Here is some opinionated miscellany regarding travel in Australia that is worth knowing if you're planning a trip. I traveled for 4 weeks from mid-October to mid-November 1996. I visited Sydney, Darwin and Kakadu National Park, Ayer’s Rock, Perth and Western Australia, and drove from Melbourne to Sydney.
The exchange rate from US$ to AUS$ is favorable. When I was there in November 1996 $1 US got $1.25 Australian. Pretend it’s like Canadian exchange rates. They use more coinage than we do, in some odd denominations: 5¢, 10¢, 20¢, 50¢, $1 and $2 coins. There are no pennies. Prices (they still sell things for $1.99) are rounded to the nearest nickel (I still wonder how a business accounts for this in its bookkeeping). Generally, the smaller the coin, the more valuable. The paper money is plastic. It’s newly introduced, and the Australians hate it. The larger the bill, the more valuable. They’re pretty colors too.
Don’t bother with traveler’s checks. No one likes to cash them, and everyone charges you 5% for the privilege. ATM machines are omnipresent, even in smaller towns. On the rare occasion that a machine didn’t like my card, I could find another machine within a block that did. Credit cards are surprisingly hard to use. The fees that banks charge merchants are exorbitant, and so stores tend to discourage their use. Minimum purchase, and so forth. Many smaller places and hostels don’t take them at all. Plan on carrying more cash than you’re used to.
The pay phones in Australia do not accept incoming calls. This is useful to know if you’re thinking about using a call-back service to call home to the states. If you are planted in places with private phones, call-back companies are useful to know about. The scheme is this--you dial a phone number in New Jersey. Let it ring twice. Hang up. It then immediately rings you back at the number you have previously programmed. You’re now on a US dial tone, and your international long distance call is now at a cheap US rate. I used New World Communications. They can be reached at 201-907-5300.
Most pay phones have a card reader for the Australian phone company cards. These are useful for making in-country calls. Every news agency sells phone cards in denominations from $5 to $50. For international calls--ATT has a local toll-free access number. Expect to pay $1 to $1.50 a minute for a call to the States. The best deal are pre-paid phone cards available through the AYH hostels. A $50 card can get you up to an hour or more, depending on the time of day.
Left side, left side, left side. Remember this mantra if you get behind the wheel. You have never driven with such conscious intent when everything is backwards. At least it’s better than the Caribbean, where all the cars are American imports and still left-hand drive, but you drive on the left side. After a few days I got pretty relaxed behind the wheel. The only thing I never mastered was which side of the car to get into. I always went to the wrong side when I approached my car, even after a month.
Besides the backwardness of it all, the lanes are narrower as well. Most cars are sensibly smaller, however. But it does feel a bit crowded if you’re used to the generous lane widths of the US. In rural areas it gets positively silly. They merely pave the center of the road. If you encounter a car coming the other way, you both pop 2 wheels off onto the hard gravel shoulder. If it’s a road train (huge, three-trailer semi trucks), pull off as far as you can get, and pray. There is ostensibly a speed limit in rural areas, 100 to 120kph, but I never saw it enforced and rarely saw speed limit signs.
Car rentals take some forethought and judgment. You will see come-hither advertising for rates as low as $25 a day. They don’t exist. These outfits charge extra for insurance, and have impossibly low mileage restrictions, after which it’s 25¢ a mile. Expect to pay AUS$70-$90 a day for car rental. It’s worth calling around. Mostly what is available for a reasonable price is some small Japanese thing, with manual transmission. Insist on AC. Also, inquire on how restrictive they’re going to be on driving on gravel. On some major routes a gravel stretch is unavoidable. Or don’t inquire and plan to wash the car before returning it.
Gas is pricy, by US standards. Roughly, it’s $2.50 to $3 per gallon. Gas is sold by the liter, of course. Gas stations were the one merchant that I could usually count on to take my MasterCard.
Drivers are generally courteous everywhere you go. The exception is in and around Sydney, where drivers are more aggressive and faster. Add to this the claustrophobic lane widths and it can feel positively harrowing to drive in or out of Sydney.
I stayed in budget backpacker hostels pretty much the entire trip. Sometimes I felt very old. The most reputable ones are those belonging to AYH (Australian Youth Hostels). Some of the others, especially in the big cities, cater to a youthful party crowd and can be unpleasant places to try and sleep. Many of the AYH hostels, in contrast, are alcohol-free, which is a blessing, and the security is better. You can join at any AYH hostel for a nominal fee. It’s a dirt cheap way to travel. My room in Perth cost under $20 a night. Most are bath-down-the-hall types, but I was always able to get a single room to myself that locked, and sometimes I even had a window. If you don’t mind sharing, the dorm rooms are seriously cheap--$5 to $10 a night.
No tipping. That’s the biggest adjustment for a North American to get used to. You just get up and leave without leaving any money behind. It just feels so rude. Minimum wage however is a livable $8 to $9 an hour.
In the cities you can find any kind of ethnic anything. Australia has a rich immigrant tradition, and so you can find some great restaurants. However, once you leave the urban oasis, it’s a different story. It’s a high-fat, high cholesterol, anglophile world out there, with overcooked vegetables on a steam table and lots of lamb. As one guide book put it, “The gourmets are the ones that eat the garnish on their steak.” Prices for food are less than you’d expect to pay in the US, even without the exchange rate factored in.
Coffee is a different story. Coming from Seattle, I was highly attuned to the local coffee culture. And there is one in Australia. The best thing is that Starbucks hasn’t invaded the continent yet to drive the quality down. In the cities espresso machines are ubiquitous. There aren’t the sidewalk vendors like there are here (a trend waiting to erupt, I’m sure), but even the MacDonalds serve decent espresso drinks. In china cups too. The language is very different however. I never learned precisely what everything meant, but a short black is equivalent, I think, to a straight shot of espresso. A long black is more dilute, about like a double-shot Americano. That’s what I ordered, with a side of milk. A long white is half mixed with milk. I found them too weak. Their lattes have no foam. I got decent coffee everywhere, except for Western Australia. In the stores everywhere you will find iced coffee (basically coffee-flavored milk), which is a boon when you get up too early for the restaurants to be open.
I traveled in the Australian spring, October and November. In the north and in the Center it was brutally hot, over 90 F. regularly. With crushing humidity in the North. Sydney was pleasant, though creeping up into the 80’s by the time I left. The southern coast could get chilly, breezy and in the 50’s, or be sunny and in the 70’s. Temperatures in Australia of course are reported in Celsius, which translates to low 20’s being nice, high 20’s getting uncomfortable, 30’s being yucky.
Spring is probably the prettiest time to be there. Everywhere in the South was lush and green. By summer the hills would be burnt and brown. If you can get to Western Australia in the first half of September, do it. The wildflowers are amazing. I saw the barest hint of what was left, at the end of the month.
In the North, there are two seasons, Wet and Dry. The Wet begins about November, lasts to March. It seems incessantly hot there all the time. If you want to see wildlife, you need to go in the beginning of the Wet. In the middle of the Dry, in June or July, it may be the most comfortable to travel, but you won’t see much in the way of critters.
Mosquitoes (Mozzies) were never a problem. They were out a bit at night in Kakadu, but not so you’d notice much. Different seasons will have different mosquito levels however.
Flies are another matter. They were at their worst in the Center at Ayer’s Rock, and I never adjusted to them. The flies don’t bite fortunately, so it’s not like dealing with the horseflies in the Arctic. But they hover around you in clouds and constantly patter against your face. It’s extremely distracting. I’m usually not bothered by bugs, but I couldn’t abide these. I broke down and wore a flynet and looked like a silly tourist.
There are a slew of poisonous spiders in Australia, even in the temperate areas. You will never encounter them. They are reclusive and hard to find.
Seattle to Sydney cost $1,175. I flew Air New Zealand. Flights to Australia originate in LA. I got 10,414 frequent flyer miles on my Northwest account.
I bought an Ansett Airlines airpass for $530 for travel within the country. This is available for purchase only outside Australia. It got me four flights. I could change this at will, but some flights were hard to get a booking on. It’s a great deal however. In-country air travel is expensive. Australians don’t travel nearly as much by air within their own country as do Americans. They can’t afford to. It cost’s an Australian about $1000 to fly across the country.
I booked several tours throughout the trip. The 3-day Kakadu Trip, booked at an agency in Sydney with Northern Territory Adventure Tours, cost AUS$320. The day trips (one to the Blue Mountains, one to Philip Island and the penguins) were about $50 each. All the hostels have walls of brochures outlining every conceivable tour experience. I planned much of my trip by scanning the brochures and plotting to get to places before the tour buses arrived. Staff at the hostels can usually give you informed guidance on the quality of the outfitters. The one travel agency I used in Kings Cross in Sydney was somewhat less informed (or getting a cut and less interested in my needs). They’ve earned my enmity for booking me into the Melaleuca Lodge in Darwin, the party-animal house.
I transported all my film from the States. Film prices are easily double in Australia. I came with 150 rolls, and I used nearly all of it. I spent $2,200 on film and processing. I broke a lens my 2nd day in the country (Camera on tripod fell. Lens took the impact.) and bought a replacement for $150. If you’re interested in what I traveled with gear-wise, look in the equipment section.
Feel free to contact me for opinionated advice on travel to Australia. Use the Guestbook link below.
Happy Trails,
Doug Plummer
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