Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Fremantle (Perth). If your cruise departs from elsewhere in Australia, or
if you are flying out from an airport other than Sydney, Melbourne, Bris-
bane, Adelaide, Cairns, Perth, Darwin, Gold Coast, or Broome, telephone
the Australian Customs Service (
&
1300/363 263
in Australia, or 02/6275
6666) to see if you can still claim the refund.
Items bought in duty-free stores will not be charged GST. Nor will items
you export—such as an Aboriginal painting, say, that you buy in a gallery
in Alice Springs and have shipped straight to your home outside Australia.
Basic groceries are not GST-taxed, but restaurant meals are.
Other taxes include departure tax of A$38 (US$25) for every passenger
12 years and over, included in the price of your airline ticket when you
buy it in your home country; landing and departure taxes at some air-
ports, also included in the price of your ticket; and “reef tax,” officially
dubbed the Environmental Management Charge, of A$5.50 (US$3.60) for
every person over the age of 4 every time he or she enters the Great Bar-
rier Reef Marine Park. (This charge goes toward park upkeep.)
Telephones
The primary telecommunications network in Australia is Tel-
stra (www.telstra.com).
To call Australia:
If you're calling Australia from the United States:
1. Dial the international access code 011
2. Dial the country code 61
3. Dial the city code (drop the 0 from any area code given in this topic)
and then the number. So, if you're calling Sydney, the whole number
you'd dial would be 011-61-2-0000-0000.
To make international calls:
To make international calls from Australia,
first dial 0011 and then the country code (U.S. or Canada 1, U.K. 44, Ire-
land 353, New Zealand 64). Next dial the area code and number. For exam-
ple, if you wanted to call the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., you
would dial 0011-1-202-588-7800. For other country codes, call
&
1222
or
look in the back of the Australian White Pages.
For directory assistance:
Dial 12455 if you're looking for a number
inside Australia, and dial 1225 for numbers to all other countries.
For operator assistance:
If you need operator assistance in making a
call, dial
&
1234.
To make a collect call, dial
&
12550.
To find a number,
call Directory Assistance at
&
1223
for numbers in Australia and
&
1225
for international numbers.
Toll-free numbers:
Numbers beginning with 1800 in Australia are toll-
free, but calling a U.S. 1-800 number from Australia is not toll-free; it
costs the same as an overseas call.
Other numbers:
Numbers starting with 13 or 1300 in Australia are
charged at the local fee of A25¢ anywhere in Australia. Numbers begin-
ning with 1900 (or 1901 or 1902 and so on) are pay-for-service lines and
you will be charged as much as A$5 (US$3.25) a minute.
Time Zone
Eastern Standard Time (EST, also written as AEST sometimes)
covers Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Vic-
toria, and Tasmania. Central Standard Time (CST) is used in the Northern
Territory and South Australia, and Western Standard Time (WST) is the
standard in Western Australia. When it's noon in New South Wales, the
ACT, Victoria, Queensland, and Tasmania, it's 11:30am in South Australia
