Frommer's Australia from $50 a Day 13th Edition - To Parent Directory

76
CHAPTER 2 . PLANNING AN AFFORDABLE TRIP TO AUSTRALIA
Travel agents rarely list B&Bs
because the establishments are not big
enough to pay commission, so they can
be hard to find. A good source is The
Australian Bed & Breakfast Book (published
by Moonshine Press; & 02/
9985 8500), which lists more than 600
B&Bs across Australia. Although the
B&Bs pay to be in the book, they have
to meet standards required by the editors.
The entire book is posted on the
Web at www.bbbook.com.au. In Australia,
it’s widely available in bookshops
and newsagents; you can also order
it on www.amazon.com or contact
Moonshine Press, which retails it for
A$17 (US$11) plus A$10 (US$6.50)
for overseas postage.
Orangewood, a Northern Territory
B&B, provides an index of Australian
B&B directories at this address: http://
members.ozemail.com.au/~orangewo/
owdirdir.htm.
PUBS Aussie pubs are really made
for drinking, not spending the night,
but some offer rooms upstairs, usually
with shared bathroom facilities.
Because most pubs are decades old,
the rooms may be either old-fashioned
or just plain old. Pub accommodations
are dying out but are still common
in the country. Australians are
rowdy drinkers, so sleeping over the
bar can be hellishly noisy; but the saving
grace is incredibly low rates. Most
charge per person, not per room, and
you will rarely pay more than A$50
(US$33) per person a night.
HOUSE SWAPS Many visitors to
Australia have happily swapped
homes with locals using the Internet
to source their “perfect match.” There
is a plethora of sites that you can use
to make your search. Two that list up
to 100 Australian homes each are
www.holi-swaps.com/swapsau.htm
and www.homebase-hols.com. You
can browse the listings for free, but it
costs around US$37 to view the contact
details, or list your home.
MEET THE AUSSIES
If you want to see an Australian Rules
football game with a knowledgeable
local in Melbourne or swim at Bondi
Beach with a Sydneysider, contact
Friends Overseas—Australia (& 718/
261 0534; www.friendsoverseas.org).
This program is designed to match visitors
with friendly Aussies of like age
and interests, so you can spend time
with them. The membership fee is
US$25.
FARMSTAYS The Aussie answer to
the dude ranch is a farmstay. Australian
farmstays are rarely as well set
up for tourists as the ranch visited by
Billy Crystal’s character in City Slickers.
Most are farms first, tourist operations
second, so you may have to find
your own fun and know how to take
care of yourself, at least to a degree.
Accommodations on farms can be
anything from a basic bunkhouse (ask
if it’s air-conditioned, because most
farms are in very hot areas) to rustically
luxurious digs. Do some research
on your farm—a lot of activities are
seasonal, some farmers will not allow
you to get involved in dangerous
work, not all will offer horseback riding,
and “farm” means different things
in different parts of Australia. If you
like green fields and dairy cows, Victoria
may be the place for you. If
checking fences on a dusty 500,000-
hectare (1.2-million acres) Outback
station (ranch) sounds wildly romantic,
head to Western Australia or the
Northern Territory.
Australian Farm & Country
Tourism (www.farmstaysaustralia.com)
is a co-operative marketing organization
for farmstay properties. It has no
office, so your best contact is Farm &
Country Tourism Victoria (& 1300/
132 358 or 03/9614 0892; www.factv.
com) which dispenses free brochures,
one each for Victoria, New South
Wales, Queensland, South Australia,
and Western Australia, which detail the