campervan in oz

aido79

i'm heading off to oz in may and just wondering has any body got any opinions on campervans. we're landing in cairns and want to travel down to sydney. at the moment we are trying to decide between hiring a campervan or possibly buying one using the buy back plan or getting the bus.

has anyone done the campervan thing?
which would be the cheaper option taking into consideration hostel cost when getting the bus and fuel costs when driving?

besty

I was wondering something similar myself except gonna be going from Melbourne up to Cairns

tywy

How many of ye are there?

I've been reading about them, the cheap ones only sleep two and have 3 seats... so they aren't great for a large group neccesarily...

Jugs82

There are lots and lots of posters advertising cars/camper vans for sale in both Cairns and Melbourne - you cant miss them, they are in every hostel, just check the notice boards, so if buying is something your looking at, dont be worried about availability.

However, some people find it hard to sell their vechicle once there done travelling and settling in Melbourne/Sydney or simply going home

In terms of renting - wicked campers have loads on the roads up and down the east coast - they are individually muralled vans - not meant to be the most spacious or reliable though

there are a fair amount of companies that rent vans/cars/stationwagons to backpackers where you can pick it up in one place (eg. Sydney) and leave it back in another (eg Cairns) just do a google or look at some of the backpaker mags - tnt magazine or british balls

youcancallmeal

Any ideas how much it would cost to buy a small 2 person campervan?
Also what kind of license would you need i.e. would it be okay to drive if you only had an Irish provisional, obviously the other person would have a full Irish license too?

TheNibbler

AFAIK a provisional license is worth nothing outside of Ireland. Think it says that on it.

aido79

been thinking and think we're going to get the bus! my girlfriend can't drive and it would mean me having to drive almost 3000km! if there are places we want to go to that are out of the way we can just hire a car for a couple of days.
i've heard that the bus is a better way of meeting people and also that the hostels are good craic too.

sioda

In perth at the moment and was looking at both the bus and campervan options.

Go with the campervan if you can it gives you much more freedom to go where the buses dont.

Cost wise taking in van rental petrol powered site rental and full insurance 38 nites is costing 3000 euro so not too bad between 2 bargain between 3

Booked my camper with Hippie Campers a offshoot of Appollo campers who seem to be huge here.

Spud83

We bought a van between six of us and drove the the whole way around Australia from Melbourne to Sydney.

We used camp sites and that and just set up tents if we were only staying for a few nights (max two weeks I think). Campsites aren't the best place to meet people always better in hostels I found.

As for cost it defo saved us money but thats because we used it for so much, and the it enabled us to stay in camp sites. If you are going up the coast I dont know which would work out better economy wise.

The bus and hostel is a good way to meet people. The buses will stop at most places you want to along the east coast so I wouldn't worry about that too much unless you want to come inland for some reason (even most of these are covered). There are ones available that are hop on hop off so you pay for Sydney to Cairns and you can get off X amount of times along the way for ac ertain period of time (few months normally).

It is a lot of driving for one person we had three drivers most of the time. Provosional license wont mean crap, you will get penalisied for this, and you can be checked anywhere at any time.

dory

If you're thinking of renting my only advise is book ahead!! We have a car right now because all the campervans were sold out. And for two week, a van for three people would have been $2000 so if you're going for longer you're better off to buy one.
Most places you have to be 25 to rent as well.

aido79

been looking a costs of hiring a campervan and its roughly about 2500 dollars for a month ehich is pretty good. that includes full insurance. has anybody hired one and what company have they gone with? the website i got the quote from was http://www.cheapmotorhomes.com.au which deals with all the leading suppliers to get the best deals.