The high cost of empty caravan parks

The impact the spiking price of diesel triggered by the Middle East war is having on caravanning is obvious across the outback.

I can guarantee it because I’m out there and seeing it with my own eyes.

In Coober Pedy in mid-April there were three other 'vans at the Opal Inn caravan park when we arrived. Two days later we had the place to ourselves.

A few days later we were feeling quite lonely again at Discovery Resort Kings Canyon, a swanky 'van park that has pretty much exclusive access to one of Australia’s great outback attractions.

Perhaps 10 'vans and a couple of rental motorhomes were parked up across the dozens of powered sites. This during South Australian school holidays when the place is traditionally booked out.

A few days later at the smaller, independent Temple Bar Carvan Park on the outskirts of Alice Springs, it was a similar story.

No need to book admitted co-owner and manager Tricia Cramer, there was plenty of space just to roll up and grab a powered site on grass under ghost gums at this pretty park nestled in the West McDonell Ranges.

“We’d normally be a lot busier than this,” Tricia said

“As soon as the price of fuel went up and everything blew up in the Middle East the phone calls started with cancellations.

“People were more concerned with availability of fuel than the price. Whether they were going to get somewhere and not be able to continue or get back.”

When my wife Jane and I first set out on our six month sojourn to the western half of Australia on April 1 it didn’t seem like the oil price was having a big impact on 'vanning.

We plunged into the Easter break, the AFL Gather Round and SA school holidays as we made our way from Melbourne to Adelaide and on to the Barossa Valley.

Halls Gap, Murray Bridge, our park in Adelaide and then the Big 4 in Nurioopta were all doing bustling business.  Even when we moved on to Rawnsley Park station in the Flinders Ranges the caravan park there had no shortage of fellow travellers.

It seemed many people were determined to keep those holiday bookings. Everywhere we went was teeming with family groups enjoying their time together.

But the change was palpable once we turned truly north and headed up the guts toward Darwin.

It was clear the steep petrol and especially diesel prices and questions over availability had prompted many people to delay or even cancel plans. Some people already out on the road had settled in where they were to wait it out.

A key consideration for many potential travellers was priorities. Should we be even considering this trip given the transport and farming industries needed diesel to keep the wheels of the economy turning?

In an article on The Guardian news website veteran travellers Jan and Earl Robinson explained why they were staying home.

“In our opinion, caravanning is a real luxury. We just don’t feel it’s warranted at the moment,” said Jan, 71. “I feel really sorry for the caravan parks and places like that.”

There is no doubt the impact the price spike is going to have – is having – on not only caravan parks and the tourism industry but auto brands that sell the diesel utes and SUVs favoured by towers, caravan makers and regional economies.

At Nurioopta, as footy fans filled the giant BIG4 site with millions of dollars’ worth of diesel utes and SUVs towing family and couples 'vans, it wasn’t hard to understand the potential impact a fall-off in participation would have.

The parks are bearing the brunt of the immediate pain and it shows in the deals being offered. In addition to a stay four nights pay for three deal, Discovery has a $20 powered sites offer in place across Victora and New South Wales.

Another big chain, G’day, has also rolled out a bunch of discount deals across its network.

BIG4 Perks+ members now have the chance to score a discount up to $3000 on a new Ford, which makes sense considering Ranger and Everest are two of the most popular tow vehicles you see out here.

While Ranger 4x4 sales held up pretty well in March (down seven per cent year on year), the 4x4 ute category was down 12 per cent overall.

So considering everything that’s going on, why did we still decide to head off on our trip?

The last few weeks before the journey started certainly turned into a should we shouldn’t we?, can we can’t we?, debate as the war in the Middle East flared up.

The price of diesel was one thing, but even more concerning was the prospect of it simply not being available at all.

If the shit hit the fan big time and we got stuck somewhere for months, did we really want it to be Horsham, Coober Pedy or some outback roadhouse?

But with our house rented out and so much invested in this trip already as we planned and paid for it over the last 12 months, we decided to go as far as Adelaide and see what happened from there.

The day before we left a cut in fuel excise was announced. We took that as official permission to go.

In Adelaide we reviewed and elected to keep travelling. If the price stretched the budget we’d free camp more often. The reports on availability indicated we should at least get to Darwin.

As we’ve got more remote many of the people we’ve met out here have had a similar stories. They’d been working toward their dream trip for so long and put so much in place that they couldn’t see the point of delaying or cancelling. Like us, they would improvise as they went along if they had to.

On this trip we’ve paid as much as $3.72 per litre at the Erldunda roadhouse in the southern Northern Territory and as little as $2.65 per litre just two days later in Alice Springs.

Whether that was an aberration or signifies relief is on the way we’ll have to wait and see.

If there’s one silver lining in all this for those of us who did elect to continue on, there’s no need to worry about forward bookings. There’s plenty of space wherever you go!

But maybe that’s changing. Tricia Cramer at Temple Bar says there has been an uptick in booking enquiries in the last week or so as those who delayed start reconsidering.

“People are saying when it first blew up, they just thought ‘oh, shit, we can't go. It's just going to be too uncertain with the price and everything else’.

“And then the government just started telling us what to do and they were just thinking along the lines of COVID.

“But now they’re saying ‘we're still going to do what we want to do, we're just going to have to be careful and factor in the prices’.”

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