Having completed our  ‘trip to the tip’, it’s time to look at the statistics and give people an idea of how far we travelled, how much we spent and how many days we took.

The distance from Lakeland on Cape York where we left our caravan, to the very tip of Queensland at Pajinka was around 780 kilometres one way.

Of that, roughly 330 kilometres were on bitumen and 450 kilometres on dirt road. This was deducted very scientifically by me scribbling down kilometre marks every time we changed from one surface to another. (which is why I say roughly!)

The most expensive price we paid for diesel was $2.70 per litre, at Bramwell Roadhouse and overall the average amount was $2.50 per litre. The cheapest fuel was $1.99 at Lakeland.

The longest leg of the journey was on our final day when we drove from Weipa back to Lakeland, a distance of 573 kilometres.  Our shortest day’s travel was a tiny 4 kilometres from Loyalty Beach to Seisia, and that was because we wanted to experience all of the camping / caravan parks.

We didn’t do any free camping or national park camping but we stayed at campgrounds, caravan parks and stations, mainly because with tenting, we looked for a little bit of luxury with amenities and looked forward to the company of others.

Altogether we had 12 days on the road with 8 powered sites and 4 unpowered. The power was useful for making sure phones, ipad, and camera batteries were charged as well as plugging the car fridge in to make sure we didn’t have to rely on solar panels alone.

Our total expenses were $570 for diesel, Camping costs $494, Tours and Ferry prices $380 and surprisingly the biggest expense was food and drink at around $1050. This included buying groceries, meat etc… which is expensive on the cape but also we didn’t hold back on eating out for special nights that the accommodation places put on, and of course you can’t BYO drinks so you also have to buy them while you’re dining out. Altogether our expenses averaged out to around $207 per day.

We also spent money on a few souvenir items and a few dollars here and there for the use of washing machines and wifi. You could probably do it cheaper if you didn’t eat out or buy drinks at communal areas, but you’d also miss out on hearing some great stories and meeting terrific people.

Our cheapest unpowered tent sites were around $30 per night and the most expensive, a staggering $60 and even more than $70 per night for powered tent sites – and that’s the same price that a caravan or camper trailer would be paying. We still maintain though the best decision we made was to leave the caravan in safe storage at Lakeland Caravan Park.

Would we do it again? I think yes, but time and confidence in our vehicle’s capabilities will tell!

Let me know if there are any other facts or stats you’d like to know about the trip, or any other questions you may have.

Cheers

Glenys