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questions about living cheaply in Australia 2-Jun-2010 At 9:24:50 AM cruze

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One thing that you might have already considered is that some O/S climbers come to Australia without shoes, or a rope, or harness or whatever thinking that they will just pick one up over here. Almost universally, if those climbers are operating on a pretty tight budget, they find that they have blown their budget with that single purchase. If at all possible bring all of your climbing gear (especially rope and shoes) with you, or at least be prepared to spend the sort of money that Steve from Rockhardware (sponsor of this site) charges. The Aussie dollar is pretty strong at the moment meaning that gear will be really expensive (relatively) if you are coming from O/S.

On a personal note, if I had 30 days to travel to a beautiful new country like Australia, but with climbing in mind, I would want to see as many different places as possible - Araps/Gramps/Blueys in September, spend some time in Sydney and do the touristy thing up the North Coast of NSW. Yes, less climbing time and it will be a lot (!) of driving but 30 days is quite a bit of time and even when driving you get to experience our kulcha in little country towns much better than if you were to spend a week in one of our big cities IMHO. July can be a pretty cold and wet time of year down south but maybe check out the Blueys (generally cold at that time of year, some sunny areas) and then head up the coast checking out a few lesser known places (central coast), doing a bit of touristy stuff (Byron Bay) and head to Frog Buttress near Brisbane. Then again if climbing is priority 1-10 and you are coming to Australia only to climb in July then pick a spot like Araps/Gramps and hang out for the best weather. World class.

I know that my travelling suggestion might be expensive, but I did a quick look on whereis.com.au and travelling from Melbourne > Natimuk (arapiles) > blackheath (blueys) > Byron Bay (touristy backpacker beachy town) > Brisbane represents about 2500 km of driving. Throw in abother 500 km for incidental driving and you round out at 3000 km or an average of 100 per day. Asusming you do a full driving day every now and then it should be doable. The roads generally allow you to drive averaging 90-100 km/h with speed limits of 100-110 km/h. Petrol costs - about $1.20/10 km so you would have to budget $360 in petrol. You camp cheaply at Arapiles, for free in the Megalong Valley in the Blueys. You can sleep in truck stops/rest areas on the highways. Anyway - just food for thought. (assuming fly into Melbourne and out of Brisbane - booking internal flights on jetstar.com.au can be pretty cheap and I have found they have become a lot more reliable, otherwise Qantas (expesnive, reliable), Virginblue (mid-range, generally reliable), or tigerairways (can be very cheap, I have vowed never to fly with them again).