Bonus Blog: One Month in Tasmania in Numbers

You might know that I am a bit of a mathematics nerd. You might be wondering how much it costs to spend a month (31 days) in Tasmania? Wonder no more! Here are some insights from our Adventure Spreadsheet.

Spirit of Tasmania

Taking your vehicle there and back again from the mainland costs a bit - especially when you book it only a couple weeks out.

We paid $778.62 to sail there and back with Gary (who needs extra height for his roof rack). This could have been on the order of $540 if we booked a bit further in advance. Less if we had a shorter (height, not length) vehicle, more if we were towing a camper trailer or caravan.

Fuel

We drove a total of 3 276 km around Tasmania - quite a bit! We used 473.26 L of diesel at an average price of $1.42 per litre for the privilege. That makes Gary's fuel economy on the island 14.45 L/100 km. Not bad with the amount of winding mountain ascents and descents, roof rack anti-aerofoil and heavy load.

Our total spend on fuel was $659.99.

Accommodation

We carry our bed with us. We have the equipment to make a hot shower in the wilderness. We free camp as much as we can. In Tasmania this means that out of the 30 nights here we free camped 16 of them. Some of our other nights were low cost ($5-$6), others we spent in caravan parks to use laundry, ablutions and other facilities. On average we spent $8.11 per night on accomodation. Note that some of the 'free' nights were in National Parks using the $60 two month National Parks pass provided for us by very excellent gentleman and wedding guest Ian Burnside - thanks Ian!

Our total spend on accommodation was $259.63.

Groceries and Foraging

We try and self cater as much as we can - cost effective and finding vegan food can be hard. We also like to eat better than Mi Goreng and pasta sauce in a jar. Groceries also includes incidental supermarket stuff like toothpaste and laundry powder. Foraging is a loose term we are using for food 'purchased from the producer/grower/roadside stall/farm gate.'

We spent $810.68 on groceries.

We spent $181.90 foraging.

Meals Out

We try to limit eating out to save money. But it is good to support vegan restaurants and those that offer decent vegan options.

We spent $230.60 on meals out across a total of 5 restaurants and 4 snacks.

Activities

One of the tenets of our adventure is 'do the things at the places' not staring forlornly at others doing the fun stuff for the sake of the budget. We would rather have a shorter adventure and do the things that interest us than travel longer and miss all the cool things.

We spent $442.55 on:

Ghost tour, National Parks Pass, Whiskey Distillery Tour, a couple of films, vintage car museum, magical gardens, a brewery tour, the cascades female factory and the Tahune Airwalk (which included free camping with a ticket).

Coffee

Aeropress every morning. We had coffee not of our own making exactly 4 times for a total of $38.

Booze

Ah Tasmania, the land of whiskey, beer and wine.

$379.99

That includes a very nice single malt from Hellyers Road and a bottle of Vintage Rose from Jansz.

Gas

Replaced one of our 3.7kg gas bottles on the island for $26

Equipment

This is our category for things we get to use or mods to Gary - I spent $81.43 on materials to make an extra heat shield between Gary's turbocharger and auxiliary battery and an extra wooden storage box for the back cargo area.

Laundry

$16

Souvenirs and Postcards

$136.30

Charitable Donations

$21.20

Grand Total

All up our month on the island cost $4 062.89.

$3 284.27 if you take the cost of the ferry away. That works out to just over a hundred dollars a day for everything but the ferry.

Off to the mainland tonight - happy valentines!