300 days on the road travelling Australia; what we’ve spent

After 300 days on the road, travelling around Australia, its time to do our third spending update! I find it hard to believe that we’ve been travelling around Australia for so long (we’ve actually just ticked over a year on the road), but we have no plans to stop any time soon.

This covers the days between Day 200 and Day 300, and every single dollar we’ve spent on our travels from food, to camping fees, tours, car maintenance, eating out and so forth.

If you want to go back and read our costs of our first 100 days on the road, and then the second 100 days travelling Australia, you can do so by following the links.

Like previously, we’ll do a summary of this 100 days, and then a total of the 0 – 300 days so you get a better idea. 

In the 200 – 300 days on the road we spent the vast majority of our time in Queensland, but had to pay for a quick drive up from NSW.

From there, we did a 6 night Whitsunday Yacht hire with family, and then spent a couple of weeks in Cairns and Port Douglas with more family, catching up and doing lots of tourist activities. As a result, we spent a lot more than we would normally, which you’ll see below. Adding it all up actually stung a bit, but what do you do?!

We’re still updating our lap of Australia Itinerary, which you can go to and see exactly where we stayed each night. Perhaps I’ll make this into a map one day.

If you haven’t been following along, welcome! We’re travelling in a 2016 Isuzu Dmax, and 2018 Reconn R2 Hybrid Caravan.

We had my folks with us for a substantial chunk of this part of the journey, and then split ways near Karumba with them returning to Perth across the top of Australia. They’d done a few months with us in South Australia, and then a few more in Queensland before heading home to get back to real life.

Statistics for days 200 – 300:

Total kilometres done: 10816km

Average number of kilometres each day: 108km (756km per week)

Diesel fuel consumed: 1466L (102.6L per week)

Average fuel economy: 13.55L/100km, 

Most expensive diesel: $2.39 per litre at Bamaga

Cheapest diesel $1.725 per litre at Townsville

Total fuel cost: $2720.23 ($190.4 per week)

Total number of camp sites stayed at: 46

Average length of stay:  2.17 nights per stay

Camp sites cost breakdown (of the 46 destinations): 12 were paid but low cost (under $20), 12 were completely free, with 22 over $20 per night.

That makes it 26% free camping, 26% of our camp sites under $20 a night and the remaining 48% were over $20 per night.

Queensland has been a stark change in camping costs compared to Victoria, with much less free and low cost camping. Even their national parks cost us $22 a night, which isn’t exactly low cost compared to other states!

How many camp sites required grey water to be contained? One, which we skipped – Cooktown Racecourse

Number of nights in caravan parks: 31 

Total camping fee costs: $2195.71 ($153.7 per week)

Average cost per night: $21.9

Most expensive camp site per night: Moreton Telegraph Station heading to Cape York at $50 per night

Total cost of food and general groceries: $3399 ($238 per week)

Eating out, bakeries and treats cost: $831.9 ($58.23 per week)

Experiences cost: $3668.4 ($256.78 per week)

6 nights on a Whitsunday Yacht Hire with family

Skyrail and Train

Cairns Aquarium

Daintree River Ferry

Daintree crocodile tour

Great Barrier Reef snorkelling and SCUBA diving intro for one person

Total other random costs: $5644 ($395 per week), including a new Gopro, car service, parking, Jardine and Daintree ferry costs, $545 fridge repair, tyre swaps, Car and camper registration and insurance, internet and satellite phone plan.

Total cost for 100 days: $18522 ($1296 per week)

Average cost per day: Around $185 per day.

This includes internet, but not phone recharges, health insurance, and other costs that are personal, and not necessarily relevant to your situation.

We’re doing our best to keep this as the base costs, without including all sorts of random things (like mortgage repayments, home rates, house insurance etc etc. We have record of all of this, but won’t be including or sharing it.

Please add your own additional, individual costs to this if you are relying on the numbers.

Favourite places/camp sites/experiences: 6 nights on a Whitsunday Yacht Hire, Port Douglas Reef Tour, Miallo Creek, the Bloomfield Track, Trevathan Falls, Coen Free Camping, Elliot Falls, Alau Beach, the tip of Cape York, Chillagoe, Lake Tinaroo, Herberton Historic Village, Babinda Boulders, Jardine Station and Blencoe Falls.

Overall feelings: Queensland took a bit to get going for us, but we had a truly epic 100 days in this chunk. Asides from catching up with a heap of family and having a bit of a ‘holiday’ we did some amazing experiences, stayed at incredible camp sites and did a heap of great 4WD tracks. This was a hugely valued part of our trip.

Total costs for 0 – 300 days:

So, in total then, here’s what we’ve spent, summarised as best as possible for 300 days on the road:

Kilometres done: 26251

Total money spent: $41791

Total fuel used and cost: 3876 litres at $7839

Total camping fees: $4769

Average camping fee per night: $15.9

Total cost of groceries and food: $10476

Cost per day: $139 ($975 per week)

Total cost per kilometre: $1.59

Hopefully this is helpful, and if it is, please share it around to anyone else that might find it handy. We’ll keep doing these posts, but we’d love to know if you’ve found it valuable!

 

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