HELP OUT A CANADIAN!!

[jackhennigan]

Hey Guys,

Found your link from Pinkbike. I was wondering if someone could help me out with a few traveling questions about Austrialia. I am not bringing my bike, it too heavy to lug around, I am sure 100 people will say it's a mistake, but oh well

1. We want to travel from Cairns to Melborne is Two and half months, is this too short a time?

2. We want to buy a station wagon in Cairns, that would accually get us to Melborne. We are ariving in June or in September. Any help?

3. What is the weather like June- September. Is it going to be too cold because its your winter? or 15C+ all the time (which is hot for a Canadian)


Thanks for your help. If you need any help about Canada just ask.

[belly_up]

Hi Jack,

Welcome to the forum, and good choice coming to Australia :D

To answer your questions, 2.5 months should be plenty to travel from Cairns to Melbourne, i guess it just depends how often and for how long you are going to stop.

In terms of a station wagon to get you around, you'd be looking at something like a Holden Commodore, a Ford Falcon, a Mitsubishi Magna, maybe a Toyota Camry. Your choice of vehicle depends a fair bit on how much you want to spend obviously, but you should be able to pick up something suitable for a few thousand dollars. If looking at the bigger engined cars like the Commodore or Falcon, see if you can find one that runs on LPG, as these cars, especially older ones, like to use a bit of fuel (nothing like American cars, but then we don't have their petrol prices either, i don't really know what your cars ar like in Canada.)
If you want to get a better idea of prices, go to CarPoint (http://www.carpoint.com.au) and check out some prices in the used car section. And on the topic of petrol, prices here at the moment are around $0.90AUD / litre, but with the war and all this could change a lot by June. And all the cars i mentioned should do between 10 and 15 litres/100km, depending on the vehicle and driving conditions.

Whether will vary greatly between Cairns and Melbourne, Cairns is tropical, and Melbourne, well, isn't. I went to the Bureau Of Meteorology site (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/map/anual_rainfall/) and found some graphs of temperature, which i have posted in a gallery (http://www.farkin.net/forums/viewalbum.php?n=77#77)

[josh]

Hey Jack!

Yep what Adam said is right, 2 and a half months from Cairns to Melbourne will be sufficient.

If you had of bought your bike...you would see some sweet ass riding, especially up around Cairns, home to Sean Mccaroll, Mick Hannah and Bryn Atkinson...aswell as home to those crazy mudcows videos!

So does this mean im the 1st of 100 people? :P :P :P

Have fun on your trip mate, any more questions and I'm sure we will be only to happy to help :D

[jackhennigan]

Thanks so much for the help guys. If you need anything from Canada and can meet me in Cairns around June 25, let me know. I just wan to surf and sit on a beach. Maybe we could hook up and take some pictures. If you wan to see some of my photos search my name on pinkbike. And if anyone knows anymore info on cars and stuff keep the information commin. You guys rock, I can wait to meet more helpful Auzies!

[belly_up]

Not a problem mate, glad to be of assistance.
I don't think many of us are likely to be in Cairns, but if you're travelling to Melbourne you'll most likely go pretty close to Toowoomba, where many of us are based. We're an hour and a bit west of Brisbane, on the Great Dividing Range (thus all our mountains for riding on :D )
I'll have to have a think if there is anything i need from Canada, thanks muchly for the offer.

Like Josh said, i hope you enjoy your trip and have a great time. Hopefully we'll see you on the forums between now and then ayway.

Further on the car topic, another place you might like to look is The Trading Post (http://www.tradingpost.com.au/main.asp?State=QLD), and just use the keyword search on the left hand side to search for some of the models i mentioned. you might want to put a price range in too, those 4 models are about the 4 most popular cars in Australia, and range from $200 to $90,000. :)

Oh, it's spelt "Aussies" :P i don't mind, but those little things make the difference to some (fussy) people.