I will go over a few of the practical things for those who may be interested.
Janice has done a wonderful job of the trip on on our blog which covers our feelings at the time etc.
We have as you know done a circle from Sunshine coast down to Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide up the middle to Alice, Darwin across the north back to Queensland and Sunshine coast. That took 21,055km
and a lot of fuel. I have kept a record the whole way, consumed 3295ltrs of diesel at a cost of $5387, it sounds a lot but we averaged 15.6lts per 100km which isnt too bad towing a 2 ton caravan.
Generally the roads are very good and in the outback areas little traffic, the roadtrains were no problem at all, the driving was not stressful, we have cruise control on the Landcruiser and it was used particularly up the middle and across the top. Cities are cities anywhere, they are always busy and this is where the GPS came in very handy. If fact I would say they are a must. Mine is getting a bit old (4 years) and roads do change so next time a will buy a new one.
Aussie drivers do keep to the speed limits much more than NZ, and on the whole seem better drivers. I think the fines must be much higher. You can tow a caravan up to the maximum limit but I kept to about 90 most of the time. The towing has been a breeze, most towns make short term parking available for caravans, which makes sense because there are lots of them and they spend money.
The campgrounds have generally all been very good, prices from $10 to $35. We have tried to use as many free ones as we can and these have been great especially here in Queensland. They are usually provided by the local council or Government Roads and generally have toilets and water, they are popular so we have tried to arrive at them by 2pm . Security has never been a worry, we were a bit apprehensive when we started but now we are happy stopping anywhere.
Campgrounds provide all the services as you would expect, but surprisingly, very few, provide a place to discharge grey water. They are all happy to let you dump it on the grass by the side of the caravan. (In NZ binoculars would be out to report you). Dump points are provided for the cassette toilets at campgrounds and most towns, so this has not been a problem.
If anyone was to come to Aussie I would definitely recommend Telstra for phone and mobile broadband.
It works just about everywhere, all small towns and most roads. We have the telstra prepay for the phone and top it up $30 at a time, it has cost us I think $180 for the 6 months. Broadband is the same, we chose a prepay for 1 year and that cost $150, we have used half of the data allowance and have been very pleased with the coverage.
The caravan came with a TV antenna which winds up from inside and can be rotated and a booster amplifier. Initially I though we would need to purchase at satellite system but again TV is provided to all the towns along the way and so there has only been a few days without it, not that we are tv fans but we have watched the odd DVD. Aussie is upgrading its tv system from analogue to digital, our tv receives both and digital seems to cover 95% of the population.
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