Getting my act together

The Gear You Need My first piece of advice to anyone coming to Australia for over 4-5 months:  buy yourself the best used car you can afford, keeping in mind that you'll probably recoup 40-50% of the cost when you eventually sell it.  Personally, I wouldn't spend more than AUD 5,000 on a 6-cylinder 2WD, which will suffice most travelers driving around this continent.  AUD 3,500-4,000 is more ideal.   If you can't afford even this, pal up with a few mates and jointly purchase the car. A car lets you go where you want when you want.  You're not beholden to more expensive tours and traveling.  Once you have the vehicle, you need to stock it with enough things to make yourself self sufficient.   Item Cost (AUD) Purpose backpack For a good one, at least AUD 300.  This will have multiple pockets and a removable daypack, possibly a rain cover.  Cheaper ones can be found for under AUD 60.  The way to go is to by a travelpack.  It's a backpack, but you can conceal the backpack straps when you ship it.  Newer models can have wheels on the bottom for easy moving. Any time you travel you need to take a suitcase.  Why not expand the idea of a suitcase to include a suitcase you can wear on your back?  It'll fit better in a car and travel better on a train.  fold-out camping chair  I didn't think I'd need one of these, but when I saw that they were priced at AUD 10 at Bunnings, I thought "What the @()#*?"  And it turned out to be one of the items I used constantly.  Preferably get a camping chair that has a mug holder in one of the arms.  See pic.  Today, you'll pay AUD 15 and up for a chair. What could be more useful than a chair that practically folds up into nothing? Much of Australia's wonderful landscapes are the middle of nowhere, and the middle of nowhere isn't renowned for offering comfortable seating. Imagine yourself with a freshly brewed cup of coffee looking out a trio of kangaroos and an emu, thinking, "Life could only get better if I made $20m for 3 months work on a Hollywood movie set." cooking set  Again, depending on quality, you can get used ones for under AUD 10 and a brand new set with four of everything for between AUD 25-50.  Plastic gear is cheaper.  You could supplement this stock with secondhand spatulas, wooden spoons, and can openers, etc. How do you intend to eat and rink on the road, genius?  two- or three-burner gas stove  About AUD 70 for a two-burner.  Make sure it uses standard gas cylinders refillable inexpensively at any gas station.   Stay away from cheaper butane 1-burner stoves.  The flame never get quite as hot and the butane stoves burn quickly through the more expensive cannisters, which are harder to find on the road It is an asset to be able to cook food on the road. Outside the big cities, the food in Australia at restaurants and roadstalls is average and unhealthy. Chain grocery stores are to be found throughout the land, and you can buy decent produce at them all. A 3-burner stove wouldn't be necessary unless 3 or 4 of you were traveling together. A 2-burner is quite useful. You could, for example, boil the water for pasta on one burner and cook the pasta on the other. These types of stoves are very fuel efficient, and in a year in Australia, I only refilled my 2 kg gas cylinder one time, which was used to power both my stove and my lantern.  fold-out table  About AUD 50.  You can spend considerably more on one, but it's not necessary. A table that can seat 2 or 3 is adequate. You may not even eat at the table, but it'll still prove beneficial for laying down cooking ingredients, empty plates, etc. This is one item I didn't buy but should have.  Many of the places you'll be stopping for the night will have inadequate cooking facilities. Because I lacked a table, I placed by 2-burner stove on the ground and tried to do my cutting on a cutting board placed on a tree stump or on the hood of my car. A cheap, lightweight fold-out table will earn its keep on the road. Buy this used if you can. A new table will yield no more value than a used one.  fold-out table with chairs  AUD 40.  If you're traveling alone or as a couple or just 2 buddies, I wouldn't bother with the set. This would be useful if a family or four people were on the road together  Kids or spoiled girlfriends won't want to sit on the sand or the dirt to eat. They'll expect 'five-star' treatment. A dining set would be beneficial for these situations.   sleeping bags AUD 25 for summer temperatures.  AUD 60-100 for winter ones.   You'd ideally pack two sleeping bags.  A sleeping bag is better than a blanket. It rolls up and becomes compact. I set off for Tasmania borrowing a friend's sleeping bag she used for traveling in Africa. That sleeping bag was comfortable for warm climates. I froze sleeping in it during the Tasmanian summer nights. One zero-temperature sleeping bag could suffice, if you unzipped it and slept on it rather than it during warm nights. Otherwise, I'd recommend having two sleeping bags. I eventually forked out and bought a warmer sleeping bag for camping in the Northern Territory.   gas cylinder The common ones to get are Primus, and they can be refilled cheaply at most any gasoline/petrol station.   Cost 1.25 kg:  AUD 40.   2 kg:  AUD 50.   A 2 kg cylinder should suffice.  These aren't compact, but they're fuel efficient and common throughout Australia. These cylinders will power camping radiators, heaters, lanterns, stoves. Refilling a 4.5 kg cylinder costs about AUD 13. If your bottle lacks a gauge (and most do), you'll know your low on gas when you stove becomes more difficult to light. Gas outlets don't charge less for refilling half a bottle. 20-liter jerry can  AUD 40-50.  There are times you could be traveling through remote regions. It never hurts to have an additional 20 liters of gasoline handy should that be the case. A 20-liter can will be sufficient. I only required the jerry can 3-4 times on my entire trip.  tent  AUD 40 on up.   This was the first item I bought after I got to Australia. I found a brand new dome tent on eBay for AUD 20. My tent was adequate for two to comfortably sleep within. Dome tents work best. Two or three foldable fiberglass poles support the structure of the tent. Stakes can optionally be inserted into the ground if there is insufficient weight in the tent or the weather is windy. The point is: dome tents don't need to be staked to be setup. And they're quite easy to setup. A tent with a tarp cover allows you to sleep wherever you want. In Tasmania, camping is the best and the most economical option. The best Tasmania has to offer would be out of reach if you weren't willing to camp. Buying yourself a large tent with pillars and an adjoining kitchen is overkill. These tents require too much effort to setup and aren't practical on a long haul trip through the Australian continent.  inflatable pillow  AUD 20 You need somewhere comfortable to rest that head in your tent. I used both a pillow from a secondhand shop and inflatable one on my travels.  tent mattress AUD 7 to AUD 25 on up for self-inflatable ones.  I paid about AUD 25 for a self-inflatable mattress that could sleep only one. In retrospect, I would've purchased a twin-sized inflatable to cover me when I rolled over during the night (and on the offchance you obtain an unexpected pickup). A tent mattress of some kind of a necessity. When I traveled through Africa, I used a cheap foam type. It did the job. A mattress provides comfort for the back when pitching your tent on hard surface and it also offers temperature insulation.  headlamp AUD 25 and up. I bought a three-mode headlamp in Hobart, Tasmania I use to this day for just AUD 19.95.  In Asia, you can get the same lamp for AUD 6.  .  They're superiors to flashlights in every way. You can set up a tent and read, two things you won't be able to do easily if you're holding a flashlight in one hand. Stop being a pennypincher and get your head on one of these.    thermals AUD 30 for a polypropylene top and AUD 30 for a polypropylene pant. I bought two tops, a short-sleeve and a long-sleeve, and one bottom during a summer sale in Melbourne. Sure, you've got your subzero sleeping bag, but what about walking about and cooking dinner. I packed only one light Gore-tex windbreaker. I wasn't going to pack a padded winter-type coat, too. It would take up too much room in my backpack. If you wear a thermal top and bottom beneath your shirt and pants, it will do much to preserve body heat and keep you warm during cool nights. There were many times I slept with my thermals in the subzero sleeping bag.  pocket stove  From AUD 35 for a simple one, all the way up to several hundred dollars for pocket stoves that burn multiple fuels. The generic PocketRocket I bought in Tasmania for AUD 40 burned blended fuel (either 70% butane-30% propane or 80% IsoButane-20% Propane) in 227g (8 oz) canisters. The burn time for one canister is only an hour, and the canisters are not nearly as cost effective as the the larger LPG cylinders used with larger 2-burner stoves. In every regard, the larger LPG stoves are superior. They're more fuel efficient and they get to boiling temperatures faster. The pocket stoves are for different purposes, either for making quick pot of tea on the road or, even more likely, for use on treks, when carrying the larger stove and accompanying cylinders is impossible.   The pocket stoves weigh next to nothing, and even if you just use it once on a 3-day trek, it'll be worth your while to buy. 20-liter water container  AUD 30-35.   There's nothing sophisticated about these. You don't one to consider one with less than a 20 liter capacity.  You can never be self sufficient without fresh water. I refilled to this rim as often as I came into contact with the freshest water supplies. In Western Australia, I had access to water tank filled with the freshest of rain water. I emptied out the entire contents and refilled to overflowing, and this water lasted me the rest of my trip.  pocket knife (Swiss army or copy)  AUD 35, if an authentic Swiss one; AUD 15 or possibly lower if it's Chinese copy.  The copies are sold over Asia, and some of the Taiwanese ones are made well enough.  Even if you weren't planning to be self sufficient throughout your trip to Australia, a pocket knife is always a handy tool to have around. It never hurts to have a screw driver, knife blade, or can opener at your disposal.  lanterns  AUD 20-30, depending on size and illumination.  I purchased a small lantern midway through my trip. Pitching the gas cylinder and lantern outside my tent, I could read quite well lying side, shielded from mosquitoes by my tent's mosquito net. My only regret: I should've bought a lantern right from the very beginning. They burn the LPG very, very efficiently and it's quite easy to extend a hose from the lantern pole and extend it right to your stove, so that the stove and the lantern can be used simultaneously with the same gas cylinder.  Where To Buy All This Wonderful Gear Australia is so far from where wherever you're probably coming from that even if you owned similar gear back in your home country, you're not going to haul it this far or take it back with you.  In fact, it's for this very reason that I didn't travel to New Zealand.  I had already invested in a car and travel gear for Australia.  If I flew to New Zealand as well, which the majority of long-term travelers to Australia do, I'd have to leave behind the car and most of the gear.   So you're left with two choices Down Under:  buy the gear new or buy the gear used.   If you're buying a cheapo backpacker mobile, there's more than an off chance it has some travel gear included, though this travel gear may have been used more times than a Broadway streetwalker.  My recommendation is that unless you're getting a killer deal on secondhand gear, just buy it all new.   I was able to sell all my gear in the weeks before I left for only a AUD 100-150 loss. Effectively, it cost me only AUD 100-50 to rent all brand new gear for a year. The beneficiaries of your year-old gear will most likely be Australians in the market for quality gear vs backpackers looking for something for the cheapest price. Some places to look for gear: Ray's Outdoors Close to 40 stores in five Australian states and the Australian Capital Territory.   I bought two-thirds of my gear at Ray's.  Kathmandu Another camping store found throughout Australia . . . and New Zealand, too.   And 6 stores in the UK as well. I got a full set of thermals at Kathmandu on sale just as the Australian autumn was ending.     Camping World Another coast-to-coast Australian chain with almost 50 stores.  Budget Camping A New South Wales stand-alone that offers bedding, tents, lamps, mattresses, and coolers.  Paddy Pallin An Australian family-owned company that got started in 1930.   A small outfit compared to others with only 13 stores all across Australia, but does mail order. Has their own respected Pallin line of clothing ware.  Discount  Camping A one-shop South Australian outfit which also does mail order.  Anaconda Another Australian family-owned camping store with 13 stores, mostly in Victoria and Queensland, but a few scattered among Western Australia, Tasmania, New South Wales, and South Australia Wellington Surplus Stores  A Perth, Western Australia-based store, specializing in "the widest range of camping and survival equipment, field gear, and militaria."  Aussie Disposals Mostly Victoria-based chain with the usual array of sleeping bags. I purchased some fuel canisters for a quick burning stove here but wound up returning them when I bought a more common 2-burner stove which utilized more common and efficient gas cylinders. Another place to check is eBay Australia.   I managed to buy a brand new two-man domed tent for AUD 20.  Add in an additional AUD 25 for shipping from Queensland to Victoria, and it was still a baetter deal than what I could find for an equivalent tent in the local camping stores.  I was able to sell the tent to penny pinching Israeli for AUD 25 before I left the country. Shop at charity stores, located near most shopping complexes in Australia, for the odds and ends. I picked up a pillow cases, knives, cutting boards, basic kitchen utensils, and so on for very little money at these stores. You're not buying any of this stuff to show off in your new kitchen. You just need some kind of workable item that will suffice on your travels. Happy shopping!