Australia, The Great Adventure

Archive for February, 2008

Be careful what you say. Sometimes your words will come back to haunt you!

As you would know, if you have been following our progress, we were looking at getting a camper trailer to head off on our Australian Great Adventure.

I have been living under a misconception for the last year and a half.

When I bought our current car - a Hyundai Sonata - new, I was told that Hyundai offers “Premium Assist”, which, I was told, is the equivalent of RACV’s roadside assist. So, and I confirmed this with the sales rep, I didn’t need to retain my RACV roadside assistance. So I duly cancelled it.

I have now just found out after calling Hyundai’s head office in Sydney, that the Roadside Assist does not apply to my Sonata. The only assistance offered is if it breaks down due to a manufacturer’s fault, they will tow it to a service centre.

Given that we are now looking at camper trailers (you know, the trailers that fold out into a tent, with the main bed already made up on the trailer), we need to define what we are looking for, so we know what is required and what is not.

What we would like is to find someone who has had enough of camping, and are selling off the lot - the camper trailer and all of the gear. They need to be local (Melbourne - preferably out the Northern / Western side). And it needs to come in at (well) less than $3,000.

Home educating our kids gives us a great excuse to purchase memberships to things such as the zoo and the museum. However each membership is yearly, and is generally not an insiginificant amount of money, and with us planning on travelling around Australia, we had to look at each one to see if it is worth renewing for the year. Most memberships offer reciprocal entry with other similar places, so this post explores just what is on offer.

Friends of the Zoo
Our zoo membership gives us free entry into Melbourne Zoo, Healesville Sanctuary and Werribee Open Range Zoo. It costs us $185 per year for a family membership. Reciprocal entry available at: