Around Australia

Gday Grungle

I will be watching this thread like a hawk. hope some good info comes out. we are planning a similar trip. we hope to be leaving in six months doing eastcoast first. we have two kids of similar age also. challenging times ahead for us both me thinks.

cheers dave.

I found the Lonely Planet NT book very useful for our recent 5week Melb/ Kakado etc trip. Plenty of useful info to keep you going prior to the trip.
Then there is the NT tourist bureau. Also plenty of brochures at the tourism stands at the Caravan shows. On route you stop in at each towns info centre and pick up heaps of colored booklets maps and suggested visit spots. Its easy to be overloaded. Buy a Nat.Parks Aust book.
There is little point worrying about a food budget - you have to eat at home. Just cook your own and avoid takeaways most of the time.
Our 5week NT worked out at $11 per Nt (for 2) based on as much bush camping and roadside stops as practicable and non powered van sites. (power can be $6 a night dearer at times). You already know fuel useage but expect a premium on capital city prices at many (most) stops of course.
If on a budget you have to be tight on any organised tours- do what you can by yourself but a 4wd would be better. How many people have said that to me??---wish I had ---- Enjoy dreaming in the meantime --now that you have the taste and want it all !! The cape must have been good.

car, capable car , what model, what make, thinking of doing same. regards.

Grungle, "$500 a week budget" is a bit thin.

We traveled 9/2004-9/2005 we bugeted for $100/day but It was more like $1000/week. Mostly bush camp. The fuel is 1/3, Food 1/3, Don't forget to factor in repairs like a new tyre $300, That will break your butget.

On the Kid front go for it ours were the same age & planned for B4 high school as well.

Hi Grungle,
We are leaving in just over 3 weeks for 4 months and have 2 children with the oldest starting high school next year. We have allowed $1000 per week with a few grand extra tucked away 'incase'. We also plan to do free camping aprox 1/2 the time and use caravan parks for laundry and the kids to relax around the pool etc. Make sure you get yourself the Camps 4 book. We have the one with the photos of the campsites in it also so you get an idea of what the place is like before you get there. It is fantastic. With a bit of research you can find heaps of things that you can go and do and see that are free (or cheap) instead of paying top dollar everywhere for tourist attractions. For example while we are in Adelaide we found that we could go to Melbas Chocolate Factory, The National Auto Museum and the Big Rocking Horse on a day trip at a total cost of about $21! (well that is unless I buy chocolate and anyone who knows me would tell you that is a certaintly!)
Have a great time
L4W

Hi David,
What a great plan. The kids are of a great age for this sort of adventure. Young enough for 'home tutoring', old enough to lean about life and our great country. What memories they will have later in life.

We have not done a single trip of the nature you propose, but we do spend at least 4 or 5 months each year 'on the road'. In my experience, $500 per week is a bit light. Even at 750 KM per week, your fuel bill will be colse to $200 per week when you consider a bit of local running around and the high cost of fuel in the more remote area you will travel.

Although you plan on free camping, you will have to pay occasionally, even if it is just National Park camping fees. You will probably stay in a caravan park occasionally, even if it is only 5% of the time, it has a cost. When we do a big trip I do a budget. For camping fees a typical budget might be 50% free, 40% National Park or similar @ about $10 per day and 10% caravan Park @ $25 per day. That sort of budget works out at $52.50 per week.

Camps Australia is a natural reference for camp sites. Another series of books I can recommend is by a lady named Jan Holland. She has done at least 3 books so far, covering NT, Northern WA and Southern WA. They are called Priceless Campsites and Rest Areas in the North of Western Australia (or other area). Google Priceless Campsites and you will find them. Excellent books that give a lot more detail on the camp area and what to see and do than Camps Australia.

Whatever your budget, keep a contingency of at least $5,000 available outside the budget. Vehicle trouble, sickness (and the need to stay in town for a while), replacement camping gear etc are likely expenses at some time on this sort of trip.

Remember, if money gets tight, work is readily available in Northern Australia, particularly in the dry season.

Enjoy the planning. I always enjoy this part of trip preparation and spend many hours on it before our big trips.

Hi Grungle
Try these sites full of info
www.trip.brumler.com
www.expeditionaustralia.com.au

Thanks all who have replied,

For major trips with high kms and only a couple to a few weeks in length, we budget around $1000 a week to really enjoy ourselves. We mostly come in under this figure but I believe it to be realistic.

For the trip around Australia, we plan on only travelling half the distance each week that we would do on a major mid year trip so have worked out my fuel according to this. We love bush camping and will go out of our way to find one over a caravan park however we plan to visit one once every 2 weeks or so for washing, food resupply and to re-organise. We have a drum that is our washing maching when we travel so are always doing small loads regularly and usually carry enough food for 3-4 weeks in the bush. We have found that we eat a lot less when on trips and on this last trip to Cape York we bought back around a weeks worth of food which is hard to believe considering we plan every meal and snack before leaving.

Tours and souveneirs are one of the biggest killers of our budget but we plan on only doing around 1 a fortnight or more. We do prefer to research the area ourselves and then do our own self paced tour. Our kids can get bored easily and what may be interesting to us may be totally boring to them so we have learnt to 'create' our own mini tours based around the kids. Also having the boat has made a huge difference and has allowed us to see a lot of great waterways.

I never really thought much on repairs and maintenance but we will have a nest egg available that we have earmarked as our 'rehabilitation fund' to ease us back into normal life once we have finished the trip.

I think that the $500 may be a little too low as per the above responses so will work on around $750 a week. This will make my wife happy and if we come in under this I should be ale to convince her to keep travelling on the savings. We will have a small amount of money coming in each week and we have discussed working every now and then if we get stuck in one place for a period of time for whatever reason.

We are really excited about the trip and can't believe we still have 18 months or so before we go. They say that half the fun is the planning which we still have a lot to do. When we do up a detailed trip itinerary I will post it on the forum so we can get some feedback.

If anyone knows of any websites (such as http://www.expeditionaustralia.com.au/index.html) that details peoples accounts of major trips, it would be greatly appreciated if you could post links.

Regards
David