Good stats. A lot of keen skiers do go to Japan at Christmas for the ski season as it’s not always a great snow season here and Bali, well, it’s almost a state of Australia now 
It is 01.00 am in Oz now but I’m sure there will be a lot more helpful information from others for @Cljk tomorrow when the country wakes.
Hi @Cljk
We are Uk based and did Feb to May last year in Australia with six back to back sits.
We’d never been before so stuck to approx 8 weeks in and around Melbourne and approx 8 weeks in and around Sydney [ we then tagged on another 3 months in New Zealand]
We had a blast, you will love it!
I would say a car is super useful and many Australians are happy to include the use of their car so look out for those, or don’t be afraid to ask at application stage if its not mentioned.
Joining Aussie sitters aswell as THS is highly recommended, we got our sits roughly half and half between the two.
Have fun!
…Watch out for the drop bears, ay 
…
Hahaha @Nagy26 funny, probably something only an Aussie would get Definitely gotta watch out for drop bears!
So long as they put Vegemite behind their ears @ziggy they’ll be safe 
I sat Dec 1, 22 - Jan 15, 23 – Perth and 2x Melbourne and had a great time. A few hot days in Melbourne but overall just fine. Visited Tasmania on a prior trip - mainly Hobart but highly recommend. Wonderful and ‘strange’ museum - MONA - museum of old and new art.
@Cljk, I sat in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane for 3 months, from September to December 2022. There was no shortage of sits, but the weather in Melbourne was a catastrophe. It was freezing cold, and when it rained, it literally poured, which was pretty much all the time. Out of nowhere, the sky would just open up, pouring gazillions of water. Never saw anything like that. I should have started in Brisbane and worked my way down. The weather in Melbourne was a real shock to me. It was also a number one subject amongst locals. Sydney was, of course, better, but still not comparable to the “warm Australian winter weather” I envisioned. Should have gone to Cairns, I suppose.
I also did some train travel, which I can warmly recommend.
Be aware, dogs are not allowed in national parks. We love australia 
and were there for the second year in a row…
We’re going on the Indian Pacific train from Sydney to Perth in Dec this year, 4 nights in a sleeper cabin and for one night the train stops and we get dinner set up under the stars in the outback how cool is that.
wow, this sounds like real fun … enjoy
@BonnyinBrighton loads of sits in Australia. I’m in WA, south of Perth. I’ll have some sits coming up in 2025. I’m in a highly desirable area for tourists and nature lovers. 
We are also members of Couchsurfing and meet wonderful people through that.
Thank you for thinking of us. We have two sits already booked for Perth in January but a gap in the middle.