I am planning to head over in August to hunt Buffalo with an outfitter. I will have my bow, amd was planning to bring a .416. My wife is coming along and we are wanting to do some touring. We are flying into Darwin ultimately, and the outfitter will have a plan for us to store firearms in Darwin, but what if we were to travel to Melbourne or Sydney for a few days?

Is it worth the trouble to bring rifles and have to I think apply for permits in every jurisdiction we go too, or just rent a rifle for 3-4 days?

Anyone flown the route from Honolulu to Darwin on Jetstar?

Check the second sticky post up top mate. It has info for importing firearms that you may find useful.

I’ve read that, but it’s almost a decade old. I wasn’t sure if there were other opinions or new info since then.

It doesn’t seem worth it if we travel beyond Darwin.

A buddy and I did a buffalo hunt with Barry Seabrook of Gunsmoke Adventures, in 2019. He arranged everything for our 4 rifles, and it wasn't a tremendous problem.

Had to go to my local Sheriff's dept and get a letter stating that I'm not a criminal, and a few other paperwork items. Australia then issued me a firearms license for arrival.

After the hunt, we went to Darwin for a couple days. There's a gun shop there that will lock your rifles in the safe. Bit of a pain in the ass hauling all your luggage and 2-rifle case around while you do all this. But I guess it was all part of the adventure. I spoke to a couple AR guys who had simply taken their rifles up to the hotel room. But I have the impression that if they somehow got stolen you could potentially have a BIG problem with the authorities.

I plan on doing this trip again. We shot 2 dozen buffalo in 6 days & had a great time.

Barry has some fine rifles that clients can use. If I take my wife, I'll DEFINITELY use his rifles so that we can go on to some of the bigger cities without worry. If I went with buddies and JUST did Darwin again after the hunt, I would consider bringing my own rifles.

Hope this helps!

Thank you very much. That was pretty much my thoughts, but I was kind of looking for confirmation before I wrote it off.

Good luck, and please let us know how the hunt & touring go!

Have to do the maths on how long you intend to hunt vs travel. Australia has state based permits and where you arrive equates to the import permit etc. My advice would be fly out of the same airport as you flew in and use a local to store your guns in the meantime. You could find a guide to take you out for a deer in Victoria and try to fly out of Melbourne, or just return to Darwin and exit the same place as entry