Since we arrived in Adelaide we have spent a serious numbers of hours planning our way back out, that’s not to say we haven’t enjoyed ourselves. It just means that in between the fun moments we have also been planning a trip to Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road and back up to Sydney for the upcoming Mardi Gras parade on the 2nd March. We just couldn’t figure out a way to do it that suited us.
Firstly we were going to book a tour through some travel companies, then we were going to hire a car or camper and rough it, then we were going to buy a hundredth hand camper van … it all just got really complicated. Why? Credit Cards or lack thereof. You see Anita and I have been brought up with the outlook that if we couldn’t afford it we couldn’t have it, so we have never had a use for a credit card. This fact has turned out to be a royal pain in the rear for us not having credit cards, we even toyed with the idea before we left the UK but in all honesty debt scares me and I don’t really understand all the T/C’s. I think the companies throw so much unreadable nonsense at you that you leave dazed and confused after having sold them your soul.
So tours…..there were so many companies to choose from and we had brochures coming out of our ears, we were so overwhelmed with information we couldn’t decide. Not only were there many tours for a range of prices, conveniently there were none that went from Adelaide around to Sydney. We would have had to split it over two tours that may or may not have connected in the middle at Melbourne. We would also need to book hostels in Adelaide for pickup, in Melbourne if the next tour didn’t leave in time and at our Sydney destination … it all just seamed like a lot of hassle. We didn’t have a great deal of time to organise and travel and we hadn’t transferred any more money from the UK (usually I am mega organised, not in Australia). The best tour brochures we found were:
STA Travel (this really is packed full of useful information, I wish they had it in PDF)
Topdeck Travel (provide gluten free meals)
Groovy Grape (provide gluten free meals)
Contact these companies via Twitter for quicker responses, this was how I found out they provide gluten free meals.
So if we wanted to hire a camper/car we had a few options where the liability is concerned, they have a few options but the obvious 2 are:
Pay no daily rate for liability, however, they will charge and freeze up front an amount of around $3,000 dollars in case you screw up with their vehicle along the way;
Pay a daily rate for liability cover of between $25-50 per day.
Other than this they charge between $200-500 for one way fees $3-5 per day for a second driver, $10 per day for sat nav hire, $10-20 for linen and a host of extras.
The problem for us is that most would not accept debit cards only credit cards.
In terms of hiring a camper on this occasion it did not suit us because we were crossing two states one-way, didn’t have credit cards, did’t want to pay so many added fees for liability and didn’t wan’t them to freeze so much of our money to decide that we had caused x-amount of damage so we were’t getting our money back. We may hire a camper for other journeys that aren’t so complicated in the future but for now it just wasn’t for us, we did find these cool and cheap sites though:
Finally we thought of buying a camper van, so we checked out Gumtree and found quite a few for a good prices and we were really excited that the majority came with all the necessary camping equipment. It was obvious they had been bought and sold by travellers. We then had to consider if our UK licences were sufficient, the registration costs and hassles of moving between states for a period of time (vehicles must be registered within certain timeframes for each state) this Australian Government website gives useful links to relevant information of licensing and registration. We also had no idea how long any of this would take and to be honest didn’t want the hassle, all we wanted was a fun trip with the chance to make our way back to Sydney, see some more of Australia and meet new people. We decided by driving that we were isolating ourselves, making a commitment far too early in our trip and we were pushing our luck time wise. So we decided this wasn’t for us.
So what did we decide???
We decided to go with a Topdeck Southern Cross tour in reverse, we fell lucky that there were only three seats left and at a %10 reduction. This takes us from Adelaide to Melbourne over 3 days via the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians. We have no onward plan … just organising this was a headache (like most couples we just have communication problems). We booked the tour via Escape Travel in Hallet Cove, the agent was really helpful and advised us that she would contact us once Topdeck had confirmed they had sufficient accommodation for us as well as seat on the coach …after they had taken our money. We were expecting to hear from them the day after, we didn’t. We then called and emailed until we had it confirmed two days after booking. By this time we still hadn’t booked hostels in case we couldn’t go on the tour and were given a refund amid the possibility of having to make alternative plans.
After this searching for hostels was also a pain, some places didn’t have the correct availability, some where overpriced with terrible reviews, some were just way out of the way of where we needed to be and some websites WOULD ONLY ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS!
Again with making a backpackers life difficult!
We eventually booked 3 hostels:
Adelaide Motel & Backpackers via Hostel World, we are being collected from Adelaide for the tour and we paid $22 each for 1 night in a 6 bed mixed dorm.
Nomads All Nations Melbourne via their own website for $26 each per night for 3 nights in a 12 bed mixed dorm. We saw the same hostel on Hostel Bookers for the same price, only they wanted to take the 10% deposit in GBP! Seemed odd!
Alfred Park Budget Accommodation via Hostel World for between $25-26 per night for 3 nights for us 2 and a friend.
When using Hostel World we paid $10 to remove the $2 booking free, this is valid for 12 months and as they are usually the cheapest comparison agent it will be beneficial for us.
Keep tuned for how are trip actually went!
DO NOT feed the back packer! 