Aussie money is colorful, by the way. And made out of plastic, with a see-through security window. I liked the feel of it. It’s pretty nice to handle. You have to get used to the coins though, some comedian had the brilliant idea to make them smaller the bigger the value…
Australia has been expensive. Quite a blow to the budget. Or at least, it felt like it, after South America, where accommodation was relatively cheap, transport did cost nothing and drinks weren’t expensive either. Nothing beats that big 600 Chilean Peso Gin Tonic, around 70 Euro cents.
Down under, however, I had to spend more. Drinks in bars varied between 2$ a schooner during happy hour to 10$ the next (weekend) night. Four beers later you’re 25 Euros poorer. And just had beers…. A weekend with cocktails and entries and movies and dinners can quickly spiral out of control.
At one point, when looking at the figures in my excel sheet, I really had to reign in the breaks, otherwise it would have ended badly. In total, in those 55 days I spent:
2230 € Accommodation (Airbnb and the hotel in Hobart)
1770 € Restaurants & Bars (I really didn’t cook that much at home…)
660 € Transport (Myki monthly pass, Taxis, and including the rental car in Tasmania)
495 € Other (Pool pass, phone, clothing, haircuts)
385 € Culture (especially Midsumma tickets)
380 € Supermarkets
In total, it comes to 5920 €, and therefore 420 € over budget. That is still ok. I was fearing much worse.
However, the damage would have been much worse if I could not have stayed with Sven and Kevin at their place in Sydney, and with them and Rajiv at Will’s place in Melbourne for free for the first 12 days in Australia. Considering this, I would probably have had to add another 600 € to the accommodation budget… Just to put it into perspective.
On top of that, I have spent 350 € for the internal flights around Australia. I decided not to count them in the city’s budget, as I do not count the price of the RTW ticket, either. But then, isn’t that the kind of creative book keeping that got Greece into trouble…?