Wow, great info everyone. I have read quite abit about what you all have talked about in your posts. First off, I think I'm going to see if we can change our flights to arrive in Sydney the night before Australia day and then we can go from there. I'll post once I find that out.
I also don't think we have enough time to make it to Cairns so i think we will be sticking closer to "home". I would really like to make it to the Whitsundays and Heron Island if at all possible. So maybe what we will do is do the Australia day thing then fly up to Brisbane and rent a van from there.
P.S. I'm Canadian not a Yankee. Sorry for the spelling mistake.
Edit: I read my post and I couldnt make any sense out of it, so I fixed it.