Hi all, me and a couple of friends have booked flights to Australia, arriving in September (after 2 weeks in Thailand) and I have a few questions.

We are all bringing money, but we aim to work a lot in Aus to fund our travelling/sightseeing etc.
Firstly, we were hoping to target a city, and then find a flat there that we could rent out for a few months and work there for a while to save up money. How easy is it to find cheap flats to rent? (2 bedrooms) and also would Sydney be a lot more expensive for accomodation than other places like Brisbane etc? Also, how easy is it to get work over there (anything, bar work, fruit picking etc.) and would the plan of working whilst saving money enable us to save enough to travel afterwards?
We can book our flights home whenever within the year so we could potentially work for quite a while before doing the main travelling part at the end including NZ.

Any help/advice would be much appreciated.

Adam

Oh, and I was also wondering how much part time work gets paid in Australia?
Bar work, waiting on, glass collecting etc?
And also what is the pay like for fruit picking

there's a lot of work in perth too.

work wasn't too hard to find when i was there but the economy has changed a lot since then but i hear from friend's its still not too hard. You'll need a working holiday if you want to be legit and get a bank account. If you want to do it under the table, lots of people need day laborers. The pay is about 20 AUD per hour.

I think your best bet would be fruit picking and the like, the government has a good resource for getting harvest jobs here: http://jobsearch.gov.au/harvesttrail/default.aspx

I should let you know that you're not exactly coming at a good time for rentals. There's a shortage of rentals/investment property at the moment, and its very competitive. (Most people take about 3 months to find a house. In one of my friend's cases they had to commit to 6 months rent in advance to get their house) Rental companies look more for people with full time jobs, etc. vs. holiday visa holders. The rents are steep at the moment, so much so that most people are buying instead, and the government giving bonuses for buying houses hasn't helped the rental market either.

I would recommend share housing instead, try finding a flatmate with an established house. I realise you and your friends may want to live together but that might prove to be difficult. Some good share housing sites are: www.flatmatefinders.com.au, www.flatmates.com.au

If you get a job on a farm, etc. they are more likely to offer you free housing. Sydney is the most expensive for accomodation, rents average 150-200 a week. (Actually i think its the most expensive city, period.) That's for just a room, not a house or a flat or anything. And you will need a working holiday visa, the amount of people that come here and try to do what you do - I"m not trying to deter you or anything, just letting you know to expect it to be competitive - just increases every year. That said, i know quite a lot of people that have managed to do it - work, save money, travel so it can be done. Good Luck, feel free to message if you have any more questions.