# Car/Campervan Hire



## SaxMyster (Jan 18, 2011)

Hey guys

Myself and a friend are travelling to Australia in April for a month. Landing in Carins and making our way down the East Coast where we can drop the vehicle off at Sydney. We're looking at car or campervan hire depending on what is cheaper. 

Any links to websites or advice is much appreciated.


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## Wanderer (Jun 16, 2007)

I hope for you that if it is in early April, you'll not catch the end of a big wet season and it can be a bit damp all the way through April at times and very humid even if not wet weather at times or caught in a cyclone.

I reckon hiring a small car and using cabins in holiday caravan parks would be the way to go for if it is warm and humid/wet, a campervan is not the best place to be compared to more room in a cabin and for a decent size campervan you could be up for $200+/day and based on averaging a couple of hundred km. a day you'll probably pay an extra $15/d for fuel whereas a small car you could get for about $40/d and a nice cabin for two anywhere about $80 - $100/n and basic ones even cheaper.

The advantages for a campervan are being able to stop just about anywhere, you being able to pull up in various places for free without too great a difficulty, though if looking for park type facilities, you could be looking at another $25/30 a night for site fees whilst April other than the Easter/Anzac Day weekend at the end of April you should have little problem in getting accommodation either in cabins or even motels or old pubs - Welcome to Gday Pubs | G'day Pubs - Enjoy our Great Australian Pubs , some even quite cheap and full of character, especially inland a bit if you want to vary your route a bit, some of the coastal highway sections [ and you are rarely right on the coast and actually well away from it ] being a bit drab and having more traffic whereas inland touring is more relaxing.
BIG4 Holiday Parks - Australia and Top Tourist Parks, Your Holiday Gateway will give you an idea of some of the better class parks about but even private unconnected ones are pretty good and you'll find many on Caravan Park, Campsite, Caravan, Tent, Cabin Accommodation - Australia Wide - Caravan Parks Online and these days just about every town along the coast will have a couple or more and most with cabins.
If you sign up with a chain, you can get a membership card and dicount whish pays for itself after about 3 - 4 nights.

The other advantage that some people see with a campervan is that you can buy fresh food etc. in a supermarket but with a car, just buy a cheap foam esky and a bag of ice for about $3 every second day and you can keep drinks cold and fit in a bit of food and then you'll be more inclined to use a free BBQ or one in a park and outdoor eating area and not have the chore of cooking and cleaning up in a campervan.

Even though campervans are easy enough to drive, they still ain't quite like driving a car but they do have you sitting a bit higher to see more but then you could get distracted and have an accident!

Just be as flexible as you can in what you decide to do, just in case the weather turns nasty.
Car Hire | Car Rental & Campervan Hire Australia - DriveNow is a site that will do a search of deals for you and many more like that too.

A cross between Camper and Car if you do not mind a squeeze would be Jucy Juicy Australia Campervan Hire - Sydney,Brisbane, Cairns & Australia Wide

As far as cars once you see what company has the best price, you might want to wait on booking to see if there are some discount deals in the airline magazine as often are.
You do not really need to book straight away as you'll probably want a couple of days in Cairns taking it easy to adjust, a great lowland rainforest boardwalk up to the Botanical Gardens just north of CBD and adjacent Gwonwanaland Walk and then up Mt. White it may be and then maybe a day trip out to Fitzroy Island for an overnight stay or up to Cape Tribulation Beach House Cape Tribulation Resort Accommodation in Cape Tribulation - Cape Tribulation Accommodation on the beach at Cape Trib for a stay right in the rainforest and many other choices too, the road up is about the longest stretch of road actually on the coast and a great drive but just as easy to get a bus/tour up there, book a reef trip from there or horse ride or sea kayak etc.

So you can really do the Cairns region without a car and so wait until you arrive to book after checking for discounts and then make the booking from Cairns airport desk to get it for when you plan to leave.
When you land the locals will know if there is a cyclone or some really wet weather building and you can decide on whether you want to drop a few things and hightail it out of town just in case you could get flooded in, or you may already be flooded in and so have to adjust your plans and do some more things, a drive up to Cooktown and the hinterland etc. and if it is really wet, you may find that you could get from Cairns to Townsville via the inland route and some caves and hot springs inland too.

Do not worry about missing the reef for plenty of places you can get a trip out from as you head south.


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