Australia: Solar Eclipse Tour

Australia: Solar Eclipse

Chase totality in the red centre while discovering Australia's rarest desert and tropical birds

On July 22, 2028, a total solar eclipse will pass directly over Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. You’ll stand in the path of totality at the iconic Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve—nearly five minutes of daylight turning to darkness, the temperature dropping, and the world falling silent. It’s one of nature’s most profound experiences, and this 18-day tour places you directly in the middle of it.

But there’s much more to this journey. You’ll start at Uluru, the massive red monolith sacred to the local Anangu people, then travel through some of Australia’s most remote and beautiful country. The route takes you through desert habitats where Spinifex Pigeons, Chiming Wedgebills, and rare Grasswrens live, then north into the tropical wetlands of Kakadu National Park—one of Australia’s largest and most important parks, with over 65,000 years of continuous Aboriginal culture. Along the way you’ll cruise pristine rivers watching crocodiles and waterbirds, explore dramatic gorges, and experience the vast, star-filled night skies of the Outback.

The tour includes visits to some of Australia’s most significant Aboriginal sites: the rock art at Ubirr and Nourlangie, cultural centres, and time with local guides who share their knowledge of the land and its traditions. You’ll also stop at quirky outback landmarks—the famous Daly Waters pub, the UFO capital of Wycliffe Well, and other genuine pieces of outback character. If you’re after world-class birding in remote wilderness, combined with an extraordinary natural phenomenon and deep cultural connection, this tour offers all three.

2028 Departure

Please note that this trip is priced in Australian Dollar, rather than US Dollar.

AUD 19,399

/person sharing

single supp. 4,255 AUD

Included

All accommodation during your tour.
All meals from dinner on the first day until breakfast on the last day of your tour (not including drinks).
All in-country ground transportation in private vehicle. Airport transfers on the first and last day.
All guiding fees for tour leaders and local guides.
All entrance fees to sites mentioned in the itinerary.
All activities as mentioned in the itinerary.
Membership of Global Rescue for the duration of your tour (this includes evacuation and rescue services but NOT travel or health insurance).

Excluded

Visas, passports, and other personal documents required for travel.
Transportation to starting point of your tour and from end point of your tour.
Any drinks other than coffee, tea, and drinking water in the vehicle.
Personal purchases such as (but not limited to) laundry, room service, phone calls, souvenirs, etc.
Insurance. We strongly recommend you get travel, cancelation, and medical insurance in your home country.
Any tips you would like to offer tour leaders, guides, drivers, porters, wait staff, housekeeping, etc. for outstanding service.
Any other items not explicitly included.

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Itinerary

Please note that while the general itinerary is set, hotels and daily activities may slightly differ depending on circumstances.

Day 1 | 14 July 2028: Arrive in Uluru (Ayers Rock)

Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, is a massive sandstone monolith in central Australia’s Northern Territory, rising 348 meters / 1,142 feet above the surrounding desert plain. Sacred to the local Aboriginal people for tens of thousands of years, it holds deep spiritual and cultural significance tied to their creation stories. The rock is renowned for its dramatic colour shifts at sunrise and sunset, glowing vivid reds and oranges. Located within Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, a UNESCO World heritage Site, it is one of Australia’s most iconic natural landmarks. Today you arrive at Yulara (Ayers Rock Airport / AYQ), from where you will be transferred to your hotel. Check in and explore the compact town or relax at the hotel’s pool or bar before we meet for introductions and dinner this evening.
Day 2 | 15 July 2028: Uluru – Kata Tjuta NP

We start the day with a visit to a small wetland that few people know of, and that holds an amazing variety of birds in this arid desert-like environment. Asides from waterfowl we will be looking for Brown Falcon, Spotted Harrier, Black-breasted Buzzard, Little Corella, Pied Stilt, Black-fronted Dotterel, Zebra Finch and more. We may well see our first Budgerigars coming in to drink! After breakfast, we will make the 50km / 30 mi drive to Kata Tjuta (The Olgas), a spectacular outback geological formation where we will spend the morning exploring various walks and roadside locations. We expect to find Redthroat, Peregrine Falcon, Pied Butcherbird, Peaceful and Diamond Dove, Painted Finch, Little Crow and Rufous Whistler. After lunch and a break we’ll head to the star of the show: Uluru (Ayers Rock), and spend the afternoon there exploring the many trails, waterholes, grassland and mulga scrub around the rock. We’ll keep an eye out for Grey-fronted Honeyeater, Little Woodswallow, Black-eared Cuckoo, Black-breasted Buzzard, White-winged Fairywren and Cockatiel. There will be an opportunity to visit the Cultural Centre highlighting information about the indigenous culture, bush tucker and geography, as well as being a great place to purchase any local souvenirs. Late in the afternoon we will watch the sunset over ‘the Rock’, causing the rock to glow in vivid reds and oranges, while enjoying a glass of wine and nibbles. Dinner will be back at our hotel.
Day 3 ⎸ 16 July 2028: Uluru to Kings Canyon

This morning there’s the option of an early outing before breakfast for a chance at the elusive Sandhill Grasswren in the sand dunes near your accommodation; you should also see Budgerigar, Black-faced Woodswallow, Chiming Wedgebill and Black-breasted Buzzard. After breakfast you pack up for a longer, scenic drive to Kings Canyon, with plenty of opportunities to stop for short birding walks and look for White-fronted Honeyeater, Black-faced Woodswallow, Pink Cockatoo, White-winged Fairywren and Cockatiel. Kings Canyon is a spectacular sandstone gorge with walls rising over 100 meters (330 feet), with dramatic red rock formations, lush pockets of ancient cycads and ferns in a sheltered valley known as the Garden of Eden, and a natural amphitheater of weathered domes called the Lost City. You’ll have your first look at the canyon in the late-afternoon light, when long shadows fall into the gorge. It’s quite possible to see wild dingoes foraging on the way back to your rooms.
Day 4 ⎸ 17 July 2028: Kings Canyon

You spend the morning at the spectacular Kings Canyon. After a hearty buffet breakfast, a short drive takes you to the base of the canyon, where your first walk—suitable for most fitness levels—is spent looking for Gray-headed Honeyeater, Painted Finch, Dusky Grasswren and Mistletoebird. If you’d like a challenge, there’s the chance to do the Rim Walk, a 6 km loop around the top of the canyon; otherwise, several short walks and waterholes at the base offer plenty of birds coming in to drink through the morning. You’ll head back to the resort for lunch before setting out onto the start of the Mereenie Loop Road for part of the afternoon, where you might be lucky enough to spot a herd of wild camels, or more dingoes. Birds to look for include Horsfield’s Bronze-Cuckoo, Spinifex Pigeon, Masked Woodswallow, Crested Bellbird and Wedge-tailed Eagle—and if you’re really fortunate, this is one of the few areas where the nomadic, desert-dwelling Princess Parrot has occasionally been seen.
Day 5 ⎸ 18 July 2028: Kings Canyon to Alice Springs

On your final morning at Kings Canyon you’ll do a little birding around the grounds before packing up. Heading toward Alice Springs, you’ll stop a few times to search the roadsides for specialties including Cinnamon Quail-thrush, Southern and Banded Whiteface, Orange Chat and, if the season is right, Inland Dotterel. After lunch at Erldunda Roadhouse, in the geographical center of Australia, you continue on to Alice Springs. This small, isolated city holds a unique place as both an ancient Indigenous crossroads and a modern strategic hub. For more than 30,000 years, Aboriginal people have etched their Dreamtime stories into the surrounding ranges. Colonial history began with the 1872 Overland Telegraph Line, a monumental engineering feat that connected Australia to London. During WWII, “the Alice,” as it’s affectionately known, served as the de facto capital of the Northern Territory and a critical inland military base, and today it remains a global center for Aboriginal art and the birthplace of Outback institutions like the Royal Flying Doctor Service. It’s worth spending a few hours exploring the compact city, with its many Indigenous-owned art galleries and nearby botanical gardens, or simply relaxing at the hotel before dinner this evening.
Day 6 ⎸ 19 July 2028: East MacDonnell Ranges

After breakfast you’ll head into the East MacDonnell Ranges for your best chance at some of the locally endemic birds. Stretching as far as 100 miles east of Alice Springs, the East MacDonnells hide some of Central Australia’s most famous Outback landscapes—gaps, gorges, bush walks, Aboriginal art and remarkable geological formations—and the appealing Black-footed Rock-wallaby lives here too. After lunch at the pleasant Olive Pink Botanical Gardens, with its resident bowerbirds, you’ll spend the afternoon in mulga (acacia) scrubland looking for bush birds. Species you may see today include Chiming Wedgebill, Spinifexbird, Crimson Chat, Gray-crowned Babbler, Western Bowerbird, Black-breasted Buzzard, Chestnut-rumped and Inland Thornbills, Western Gerygone, Hooded and Red-capped Robins, Australian Ringneck, Mulga Parrot and Budgerigar. If you’d prefer, you can stay in town to explore the cultural side of Alice Springs (optional, not included in the tour price). The Alice Springs Telegraph Station, the original site of the first European settlement in 1871, is a fine place to learn about the town’s early history and the Overland Telegraph Line; the Royal Flying Doctor Service Tourist Facility tells the story of the service that brings emergency and primary health care to remote Australia; the School of the Air, established in 1951, offers an immersive look at distance education across an area of more than 1.3 million square kilometers; and the Araluen Cultural Precinct—built around a 300-year-old corkwood tree at the center of its Sculpture Garden—brings together the Araluen Arts Centre, the Museum of Central Australia and Strehlow Research Centre, the Central Australian Aviation Museum, Central Craft, Yaye’s Café and a host of public artworks and Arrernte sacred sites.
Day 7 ⎸ 20 July 2028: West MacDonnell Ranges

You spend most of the day exploring the West MacDonnell Ranges. These ancient, low mountains—among the oldest on Earth—feature dramatic red gorges, permanent waterholes and diverse wildlife, with popular stops at Simpsons Gap, Standley Chasm, Ormiston Gorge, Glen Helen Gorge and Ellery Creek Big Hole. You’ll have lunch at Ormiston Gorge before returning to Alice Springs for free time in the afternoon, when you can relax or explore the town and the Olive Pink Botanical Gardens. Birds you may see today include Dusky Grasswren, Chiming Wedgebill, Spinifexbird, Crimson Chat, Painted Finch, Black-breasted Buzzard, Slaty-backed Thornbill, Western Gerygone, Red-browed Pardalote, Diamond Dove, Cockatiel, Mulga Parrot and Budgerigar.
Day 8 ⎸ 21 July 2028: Alice Springs to Tennant Creek

You’ll spend a few more hours birding around Alice Springs this morning, picking up any species still on your list. After check-out and an early lunch, you’ll settle in for the five-hour drive along the Stuart Highway to Tennant Creek. The landscape is one of rolling hills covered in thorny scrub, broken by eucalypt-lined dry riverbeds, with plenty to break the journey: the Tropic of Capricorn monument; the striking sculptures of “Anmatjere Man” and “Anmatjere Woman and Child”; the historic township of Barrow Creek; and quirky Wycliffe Well, the self-proclaimed UFO capital of Australia. At the end of the day you arrive in Tennant Creek, a small Outback town that grew up around the 1930s gold rush.
Day 9 ⎸ 22 July 2028: Solar Eclipse, Tennant Creek

Today is the big day. A total solar eclipse will pass directly over Tennant Creek, placing the town squarely in the path of totality and offering an outstanding viewing position in the Australian Outback. The event is expected to draw significant tourism to the region, and with average cloud cover here typically below 10% in July, the odds of clear skies are strongly in your favor. You’ll have an early lunch at the Devils Marbles Hotel, a legendary Outback pub that has welcomed travelers on the Stuart Highway for generations—there won’t be a more memorable lunch spot in the country today. Afterwards you’ll head to the nearby Karlu Karlu / Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve, a sacred site scattered with hundreds of massive granite boulders, some up to 6 meters tall, balanced and rounded by millions of years of erosion: a unique place from which to witness the eclipse. The partial phase begins at 11:18 am, when the sky takes on a subtle, eerie quality as the Moon slowly crosses the face of the Sun. Your eclipse glasses will be handed out, and your guide will walk you through what to expect and how to photograph the event safely. At 12:48 pm the Moon slips fully across the Sun, plunging the sky into an otherworldly twilight for almost five minutes. The temperature drops, stars emerge in the middle of the day, the Sun’s corona shimmers around the dark disk of the Moon, planets appear and the birds fall silent. It’s one of the most extraordinary experiences in nature. Eclipse totality: 12:48 pm – 12:53 pm (approx.). Duration of totality: 4 minutes, 50 seconds. After the adrenaline of totality and a chance to share the experience together, you’ll leave the Devils Marbles and return to your accommodation in Tennant Creek—the perfect time to sit back, review your photos and absorb what you’ve just seen. If you’d like to explore more of Tennant Creek (optional, not included in the tour price), there’s an underground tour at the Battery Hill Mining Centre, where the 1930s gold rush began and which holds Australia’s last operating ten-head gold stamp battery; the Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre, one of the best in the Territory, where you can hear the local Warumungu legend of Nyinkka, the spiky-tailed goanna that shaped the town; the old Telegraph Station of 1872, with a self-guided tour through the telegraph office, cellar, smokehouse, kitchen and blacksmith’s workshop; and Kunjarra (The Pebbles), a granite formation just north of town and a sacred women’s dancing site, best visited at sunset as the rocks shift from glowing red to deep purple.
Day 10 ⎸ 23 July 2028: Tennant Creek to Mataranka

This is the longest and most remote leg of the journey—six to seven hours up the Stuart Highway—and the landscape shifts as you go, from desert scrub to the first hints of the tropics. There are some genuinely memorable stops along the way: the Renner Springs lagoon, a birdwatcher’s paradise where egrets, herons, pelicans, cormorants, brolgas, storks, finches and whistlers abound; the township of Elliott, a significant WWII staging camp; the Newcastle Waters ghost town; and the Daly Waters Pub, one of the Territory’s most famous bars, built in 1930, where you’ll stop for lunch. Clad in corrugated iron and crammed with decades of memorabilia, its main bar is hung with bras, stickers, expired licences and business cards left by visitors from around the world. Daly Waters also holds the distinction of being Australia’s first international airfield—for almost 30 years from the 1930s it was a staging and refueling point for Qantas flights heading through Darwin to Singapore—and the Daly Waters Aviation Complex, 3 km off the highway, is the oldest aviation structure in the Territory, with an interesting display in the original Qantas hangar. Nearby is Stuart’s Tree, where the explorer John McDouall Stuart is said to have carved an “S” during the first crossing of the continent. At the end of the day you arrive in Mataranka, a small township renowned for its sandy-bottomed thermal pools and pastoral history, made famous by Jeannie Gunn’s novel We of the Never Never, written about nearby Elsey Station. The Never Never Museum covers local Aboriginal history, the northern railway and WWII. There are two warm swimming spots here—Bitter Springs and the Mataranka Thermal Pool, both a balmy 34°C year round. You’ll do a little birdwatching before relaxing at the Thermal Pool, then enjoy dinner in a lovely open-air setting by the billabong, where as the sun sets you can sit with a cold drink and watch wallabies feeding among the deep red termite mounds.
Day 11 ⎸ 24 July 2028: Mataranka to Katherine

There’s an optional pre-breakfast birding walk around the grounds. After breakfast you’ll visit a nearby waterfall where a fine selection of honeyeaters forage in the trees, including Banded and Rufous-throated Honeyeaters, before checking out and taking the one-hour drive to Katherine, where you’ll have lunch, check in to comfortable accommodation and rest. Katherine was an important meeting place for surrounding Indigenous groups, and in the 1860s it became a strategic link on the Overland Telegraph Line. During WWII it served as a major military staging base and suffered Japanese air raids in 1942. Small but resilient, the town today thrives as a regional center anchored by an air-force base and tourism. Later in the afternoon you’ll go out birding, particularly for buttonquails and Northern Rosella, and if you’re very lucky you may come across the rare Northern Shrike-tit. This is excellent parrot country, with Red-winged Parrot, Northern Rosella, Varied and Red-collared Lorikeets, Little Corella, and Sulphur-crested and Red-tailed Black-Cockatoos all distinct possibilities.
Day 12 ⎸ 25 July 2028: Katherine to Kakadu

First thing in the morning you’ll position yourselves at a waterhole where Gouldian Finches, Crimson Finches, Hooded Parrots and other birds come in to drink. From there you’ll visit the very scenic Edith Falls, with its resident Bush Thick-knees, before continuing to the small, historic township of Pine Creek for lunch, where honeyeaters, friarbirds, parrots and bowerbirds frequent the town park. After lunch a two-hour drive brings you to Kakadu National Park, Australia’s largest terrestrial national park. Covering almost 20,000 square kilometers, it is a place of extraordinary ecological and biological diversity, its rock escarpments a treasure trove of Aboriginal paintings. Along the way, Olive-backed Orioles frequent the trees, Red-backed Kingfishers sit on the wires and waterfowl forage on roadside wetlands, while small rainforest patches harbor Buff-sided Robin, Silver-backed Butcherbird, Arafura Fantail and Varied Lorikeet. You’ll arrive at the excellent Cooinda Lodge, set in tropical gardens within the park, by late afternoon.
Day 13 ⎸ 26 July 2028: Kakadu National Park

You start the day early with a cruise on Yellow Water, one of Australia’s most important areas for waterbirds. As the sun rises over water teeming with up to 70 species, look for Plumed and Wandering Whistling-Ducks, Pacific Black Duck, White-necked and White-faced Herons, Nankeen Night Heron, Australasian Grebe, Australasian Darter and Glossy Ibis. Along the wooded edges you may also pick up Arafura Fantail, Buff-sided Robin and Paperbark Flycatcher, while Rainbow Pitta and Azure Kingfisher haunt the riverbanks and you should see Forest and Sacred Kingfishers. Among the rarer birds you might encounter are Great-billed Heron, Little Kingfisher and Black Bittern. After the cruise you’ll return to the lodge for lunch before heading deeper into Kakadu to search for many of its specialty birds—and to see some fine Aboriginal artwork. Black and Little Red Flying-Foxes roost here too, along with many lizards, colorful turtles and unusual butterflies. You’ll spend another night at Cooinda Lodge, where Barking Owls are often active shortly after dark.
Day 14 ⎸ 27 July 2028: Kakadu National Park

Kakadu is a vast, living cultural archive shaped by more than 65,000 years of Aboriginal heritage, and its great highlights are the open-air galleries of rock art at Ubirr and Nourlangie. Ubirr is famous for its “X-ray”-style paintings and an iconic sunset view over the floodplains, while Nourlangie’s ancient shelters depict creation stories—both offering a profound connection to one of the world’s oldest continuous living cultures, in a landscape that remains sacred to its Traditional Owners. You have a full day in the park. After an early walk around the grounds and breakfast, you’ll head north to the Bardedjilidji sandstone formations for an interesting birding walk, looking for Chestnut-quilled Rock-Pigeon, Sandstone Shrike-thrush and perhaps a Rainbow Pitta or Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove. The rest of the morning is spent at Ubirr, whose spectacular floodplain viewpoint and rocky escarpments are good for Chestnut-quilled Rock-Pigeon, Sandstone Shrike-thrush and White-lined Honeyeater, along with the recently split Wilkins’ (Eastern) Short-eared Rock-wallaby. You’ll check the river crossing to watch its famous saltwater crocodiles feeding together, then head back for lunch. A break in the middle of the day gives you the chance to rest or to visit the Warradjan Cultural Centre, with its in-depth look at Indigenous knowledge of the natural world and the seasons. Later in the afternoon you’ll bird another rock formation until sunset, with chances of Black-banded Fruit-Dove, White-lined Honeyeater, Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo and Great Bowerbird.
Day 15 ⎸ 28 July 2028: Kakadu to Darwin

After a final morning’s birding in Kakadu, you’ll check out and head west toward Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory. Along the way you’ll visit the Fogg Dam wetlands—originally a rice-growing scheme until thousands of Magpie Geese put an end to it, now a nature reserve. Its reedbeds and lily-covered ponds are home to Brolga, Magpie Goose, Black-necked Stork, Royal Spoonbill, Comb-crested Jacana, White-browed and Baillon’s Crakes, Green Pygmy-Goose, Broad-billed and Paperbark Flycatchers, Tawny Grassbird and Golden-headed Cisticola, while the adjacent woodlands offer a chance of Rainbow Pitta and Lemon-bellied Flyrobin. Late in the day you’ll visit East Point reserve near Darwin for Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove, Arafura Fantail, Green-backed Gerygone and mangrove species such as Red-headed Myzomela and Torresian Kingfisher, along with Broad-billed and Shining Flycatchers, while the coast holds shorebirds including Pacific Golden-Plover, Greater Sand-Plover, Gray-tailed Tattler and Pacific Reef-Heron.
Day 16 ⎸ 29 July 2028: Darwin Area

Darwin’s history is defined by its role as a strategic gateway and a city of remarkable rebirth. For millennia, Aboriginal people have been the custodians of this Saltwater Country, maintaining trade networks with Southeast Asia long before European arrival. In the twentieth century, two events reshaped the city: the bombing of Darwin in 1942, when the first major foreign attack on Australian soil involved more aircraft than the raid on Pearl Harbor and cemented Darwin’s role as a vital Allied base; and Cyclone Tracy in 1974, the Christmas Eve storm that effectively levelled the city and led to a radical reconstruction that modernized it and transformed Australian building codes. Today, closer to Jakarta than to Canberra, Darwin is Australia’s most important economic and military link to the Indo-Pacific and a vibrant multicultural hub. Surrounded by natural areas, you don’t have to venture far to find birds and wildlife. This morning, with timing depending on the tide, you’ll visit Buffalo Creek for a chance at the elusive Chestnut Rail, along with mangrove species such as Black Butcherbird, Green-backed Gerygone, Australian Yellow White-eye, Mangrove Golden Whistler, Little Kingfisher and Azure Kingfisher; on the nearby beach you may see the huge Beach Thick-knee. You’ll then visit a local reserve of monsoon forest in search of Gray Whistler, Arafura Fantail, Little Shrike-thrush, Green-backed Gerygone, Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove and your main target, the Rainbow Pitta. Lunch is at the café in the extensive Darwin Botanic Gardens, after which you’ll stroll the grounds looking for, among others, a Rufous Owl on its day roost. You’ll head back to your accommodation for a well-earned rest before the final dinner, when you’ll no doubt look back on an unbelievably good trip.
Day 17 ⎸ 30 July 2028: Departure

After breakfast you’ll be transferred to Darwin airport (DRW) for your flight home. Those continuing on the all4birding 2028 Australian East Coast tour will fly to Cairns today (this flight is additional to the tour price). If you’d like to stay on in Darwin, there’s plenty to explore (optional, not included in the tour price): the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT), the cultural heart of the city, with world-class Indigenous art, the haunting Cyclone Tracy exhibit and “Sweetheart,” the legendary 5.1-meter crocodile; the Darwin Military Museum, an interactive look at the 1942 air raids set within original coastal gun emplacements at East Point; the Darwin Aviation Museum, home to a massive B-52 bomber and 19 other aircraft; and Fannie Bay Gaol, a stark site that housed prisoners for nearly a century, from 1883 to 1979.

Focus:

Birds

Other wildlife

Photography

Culture & history

Gastronomy

Other

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Walks

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Terrain

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Lodging

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