Did our journey through Australia inspire you to do the same thing? Or, perhaps you just found this page as you searched for how to prepare for your own journey. This post will discuss what we recommend for anyone else looking to explore Australia by vehicle.
Check out the accompanying post: Shipping Vehicle to Australia or NZ
Choosing a vehicle
You have 3 options for your overland trip:- Rent/hire a vehicle.
- Buy a vehicle.
- Bring your own vehicle.
Renting a vehicle is pretty standard. Most people have done it. Make sure to verify whether you are able to drive on unsealed roads. However, this doesn’t make sense at all if you will be traveling for more than a few weeks.
Buying a vehicle in Australia is a great option. Most campervans, etc., will hold their value, so you are likely to be able to get most of your money back when sold. And, all this is generally required to register your purchased vehicle is a local address. Just borrow a friend’s or your hotel’s, etc. The cons are fairly obvious. You don’t truly know its history or reliability, and you have to arrange for a sale at the end. We didn’t want to travel around Australia’s outback in an unreliable vehicle (not that all of them are, but it is important to know our vehicle and be able to fix it), and we didn’t want to stay in country when we were done trying to sell it, or try to sell it remotely from another country. Those were just hassles we didn’t want, though many people do it with minimal trouble.
Obviously, we chose to bring our vehicle over. Why? We had a heavily-modified campervan, suited perfectly for us with established reliability. Plus, we were visiting more than just Australia, so it made sense to bring it along. We knew we would be in Australia for close to a year, and in New Zealand for several months. Our travel style is low cost using free/cheap camps and cooking our own meals. Our vehicle greatly supports this. When you take the cost of shipping and divide it over that time, the non-refundable cost was worth it for us.
Preparing the Vehicle
All vehicles in Australia, regardless of import status, are required to have liability insurance. In Victoria it is state run and called TAC. Other states are similar. It is an accident insurance that only covers medical bills. If you are renting, you obviously don’t have to worry about this, but if you are buying or bringing a vehicle, it applies. There are plenty of instructions on how to buy a vehicle and get it registered, etc., in Australia, so I will focus on how to handle it for if you are temporarily importing your own vehicle.Compulsory Third Party Insurance
To temporarily import a vehicle, you either need to pay the value+GST of the vehicle up front to customs, and get reimbursed when you export it, or have a CPD Carnet for the vehicle. The non-carnet option requires an import authorization, and is generally only applicable to vehicles that meet Australian Design Rules (Right Hand Drive). Australia’s government has good instructions on their website:Then, before you can drive the vehicle on Australian roads, you have to go and get compulsory third party insurance (CTP) (aka greenslips). Most places won’t have had to do this before for a temporarily imported vehicle, so you will probably have to guide them along. And, the provider varies by state:
For Victoria, you will have to visit a VicRoads location and explain that you are temporarily importing a vehicle and need to obtain TAC. They have a special form for this. It is called the Application for a NON-Registered Vehicle Transport Accident Cover. They will look it up and then be able to help you. Again, this will require a local address in addition to your registration number from overseas.
It is not too expensive. It only cost $402.60 AUD for our van for the whole year.
Insurance
Now, while not required, it is highly recommended to get insurance. TAC is not vehicle insurance, it only covers medical bills for an accident, not any damage to vehicles or property. We had a hard time getting comprehensive/collision insurance. No one would insure a temporarily-imported left hand drive vehicle. The only company that was able/willing was Ken Tame. If you have a CMCA membership, you can get a discount on the insurance. Actually, I am not sure if you can obtain the insurance without a CMCA membership. The insurance coverage was pretty good, but required that all drivers have a CMCA membership. It wouldn’t cover anyone else driving the vehicle, either. We ended up using it to replaced our cracked windshield before shipping to Australia.The downside to this insurance is that they only offer 2 term options: 6 months or 12 months. And you don’t get reimbursed for the months you don’t need. But, the cost for a campervan is really cheap compared to a regular van. We paid $613.65 AUD for 12 months cover (in the US we paid that much USD for 12 months cover for much less vehicle value and didn’t cover our belongings). We set our own agreed-upon value, which required a valuation. We had this done online by Internet Motorhome Valuations for $135 AUD. As a note, they use the term “excess” for what we call a “deductible” in the US.
Registration Plates
We actually got pulled over in Tasmania for not having a front registration/license/vehicle number plate. Oklahoma does not issue or require them for the front, only the rear. According to the rules of the carnet and the international motoring convention, temporarily-imported vehicles are not required to comply with the registration and roadworthiness rules of the destination country, only of the country of origin. Regardless, he was upset and issued us a warning (actually had it mailed to our address in the US!). So, to appease the local enforcement, we spent $10 and had an image of our plateprinted and laminated. Then we taped it to the front of the vehicle. They haven't had an issue with it since. Rather than try to argue, we recommend doing the same if you don't have a front plate.
Preparing for the Road
CMCA or ACC
Jonathan had become acquainted with many Australians through the Sprinter forum, and many of them recommended joining either CMCA or ACC. They offer auxiliary benefits, such as access to certain campgrounds, etc., including discounts on things like insurance. You can also network and go to gatherings, etc. Since the insurance we found required CMCA membership, that is what we joined. The only benefits we utilized were insurance and campgrounds, and actually only once or twice on the campgrounds. It can be useful, but really not required.Store Rewards Program
I recommend obtaining rewards memberships at the supermarkets. I joined Woolworths Rewards. Its reward system is terrible; you have to spend $2000 to get a $10 discount. But, you earn points at certain Caltex (petrol/gas) stations (and 4 cents off per litre) as well at the Woolworths stores. So, I saved $30 over the 11 months I was there. The points earning are much more rapid at the end of the year (starting in October) than the rest of the year.I believe Coles also has rewards system. Not sure if IGA does as well. While Woolworths is only available at fairly large cities, Coles is often available at medium-sized towns, especially in mining towns. Coles partners with Shell stations. IGAs are everywhere. Do whichever you prefer, it will pay off.
Australian Bank Account and/or Credit Card
We didn’t do this, but we wish we had. Our American credit cards (Capital One, as we earn 1.5% cash back and have no exchange fees) require a signature for nearly every purchase, even the $5 ones. Definitely got old pretty quickly. Australia uses a RFID-reading technology called Paywave, which just allows you to wave the card in front of the reader and be done with it. No PIN or anything. Probably less secure, but much more convenient.The other issue with our American cards, besides the signatures, was the inability to purchase fuel from 24hr pumps. In Australia, unless it is a 24hr pump with a special payment system (very rare), you have to pay inside. And the stations are not open 24 hours. So, it limits when you can get fuel, especially on Sundays. Timing was never an issue for us, but the 24hr unmanned pumps were so much cheaper! Often 10 cents per litre cheaper! That, in and of itself, would have made it worth it to get an Australian card. We did try the unmanned pumps. They wouldn’t accept our credit card because it didn’t have a PIN. So, we tried our debit cards (which we did verify work at ATMs), but it wouldn’t accept that either. They require Australian accounts.
So, if you will be there for 6 months or more, take the time and set up an account. As an added bonus, you then can withdraw cash without ATM fees (if your US card doesn’t already provide that).
Not sure how to transfer the funds to your account? You have a couple of options. Perhaps the simplest is to use your American bank accounts transfer rate (ours was about 4% off the actual exchange rate) at the ATM. For us, not only was the exchange rate not the best, but we also had ATM fees at the ATM and at our bank for the withdrawal. Alternatively, you can ask your Australian bank to do the wire transfer, but they will probably offer similar rates. We found the best option was to use a third-party wire transfer system. OFX is our current system of choice. They take about 3% from the exchange rate, but don’t charge you any additional fees and can ACH-debit your accounts for no additional charge (takes 5 days, though).
Route
You should probably do a bit more research than we did and determine you route before you get there. We didn’t really have any plans, but it did work out all right. Your strategy should be to be in the south in the summer (Dec-Feb) and the north and center in the winter (Jul-Sep). You can do the east and west coasts in the spring and fall. We started in Melbourne in January, and went to Tasmania in February. Although crowded in Tasmania at this time, we wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. Even mild Melbourne was experiencing 40+°C (104+°F) while we were down in Tasmania, where it was quite pleasant. Upon returning to the mainland in March, we could have made a clockwise or counterclockwise circuit, and either would have worked out. I made the call to go clockwise, and our timing was nearly perfect for staying in cool-to-warm weather and avoiding the heat.Port
Besides the season, probably the other biggest factor in determining your route will be your arrival port. For shipping, we found out that all the east coast cities from Brisbane to Melbourne have the same rate for shipping, whereas Perth was a different rate (more expensive from the US). Also, we later found out that Brisbane is where the quarantine inspectors get trained (so goods are inspected more thoroughly there), so probably avoid that one. But everywhere else is fair game, depending on your needs. The only reason we chose Melbourne was that we knew more people there and had an offer for use of tools and storage.School Holidays
Look up when the school holidays are, as the roads and the campgrounds get packed during that time. We often tried to visit less-popular locations for a week or two while they passed. Accommodation rates may increase substantially during this period as well.National Park Passes
Each state administers its own national parks. Some charge entrance fees, some don’t. For the ones that do, it was useful to pick up either a holiday or annual pass. We found this website useful:Camping
When we traveled through Canada back in the day, we had to wing it on where we would camp. Nowadays, they have handy apps for that. We purchased WikiCampsAUS for our travels and found it worth it. The app itself is somewhat poorly planned out, but it is useful and powerful, allowing you to look through crowd-sourced data for exactly the type of campground (or dump station or anything else) that you want.Also, in many western towns public alcohol consumption is banned, avoid the rest and camp areas closest to these towns on the weekends, as locals often drive there to party late into the night.
Fuel
We used the app Fuel Map Australia to figure out where the stations were and what price to expect. GasBuddy also worked, but was not as complete or up-to-date.Phone and Internet
In Australia, our Project Fi plan was partnered with Telstra (the largest mobile provider in AUS, originally government-run). This worked great as Telstra had reception nearly everywhere, even when other carriers did not. This meant we had unlimited text and were charged our US rate of $10/GB for data. WiFi calls to USA were free, while WiFi calls to AUS were about $0.04/min. Cellular calls were $0.20/min. So we did pick up a Telstra SIM and put the minimum amount of credit on it for the few calls we did do (maybe 10 calls the entire time). The best part of that, though, was that we could access the Telstra Air hotspots. They had these in most towns and meant that we could get unlimited WiFi without using our phone data whenever we could find a functioning one. Of course, sometimes they were so slow it wasn't worth it, but many times it was useful.
Otherwise, internet is hard to get. They don't really have any internet cafes (we saw two the entire time). Libraries (especially Tasmania) can be a great source, but not always. Internet in general is terrible there. Case in point, the Ukraine has better bandwidth than Australia... :(
Water
There are mostly 3 types of water taps in Australia: 3/4" BSP straight (most popular), 1" BSP straight (more common in West Australia), and a threadless small tap. Also, many of those taps come with a quick disconnect fitting already on them. We were able to make our 3/4" MPT female fitting on our water hose from the USA fit onto the 3/4" BSP male end of the water faucets by using a second rubber washer. However, to make things easier for us, we went to a Bunnings and grabbed:
- 3/4" male adapter to male quick-connect fitting to attach to our 3/4" female end of the hose (so we didn't have to worry about using or losing our 2nd washer)
- 1" female adapter to male quick-disconnect fitting to attach to the tap with a
- 1" to 3/4" reducer
- and a quick-connect coupler (quick connect on both sides)
This is by no means necessary, but it made it much easier and quicker to adapt to different taps. This allowed us to either use a quick disconnect fitting to attach to one already installed (without having to thread it on or off) or to attach screw it on to either type of tap without having to deal with a twisting hose. If you are mostly staying near the populated areas only having a 3/4" connection is fine. But, if you head into the outback or West Australia, I highly recommending having a 1" adapter.
Additionally, we found that our 25-foot hose was really not long enough. Many of the water fills were not conveniently located and that length was insufficient, so we upgraded to a 50-foot hose, giving us up to 75 feet of reach.
Cone home! Come home!
ReplyDeleteI have a better idea...come to NZ!
ReplyDelete