Tag: caravaning

  • Banksia Bluff Campground – Free

    Banksia Bluff Campground – Free

    This is a free campground that has to be booked, and boy, were we surprised by how good it was. Very dog friendly and heaps of walking tracks to go on and beaches and tracks to explore.

    If you are following these blog posts, our previous campsite was Lake King Waterfront Park.

    • Website: Banksia Bluff Campground
    • Fee Category: Free
    • Booking: Yes
    • Dog Friendly: Yes
    • Amenities: Toilets
    • Dump point: No
    • Pool: No
    • Fire pits: Yes
    • Telstra: Good
    • Starlink: May have problems with trees
    • Generator: No
    Banksia Bluff Campground campground D
    Banksia Bluff Campground campground D

    Our Experience

    You do have to be self contained and unfortunately there is a no generator rule. When we saw that we decided to kept our stay short as we didn’t know how much tree cover we would have. It turned out we could have stayed longer as our campsite was quite open however as it was already booked we weren’t able to extend it. Other sites are not so fortunate, with some having a lot of tree cover.

    Our campsite was sheltered by the bushes, good in windy conditions, but if there on a hot day it may mean a trip to the beach, which is only a 1 minute walk away. It is a very well laid out and it is easy to find your campsite.

    If you come here with a dog, you will have to look at the website closely before booking, as there are, I think 2 which are NOT dog friendly, campsites C, D, E, F are dog friendly. Also not all campsite are caravan suitable, again check the website forms carefully for your requirements.

    The toilets were flushing, and even had toilet paper there. Different campgrounds had different toilet blocks. There is also plenty of bins, and recycling options.

    Overall it appears that they have done quite a lot of work here. There is a day area that has BBQ. Walking tracks with boardwalks in place that looked fairly new.

    Campfires are allowed. Campsite C has a communal fire pit where as the rest that we saw had one at each site. You can buy firewood from the main office, but be aware it is expensive at $29 / bag.

    Pics from around the area


    Weather

    Looking at the weather data, the temperatures look fairly steady throughout the year, and unfortunately the rain looks pretty steady as well. Just will have to be lucky in trying to avoid the rain. We stayed here towards the end of March 2025 and we had no rain.

    Weather Averages – Marlo

    MonthJanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember
    Temp Max C26.225.524.020.917.815.315.116.218.320.122.124.0
    Temp Min C14.914.613.110.88.46.45.66.27.69.211.512.9
    Rain Avg (mm)72.566.583.3100.958.289.855.563.163.684.776.6139.6
    This table will show the average temp min/max rainfall per month

  • 2024 – Year in Review

    2024 – Year in Review

    What does it cost to travel around Australia in a caravan? This is probably the number one question asked, quickly followed by “will I still be married afterwards?”

    Difficult questions to answer, when everybody has different expectations and budgets. We can only give our experience so far.

    We started off on our travels in August 2024. Initially staying in Brisbane for 2 weeks while we got things tidied up, then heading north as far as Townsville, then all the way south to Millicent in South Australia.

    5 months, and a few lessons have been learnt along the way.

    Money

    The number 1 question everybody seems to want to know is how much does it cost to travel around Australia. Well for us it has cost us this much, lets break it down.

    2024 Expenses summary
    2024 Expenses summary

    This does not include insurance (car & caravan), or our storage fees. In 2025, this is looking to be about 10K combined.

    Fuel

    This is another favourite, how much fuel does it take to travel around?

    Total Klm11,539 Km
    Total Cost$4,604.58
    Average L/100km20.01 L/100
    Avg cost/tank$124.45

    Note: this is a combined towing/not towing fuel figure.

    This is what I expected, I did a lot of research about this, since we are driving a 5.6L V8 petrol Nissan Patrol, so before purchasing the vehicle a lot of things were looked at, safety, reliability, off-roading, towing. The conclusion I came to, it doesn’t matter what you drive, if your GCM is about 6+ Tonnes, your fuel consumption will be about this figure.

    Unusual expenses

    • When back in Brisbane, we bought more accessories for the caravan and car, this was over $1000.
    • We had a wedding to attend, which involved us staying at an expensive caravan park (Over $110/night), plus because we were part of a group, there was plenty of eating out and drinking.
    • We bought a generator, it became obvious that you cannot always rely on the sun, and new portable solar panels, as the ones we had failed.
    • We bought a smart TV, as the one that came with the caravan was not smart.
    • Both of us had some medical issues, which involved CT scans, MRI’s and specialist doctors.

    Summary

    Now that we have been in the caravan for 5 months, I think it is safe to say we have most things that we need. Do we want more stuff, yes, but that will always be the case, every where you go you will always find new stuff to buy.

    So unless stuff breaks, we should be able to travel a bit cheaper in 2025. Hopefully.

    Average/month = $6,300 or 1,600/week

    We hope 2025 can be a bit cheaper. At this rate we will run out of money in a few years time. ☹️

    Plans going forward

    We need to get our expenses below $5.000/month. So to achieve this we are going to try –

    • More free camps – caravan parks can be expensive, and now that we have a generator, we should be able to stay off grid longer.
    • Caravan park discounts– take advantage of the special deals that come around.
    • Less eating out/takeaways – This is getting expensive, for us it starts at $50 and can get quite easily to over $100. That’s almost a weeks groceries!

    There you have it, we are very lucky to be able to do this at this time in our lives, but it will be a shame if we have to stop due to lack of money.

    As always thoughts and comments below.