The MV San Gwann docked at the port of Larnaca shortly after 11pm local time (6am AEST) after leaving Beirut. The ferry was also carrying five Canadians.
Thousands more evacuees are expected to follow on naval ships and chartered ferries Saturday and Sunday, joining what's believed to be the largest ever movement of Australians overseas.
Also on Saturday, the federal government was expected to announce that it had chartered military and commercial aircraft to take evacuees home.
Another charter ferry is due into Larnaca at 6pm local time on Sunday (1am Monday AEST) carrying an estimated 500 Australians.
Humanitarian corridor open
A day after the United Nations warned of a growing humanitarian crisis, Israel has announced it will open a humanitarian corridor to allow food, medicine and other aid into Lebanon.
Israel's UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman said Friday he expected the humanitarian corridor to be opened by Saturday. He said later that there would be a land corridor to Sidon and a sea corridor to Cyprus.
The Israeli announcement followed appeals from Secretary-General Kofi Annan and many Arab and Western leaders, including French President Jacques Chirac, who called for "a humanitarian truce".
It came as UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland addressed the Security Council and called on Israel to accept and guarantee safe passage for humanitarian goods into northern Lebanon by road, into the ports of Beirut, Tripoli and Tyre for sea cargo, and into Beirut airport for air shipments.
Whether Israel is prepared to meet these demands remains to be seen. Mr Gillerman said details were still being worked out.
"Nine days of just terror": evacuee
Sam Georges, from Strathfield in Sydney, who was aboard the MV San Gwann, had been travelling around Lebanon with his brother, sister-in-law, niece and two nephews, the youngest of whom is nearly five.
Mr Georges described their trip as "nine days of just terror".
"Jets screaming above us and not knowing where the next blast was going to strike, where to move, where not to move, we found it just terrible," Mr Georges told Australian Associated Press.
"It's been nothing but hardship. The country's been terrified, torn to bits, bombs, blasts, people scrambling in all directions and it's just absolutely chaos.
"It was never expected. People had gone there to see their family friends and holiday and all of a sudden all hell let loose."
Sydney woman Gladys Hasrouty, 30, from Quakers Hill, danced off the gangway onto the dock. “I'll never go there again," she said.
Ms Hasrouty and Paul Kassis, 32, from Parramatta in Sydney, left Australia 10 days ago for a holiday in Lebanon.
"It's a pity we had to leave so soon," Mr Kassis said. "We were there two or three days and all that happened."
Cyprus under strain
The latest evacuees to land were among thousands from all over the world flocking to Cyprus, which is beginning to buckle under the massive strain on accommodation and transport.
It estimated that 20,000 foreign nationals have passed through Cyprus since the sealift began in earnest on Monday.
Warships, cruisers and ferries crisscrossed the eastern Mediterranean from ports in Lebanon toward Cyprus and Turkey, packed with refugees, while planes brought more back to their homelands.
Convoys of buses meanwhile headed toward Syria, or from the war-torn south of Lebanon toward the north which has been less badly hit by Israel's offensive against Hezbollah.
"You see these situations on TV and feel sorry for the people. Now we are the ones that feel like refugees," said mother-of-two Brenda Fawaz, 41, at a transit camp in Nicosia, Cyrpus set up to handle an estimated 6,000 American nationals expected in the coming days.
A UN-chartered cruise ship docked in Larnaca, Cyprus, early Friday carrying 900 UN staff, dependants and other evacuees from 46 different countries.
Also docked at Larnaca was the US navy transport vessel USS Nashville with 1,000 mostly US citizens aboard, bringing the number evacuated out of Lebanon via Cyprus in the past 24 hours to almost 2,000.
Another 4,500 Americans were due to depart on three ships, assisted by US Marines.
Some 3,000 French nationals have been pulled out of Lebanon this week so far, with between 4,000 and 5,000 remaining to be evacuated.
Exodus from the south
French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said around 400 French citizens were trapped in southern Lebanon, where the fighting has been deadliest, and that an operation would be mounted in the coming days to try to reach them.
Germany was also working to extricate its nationals from the south, having already evacuated around 4,200 of its citizens.
The Italian government said that some 300 of its nationals were left.
In Britain, the defence ministry said about 2,800 people had been rescued from Lebanon by British forces since it began its operation, including more than 1,000 who docked late Thursday in Cyprus.
British warships were shuttling the 160 kilometres between Lebanon and Cyprus. London said it intended to evacuate 5,000 people in all by the end of the week.