Trip Planning

You young blokes have all the luck.
Just a couple of observations. I think in today's climate, your $100 per day may be a bit light on. Leaving in Feb and heading north, your taking on Summer at it's fiercest and then as you get further up, the wet will start to cause problems with possible road closures etc let alone the humidity levels that can be very draining.
As far as picking up work along the way, most major towns have employment offices and they would know what casual work is around. Apart from them, the back packer hostels are a wealth of information on casual work and where to go to find it.
Tips on good things to see and places to stay would take days to enter here. Go to the local tourist offices and sort out the expensive crap to what's to see and do and just go and do it.
Most importantly, have fun while your doing it.

G'day Spook,
You are definately making the right move, coming to the West. As above, $100 a day may be a bit light on especially the cost of fuel nowadays.
Travelling around July/August you may get some seasonally work, check out this web site: www.jobsearch.gov.au/harvesttrail. It gives what harvesting jobs are available around Australia, thats if you interested in picking fruit and vegetables or other farm type work.
Hope this helps as I only found out about this site the other day and haven't checked it out throughly yet.

Regards,
Peter

Hi Spook

Glad to see a another young fella on www.exploroz.com, i am 23 and getting engaged very soon and already live in perth.

Funny thing is i am chucking my job also, doing it as we speak to work away at Tom Price as a rigger a 5 and 1 roster.

As everyone and said $100 a day is light,i reckon about $150 is min and $300 is max .

There is loads of work in the country for farm hands, as i have just spoken to my girlfriend who is a farm girl hehehehe.

Hope everything goes well for yah adn yah have a safe journey

G'day BRAD
Half ya luck buddy.
$100 a day might be stretching it a bit I think these days. Did the same myself a couple of years back and well a truly blew the budget. A bit of roadside and free camping can help but theres still always fuel and the need to eat. As for what to see, that depends on what your own "thing" is but theres heaps and the local
tourist bureaus are a good source. There is a Free Cooks Tours booklet available that covers from Alice Springs around to Perth called the "Amazing North" which
with our copy of Camps Australia Wide proved invaluable. Try www.campsaustraliawide.com.
I didn't look for work on my trip but it seemed that most places we went to there was always something on the go.
I'm now living in Kununurra having relocated ( from south of WA) after our big trip,(they say once you drink from the Ord you will return) and there always seems to be plenty of casual work available around town if you dont mind what you do.
Theres nothing wrong with a second hand camper trailer. Get something in reasonable condition, look after it and you'll probably get back what you paid for it if your looking to get rid of it when your finnished.
Half ya luck, just kick back once ya get going and enjoy.

Spook,

Congratulations for Feb 05.

I must agree with the comments above re budget. You can only live on the fruits of love for so long so I think, from experience, $200 pw would be a good starting point remembering that the cost of living is a lot higher where you will be going . If you need to stay in a Caravan Park in the towns where you work then that'll be close to $100pw for a start.

There are plenty of places to bush camp along the way to keep costs down. This is an area to research thoroughly.

Regarding work, try these sites as well:

http://www.workaboutaustralia.com.au/

http://www.workingholidays.com.au/

Good luck

Larry

Mate,

There always workmout in the bush if you are willing. Alice Springs and Kununurra are good places to pick up a seasonal job. You'll be right. If you spend your $100 a day on fuel you'll stay pretty skinny while travelling. Anyway when one is first married one seems to survive on love and water...hahahaha

My brother-in-Law is looking for a cook and roustabout on Bradshaw station in the NT. A husband and wife team is prefered. Paid something like $150 a day and all found and you could get some helicopter rides out to the work they are doing setting up communications on an Army firing range. If you are interested send me a member email and I will give you his email address. No previous experience necessary but must be able to cook good plain food. Roustabout has to help cook, fuel helicopters, keep place clean and generally help out.

Spook,

Thanks for your replies,
You have all been a wealth of information and given us some things to think about.
Cheers
Brad

Hi Spook,

Firstly you'll have the most amazing time out there - there is so much to see and the travelling is wonderful!

We are only slightly older than you guys and just got back from 7 weeks away travelling up the center, through the Kimberley and down the West Coast then back across the Nullabor to cold Melbourne. (yes we know it was a long way in 7 weeks and we did miss some things but we still enjoyed getting out there and getting an overview and now we know where we want to go back to!!).

In case it helps for 2 adults camping with a Patrol we spent the following:
$4K fuel & servicing (we do our own services)
$600 accommodation (camping sites - some nights were free bush camps)
$1700K extra - tours, helicoper flights over Mitchell falls, cruise around Kimberley coast etc.
Food ?? - we didn't keep track as we figured we eat this anyway but we didn't go out much, cooked our own in camp - can't find a restaurant that beats a comfy camp chair and a view of those beautiful stars!

So that's about $130 per day not including food but you would be able to reduce the fuel & servicing costs as obviously you will cover the same distance in 6 months instead of 6 weeks!

Our favourite places were:
- the Bungle Bungles - well worth the trip in (in fact that was one of the best bits!) and the scenery was amazing - very good vibe to the place too and great camp sites
- Mitchell Plateau - the most road we came across but we expected that and I think partly because of that the people camped in there were friendly and it was possibly the best part of the trip for us. Drysdale River Station is a great place to stay on the way up or back from Mitchell Plateau - great people, great bush bar and great food! Mitchell falls is spectacular and defintely treat yourselves to a helicoper flight.
- Cape Range National Park - on the coast near Exmouth, fantastic park $10 per site per night and the cleanest toliets we found, our site was 10m from a gorgeous white sand beach with turquoise waters. We saw whales breaching over the outer reef and turtles and dolphins. It is a truely magic place. We stayed at Osprey Bay camp ground which we think was the best spot. If your budget gets stretched you can follow the beach run (trek notes on this site) and there are camp sites for nothing or very little if they're on Ningaloo station land further south out of the national park.

Hope that helps! And I'm very envious - wish we were still out there!