Fly down under for less

Return flights to Australia are now on sale at around £500 - almost half the £900 cost of flying during the peak season (the weeks wrapping around Christmas and July and August) and £200 cheaper than the "shoulder" seasons of early spring and autumn. Not only is the low season - April, May and June - the cheapest time to travel to Oz, the weather's on your side, too. This is when to visit the northern half of Australia: the coastal tropics are enjoying the hot, cloudless dry season; the interior is in its manageable transitional season.

Go walkabout among the isolated Aboriginal communities of the Kimberley, journey to Ayers Rock in the red centre, trek in northern Queensland's Daintree Rainforest and brave the Northern Territories' Kakadu National Park à la Crocodile Dundee. Or simply sun and surf on one of Queensland's cosmopolitan sandscapes - Noosa, the Whitsundays - before heading out to the Barrier Reef.

Yes, the south is descending into winter, but with great offers on internal flights you can spend a couple of days checking out Sydney or Melbourne's nightlife then exchange rain for rainforest within a few hours.

Best flight deals

Twenty-five airlines now fly to Australia from the UK, which means 75 flights to choose from each week. So, in the low season competition is fierce and offers are thick on the ground. The main players are on the Australian Tourist Commission's justlaunching website at www.deals.australia.com.

The first stop for a bargain is one of the specialist tour operators, mostly consolidators, who buy flights in bulk at a discount then pass on the savings to customers. A call to Austravel (0870 1662100, www.austravel.com) produced a late-offer return fare of £459 to Darwin with Royal Brunei, until 20 May.

Look for deals on stopovers, internal flights and upgrades. Trailfinders (020 7938 3939, www. trailfinders.co.uk) has a range of offers, including, until 15 June, £699 return to Perth with Qantas, plus four internal flights and stopovers in Bali, Bangkok, Singapore or Hong Kong. Use the Aus $50 vouchers they throw in for a day's 4WD hire. Also hot is a return flight to Sydney via Tokyo with Japan Airlines for £533 - book by the end of May, travel by 2 July.

Travelmood (0870 500 1002, www.travelmood. com) has another excellent deal on Qantas: £636 buys a return to any of its Australian destinations with two internal flights and a choice of stopovers. You could stopover in Bali, go on to Melbourne, Ayers Rock, Cairns for the Barrier Reef, Darwin for wilderness, then home - or throw another £80 into the kitty for a return flight from Oz to New Zealand.

Also worth a call: Bridge the World (020 7916 0990, www.bridgetheworld.com) and Travel Bag (020 7287 5559, www.travelbag.co.uk).