secret Hotel deals.

For exactly how it works visit this page at lastminute.com.au

I have been over to the website and checked out some of the hotel deals on offer. It seems that the Gold Coast is very popular. The secret 5 star deluxe hotel is booked out until Thursday 26 April at a cost of $365. If you are happy with a 4.5 star 2 bedroom apartment in the heart of Surfers Paradise you can grab one for $170.

In Sydney you can get yourself a 5 star deluxe hotel with a view of Sydney Harbour for $270 or you may want a 5 star Meriton apartment from $99. That sounds like a bargain to me.

Lastminute.com.au are advertising a secret 5 star deal in Melbourne from $130. If you have romance and seduction on your mind you may be interested in a special offer that caters for you starting at $370.

If you like something different you should try the secret hotels offer.

If this is not your cup of tea and you are looking for good hotel deals I suggest you checkout the hotels combined website. This site provides a great free tool that allows you to search through multiple hotel booking systems with just one search. This is a great time saver as you do not have to jump from website to website looking for the lowest hotel price.

If anyone does try the secret hotel deal I would love to hear from you.