Been going through our receipts from previous trips to clean out a bit of my rubbish. I found some old caravan park receipts from 2006 so it will give you an idea of what the increases have been in those years.
Some are not so bad in the big picture.
Winton: $16.50 Don't know now prices
Longreach: $25.00 Don't know now prices
Mt Isa: $18-$27 Don't know now prices.
Lee Point, Darwin: $20 NOW $40.
Free Spirit, Berrimah, Darwin: $25.00 NOW $38-$48.
Fuel averaged over $1.50 a litre than for unleaded though.
These are all places we stayed back then.
Just a bit of trivia guys.
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I must be a binge thinker. I do it a lot at times, then, not much at all.
Not just campsites that have doubled in price in the last 5 years, almost everything has, the labour on servicing and repairs at my local was $25 an hour then, its now $80 and they blame overheads and wages but they havn't doubled. I was still showing the same profit margins when I sold my business last year as I had 4 years previously and yet I only put up my prices marginally. Just don't know where some business are coming from lately.
We run a business as well mate and if we hit our clients with those sort of increases, we would be out of business. We still make a fair profit for a fair service, like you say, and we are happy with that.
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I must be a binge thinker. I do it a lot at times, then, not much at all.
There are two ways to run a business, back then you set up to run for a long time, you set your prices and service to look after the customer and because of this you made a good living on people happy with you so anything they wanted they came back and also told others about you..
Now a lot of businesses look at making as much as they can in a short time, charge as much as possible, and get it done as quickly and with the cheapest components as possible. They don't worry about people coming back as there is plenty more fish in the sea and they'll be trying something else in a couple of years.....
The old law of supply and demand. More caravans/RVs on the road, less park spaces for them. Some of the biggest increases in costs are government (all three levels) taxes, rates, and charges. In Qld (maybe elswhere too, don't know) land tax is based on "best use". If "they" decide that a caravan park worth a million dollars (land value) would be worth 10 million (land value) as (say) an up market resort or a block of units, that's what the land tax is based on.
I am not having a go at the parks either, just amazed at how much all these places want a piece of Nomads because lets face it, Nomads are the ones lining their pockets on a more regular basis than school holidays.
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I must be a binge thinker. I do it a lot at times, then, not much at all.
When I first moved into Vacation Village, Broome in 1998, weekly rent was $75. When I left in 2007 it was $130 per week. Here in the park in Adelaide it's $168 per week, which is $28 per night X 6 nights. Power and all services are included in the rate. In Broome the power was metered and during the dry season it was about $7 per week, and it doubled in the wet season with aircon 24/7. The rising cost of living is scaring me. Privatisation has a lot to do with it. While the government provided utility services and charged enough to cover costs, the new guys in the supply "business", are in the business to make a profit. The 3 layers of government are just getting too greedy, and instead of maintianing basic services and roads etc, they fund monstrous "convention centres", or some other status symbol of the region. The people get nothing or bugger all. All businesses have to cover the cost of providing the services and goods to us, and make a living. My garage charges $90 per hour to service my truck. He does look after me, but that's his basic rate.
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20ft Roma caravan - Mercedes Benz Sprinter - SA-based at the moment. Transport has no borders.
Management makes the decisions, but is not affected by the decisions it makes.
I am in the process of writing up the diary notes I made on our LSL trip of 1993, in Word, and scanning photos in to illustrate. Who knows - the travelling way of life may have become of historical interest in another couple of generations? Anyway, I see we paid $12 a night for a powered site in Denham, but only $6 a night at Yalgoo. Coral Bay was expensive even then, at $17, but Kimberleyland in Kununurra was only $12. I also note that diesel was 65.9 cpl in Perth, the cheapest fuel of that trip was 65.5 in Port Augusta and the dearest $1.00 at El Questro. How things have changed.
They're certainly big increases in 5 years, significantly more than the CPI for sure. This could be just a foretaste of things to come as more and more of us hit the road.
Yeah and then we have to become more self sufficient. The way the telly reports baby boomers, we are all millionaires mate.
This bowser photo is taken at Black Point on the Coburg Peninsula in 2004 when the other half first went up there. It was $2.20 a litre in 2006 when we went up there together.
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I must be a binge thinker. I do it a lot at times, then, not much at all.
