Lions tour 2013 ... Avoid the scrum on your tour of Australia

Peter Clohessy’s going. So is Brent Pope. Mick Galwey has his tickets, and Alan Quinlan is on board. Anytime is a good time to travel to Australia, but for rugby fans, the 2013 Lions Tour is something else entirely. As holidays go, this is once-in-a-lifetime stuff.

Everything is stacked up. There’s a feast of sport, for starters, with some of the best rugby players on earth going head-to-head over three tests and tasters with all five Aussie Super 15 franchises. Then there’s the backdrop. Where else could you mingle your matches with surfing in Sydney, shopping in Melbourne, or diving on the Great Barrier Reef?

Australia is as much a continent as a country, a tasting menu of a destination offering a sensational range of cities, cultures and coastline to explore. And the travelling circus (which touched down in Hong Kong and Perth before arriving into Brisbane for this morning’s match against the Queensland Reds) will be taking in many of the highlights.

As introductions to Australia go, suptropical Queensland is a peach. Brisbane (or ‘Brizzie’ to locals) was where the Lions kicked off their 2001 series in Australia, with an historic victory sealed by a spectacular solo try by Waltzing (Brian) O’Driscoll. Aussie sports website ‘The Roar’ has come up with a unique description of O’Driscoll’s style: ‘Rugby Riverdance’.

Brisbane has a reputation as an Australian backwater, but times are a-changing, with some 1,000 people now reckoned to move into to the city every week. Check out the live music and café scenes here, but the defining feature is the juxtaposition of gleaming skyscrapers and the meandering Brisbane River. The waterway burst its banks with devastating consequences in 2011, but in true Aussie fashion, Brisbane bounced back better than ever.

The muggy, subtropical climate is just the start of it. Visitors can kayak by the cityscape, cuddle koalas at the Lone Pine Sanctuary — perhaps even enjoy the odd drop of lager at Fortitude Valley, where clubs, pubs and cocktail bars keep trucking into the wee hours.

After Brisbane, consider a quick dash to the Gold Coast. June and July are winter months in the southern hemisphere, but it won’t feel that way in a resort teeming with buff lifeguards, bikini-clad tourists and beaches overlooked by hi-rise buildings. Think of it as a playground — with some 40 golf courses and parks like Sea World competing for your tourist dollar.

Melbourne is the setting for the second test. The Brisbane victors will be looking to close out the series at the Etihad Stadium on Jun 29, and this is also where the straggling support — making their way to Oz for the last two games of the tour — will join up with the hardy fans who’ve been shouting themselves hoarse since the beginning of the month.

Melbourne will be cooler than Brisbane (average temperatures tend to hover between four and 14 degrees), but that’s water off a duck’s back to Irish supporters who’ve soldiered through winters at Thomond Park, the Sportsground or the RDS.

I really rate this place. It’s one of my favourite cities, and one of the few to which I’d consider moving with my family. Melbourne has everything, from a beautiful location near Port Phillip Bay to top-notch museums, great boutiques and bars, and a stonking food scene. You can learn about everything from indigenous art to archaeology at Melbourne University’s Ian Potter Museum.

You can take a rickety tram tour of the Central Business District, picking out old colonial buildings like Melbourne Gaol, Flinders Street Railway Station and the State Library amidst gleaming new set-pieces like Federation Square. You can swim with dolphins in the bay, shop for vintage threads on Brunswick Street, or check out the palm-lined boardwalk, the waterfront sunsets and quirky old buildings in the after-hours playground that is St Kilda.

Exploring Victoria is an option here too. From Melbourne, you could drive the Great Ocean Road, a 240km-route that doubles up as a war memorial (it was built by soldiers) and a scenic highway dotted with sea arches, surfing beaches and hiking trails. Or what about wine-tasting your way around the Mornington Peninsula or Macedon Ranges?

Midweek is the time to move on, taking advantage of a week-long break between the second and third tests to get out and bushwhack in Australia’s great outdoors. Options are endless: you could fly inland to visit Uluru/Ayers Rock and the Red Centre, take a tour of Tasmania’s national parks, or head back north, for some balmy downtime in Cairns.

Judging by Irish tour operators’ itineraries, Cairns is where most package holidaymakers are headed between the final tests. It’s a good choice: a city born to service gold miners in the Australian outback, today services tourists, and lots of them — thanks to its tropical climate, lively nightlife and the range of rainforest and reef adventures on its doorstep.

The Great Barrier Reef is the obvious attraction. Cairns is the gateway for the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, with boats bringing visitors out to snorkel, dive, swim or sail in tropical paradise. You might get queasy over the course of the crossing (I certainly was), but it’s so worth it… even if you can’t swim, pull on a buoyancy vest and a facemask and flop into the water for a couple of minutes. Nemo is only the start of what you’ll find.

With the tour’s end in sight, travelling fans should be old buddies by the time they hit Cairns, making for some mighty craic at this stage on the Yellow Brick Road. So after your visit to the Great Barrier Reef, Mission Beach or the Wet Tropics Rainforest (another World Heritage Site), be sure to kick back on the esplanade, dip into the local seafood scene, or perhaps sample a well-earned bottle of beer (or two) from the Blue Sky Brewery.

Last stop? Sydney. The Lions’ third and final test takes place at the city’s ANZ Stadium on Jul 6, and there’s no better venue for a decider. Sydney throws a hell of a party — so arrive at least a couple of days early to soak up the atmosphere.

Sydney has its iconic sights — Bondi Beach, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge amongst them, but it’s just as much fun drilling down into the lesser-known neighbourhoods. You might mosey back to colonial times in The Rocks, shop till you drop in Paddington, (it’s the last stop for pressies, remember?) take your pick of 70 beaches, or loosen your belt and chow down on anything from pho to falafels in Sydney’s zingy foodie scene.

Whatever the series result, travelling fans are onto a winner.