Ruth - how wonderful to hear from you!!! Thank you for the tips. Gosh, I hope we don’t break 2 windscreens. Sounds extreme.

Second. People also tend to remember extraordinary experiences from their holidays. If you see something that you want to do and that you know you’ll remember doing (say a helicopter ride over the 12 apostles in Victoria) - don’t put it off because that’s the thing you’ll remember doing in 5 years time - not getting to spend an extra week on the road just so that you can see “the big Oyster” and “The big Prawn”. How many times in your life will you and the kids get to fly in a helicopter? I’m sure that you can figure out a balance - but you definitely don’t want to come back kicking yourself for all the things you didn’t do (within reason) on your “once in a lifetime” holiday.

Thanks for the website - I could do some serious damage to our bank account there. LOL. I’ve contemplated those machines but I have to weigh up space considerations and keep stuff we take to a minimum so I’m not sure whether to go that way or not.

Sharon - your parents are very brave doing it in a camper trailer. We considered doing that but all the setting up and packing up… LOVE the bucket idea. We need to get one anyway for times when we have no sullage connection so if I get one with a decent lid it could do me double service. Will keep that in mind. I didn’t even think of dried vegetables as an option. That would work well, even if I don’t get to dehydrate any of our own, I could still buy dehydrated packets. Any other ideas from your folks would be much appreciated.

Bettina - my biggest concern with cans is weight. Apparently they’re cracking down on overweighted caravans at the moment so we’re a bit mindful of how much we pack into it (the extra weight allowed for “stuff” in our caravan is a woefully pitiful amount ). I’d like to look into the rice meals though - have seen some interesting packets. It’s not something I usually pay attention to in the supermarkets. I think my cooking is going to be a little different during the trip. We’ll definitely be taking some games and sporting equipment. Which sporting equipment to take and not take might be the hard part.

Stuffy - oh dear, that made me laugh imagining the “anything that can go wrong will go wrong scenarios”. I hadn’t really contemplated this side of things but we do have an emergency fund as part of our normal finances that can be called upon if necessary. Although we’re about to use upon it for the second time this year so I will need to make sure we have adequate funds should the need arise.

Sounds like I might need to send Farmboy out to do more work so we have more sightseeing money though. LOL. I guess we’ll see. I don’t have a lonely planet guide (have never read one) but have done a little bit of googling. It’s going to be a tricky one. Do we stick to a budget or just go for it while we’re there. Theme parks and a barrier reef tour are top of our list of “must do’s” though. I wasn’t basing our sightseeing money on Canberra’s cost - only the food.

$15,000 10 years ago. Wow. Hmmm. That freaked me out a bit although I did work out that’s about $10,000 for 3 months and we’ve budgetted double that. Which is probably about right in terms of inflation. BUT, you didn’t have 3 kids so that could be interesting. One thing we have found with the caravan is that we spend less money on food than we did with the camper trailer. Sounds like I might have a budgetting challenge ahead of me though (which I guess is what I’m starting to realise - have we really budgetted enough? etc).

River - Oh dear! Thanks for the warning. I looked at some roadside stalls coming home (from a distance) but it’s so hard with all the fruit fly restrictions we were passing through that I didn’t risk it. Might be different once we get to the East Coast though. I was hoping to get some cheaper food this way so I’ll have to be extra vigilant.

Your sightseeing budget is pretty conservative. I’m not sure if you are considering hitting places like DreamWorld or SeaWorld - but you’ll blow through almost three hundred dollars getting the family through the gate at each. Although that includes rides, it doesn’t include everything else like exhorbitantly priced food and all that other stuff. You’ll be amazed at the ways that people have come up with to part you from your money in tourist destinations. You’ll probably want to do stuff like go for a boat ride out to the Great Barrier Reef (perhaps even a bit of a snorkel). All of that = $$$. Have you gotten out a lonley planet and worked out generally what you want to do at each place? At least that way you can draft a general budget and be able to assess how you are going.

Ten years ago I spent 4.5 months travelling around Australia in a much smaller car with only one person, paying a lot less for petrol, mostly staying at tent sites (at 1998 rates) and eating far too much 2 minute noodle. That cost $15,000 then. I know that you are way better with money than I am - but I was pretty darn tight on that trip.

Also we always make sure to have decks of cards, some sporting gear (balls, frisbee) and perhaps a kite for passing time in a park or beach without having to fork out money for amusements.