rising costs

Are you suggesting that it is wrong for businesses to pass on their rising overheads?

$130 a night for a caravan park, $2 of power and a shower! Probably a good reason to stay out of WA. I cant think of any good reason why that sort of money could be charged. Plenty of Oz to explore where nicer people are happy to take a much smaller portion of that rip off ! Leave it to the wealthy!! Its obvious why the free camp books are flying out of the bookshops! Michael

All the more reason to be fully self-contained and totally independent. I'm sick of the huge accommodation costs and the lack of competition in most of the country areas of Australia.
We've been to Europe several times since 2008, and travelled through France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, numerous Greek islands (including Crete) - and we got 4 star hotel accommodation for 1/3rd the cost of a pretty ordinary motel room in the North of Australia.

$50 a night in Europe gets you quite a nice 3 star hotel room, and campgrounds are substantially less. A 1L bottle of bottled water in Greece costs as little as 22 cents. A virtually-new hire car in Europe is $45 a day, all-inclusive. You pay that just for insurance excess reduction here. It's little wonder overseas tourists complain about costs in Australia.

Karratha, Pt Hedland and Newman are booming mining towns and I as a West Aussie wouldn’t holiday there in a fit. You should be able to find powered sites away from mining areas around the $30 mark off peak and around $40 to $50 peak period.
I travelled east in 2010 – we paid $70 night for spot in Byron Bay over new year – it was the pits.

Hi Mike,

There are some interesting validities (is this a word??) to your comments ..... some are maybe notso.

With regard to your comments on the accommodation in Newman, NONE of the local "tourist" parks cater to the "TOURIST' anymore. Capricorn road house has very fancy accommodation that is aimed at the upper echelon mining sector, as do the other parks in Newman. We recently stayed at the Kalgan's rest caravan park. Sally and I thought that we were in the middle of a mine site camp (we have both been on site). Notices everywhere indicating that there are shift workers on site and to "BE QUIET!!"

THIS apparently DOES NOT APPLY TO THE MINE WORKERS AT FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING!!
End of rant!! .........for now.

We understand that there are costs involved in a business ... like a caravan park.

To over charge your visitors by treating them like an open ended wallet .... is not on!!

BTW .... The Moss Vale caravan park does not appear to charge much less??
Go Figure!!

There are times when we are out on the road and after a time of free camping,
when we NEED a shower and we are very happy to pay a small fee for the services rendered.

FWIW fees for rooms in Newman are not too much below the room costs offered to FIFO people in Perth.

At the end of the day, we work hard for the few dollars that I earn per week. we get very little compensation from the big dollar earners in WA.

This will not stop us travelling.

Cheers,
Wayne & Sally.

G'day MG, I think increases in accom costs are a reflection of increasing operating costs..except in cases like the mining boom, where they reflect what the market will bear. This applies in monopoly tourist area too...Monkey Mia & Uluru come to mind.
Sometimes a Caravan Park will charge a lot more than others in the area for no apparent reason..usually reflected in low patronage. Then there are the really nice,
well located parks that are above average & charge accordingly...Woodman Point in
Freo being an example...very pleasant, even if a bit dearer.
Our strategy is as follows...
We consider ourselves "budget tourers" & as such research our camp spots very
thoroughly by studying the websites & other internet sources relevant to the location,
always referring to Badgers site, & even the images on Google. We make a selection
& mostly have a backup option, arriving early enough to change plans if it goes pear
shaped, always check the site before accepting it. We only book if popularity demands
it, & never travel in school holidays. We free camp where suitable .
This regime serves us well.
The only other point I make is that we don't cart heaps of supplies from home..we buy
as we need from local outlets. These businesses provide valuable support & rely on
tourist $$ to survive...much like Caravan Parks, I suppose..
cheers....oldbaz.

I have to say that i'm a little tired of hearing about tight wad grey nomads, they free camp! We see it on here all the time, comments like, "they don't spend money in the towns or they come to town just to dump their rubbish off and don't spend anything. If a couple are on the road for a few months and they spend $10,000, it has to go somewhere! Everyone has different spending patterns and different routes so the money will be split fairly equally amongst the towns. And who goes to Longreach without going to see the Stockman's Hall of Fame. It all costs! Michael

Not just the western states.
At Broken Hill NSW Big4 ,we were charged $75.00/ night for an unpowered campsite for a family of 4 in June 2010.
They were that busy that the only spot they could offer us was to setup in the gravel car park.