Australia is a very big country and before you plan your trip, you need to be aware that a lot of traveling is involved (for instance, Melbourne to Sydney is a 12 hour trip). Make sure you have enough time to do what you want to do, I would advise you to stay for a year and work your way around on a Working Holiday Visa . Or if not possible a minumum of 2 to 3 months.
As you can see, Australia is extensively big, a guide like Lonely Planet, can help you plan your trip
Which Transport to choose
Taking the bus: Cheap and resonable busses are Greyhound ,McCaffertys and Fire Fly. More expensive, but good backpackers tours are; Oz Experience and Adventure Tours for the east coast and Easy Rider for the west coast. All these different backpackers tours do not go off the beaten track, but an advantage is that it is easy to meet other travellers, on long trips they do (drinking?) games and they can book your accomodation for you
Flying:
Flights can be very cheap too, but I would reccomend only to fly the bits where there is not much to see in between, otherwise, you might miss out on beautiful scenery or great places! The best sites to get domestic flights are;
, Quantas and Jet Star. Flight Centre and Student Flights
usually have good deals on domestic flights too.
Buying a car:
Buying a car can be cheaper if there is more of you. But consider this carefully as cars can cost a lot of money! For instance; they have to have a Road Worthy Certificate, which can cost up to $300, they can breakdown and you could be in the middle of nowhere and you have to sell it again, which can be very difficult and you might not get what you paid for. Make sure you buy the right car, for the right price. Definitely shop around for this one!
The best cars to buy are Fords and Holdens, as parts are easy to get and cheap(ish). Ford Falcon is the best to buy as there are so many of them. I bought a 1978 Ford Fiarmont
which was a bit of a risk as parts were not as easy to get.
Good places to look for cars are once again noticeboards, a good time to buy is when people write on their notice when they are leaving and/or when they are desperate to sell (you can tell if their price has been lowered a few times).
If you’re in Sydney Kings Cross Carmarket is a popular place to buy cars. Travellers Autobarn is also a good place to buy, as they guarantee to buy it back of you after you’ve used it. Depending on how long you’ve had it for and how good contition it is upon return, they take a percentage of the original price, which is is something you can fall back on if you can’t sell it on yourself. They also have cars and campers for rent, so do Wicked.The cheapest way to rent is to do a rental relocation. This means that a rental company needs a car to go from A to B between certain dates. You have to be flexible with this. Most rental companies do rental relocations, just look in the Yellow Pages or Phonebook for the numbers.
Taking the train:
Usually not as cheap, but worth to have a look at is Australian’s Great Train Journeys. Most states and cities have their own train companies, search at Google to find the websites for the state you’re in.
If you have a YHA (Youth Hostelling Australia) card, they can give up to 50% discount on limited train journeys. I took the Ghan from Adelaide to Alice springs with a 50% discount. (see for moro info on YHA in accomodation chapter)
There are so many people backpacking in Australia, that it is a real good business. There are lots of travel centres offering tours and activities including accomodation and transport, that I hardly knew where to look. The most known companies are Travelbugs (unfortunately, they don’t have a website, but their deals are worth it, freecall 1800 666720 from Australia)
and 
.
Other good ones are:Backpackers World, Backpackers Travel, MB Travel, Koala Adventures, Wanderers Travel and last but not least Travellers Contact Point (TCP), who can also help you with getting a postal address
Accomodation
Look in your guide for accomodation near the places you want to see and things you want to do.
Alternatively, YHA (Youth Hostelling Australia) is a part of Hosteling International and have very nice hostels. YHA usually have a travel bureau too, where they will help you get great deals. Last but not least, YHA gives huge discounts, including 50% of limited train fares!
VIP Backpackers is also a good alternative.
Looking For Jobs:
The best place to look for jobs is on the noticeboard of your hostel, internet cafe and travel centre. Ask at your hostel if you can work for accomodation, this is possible in a lot of hostels and will give you free accomodation or if you work more hours, some cash too!
Another good place to look is of course the local paper, ask at your hostel of local news agent, to find out which paper this is.
There are also good job sites on line such as Career One.
Another great place to look for jobs is free backpacker magazines. They are available at most hostels and backpacker travel agents and they are on line too; TNT magazine,Aussie Backpacker and 
.
These magazines are also great for travel deals, information on where to go and what to do and are a good read in general
What to do and see in Australia: My favourites places in Australia are defenitaly Fraser Island, which is a FWD trip on Fraser Island, the biggest sand island in the world. You get put with 10 other people, or you can make your own group with 11 friends, which is what I did. It’s a 3 day, 2 night trip, tents and food included, you can book this trip with most companies listed above and Uluru, the middle, this is a trip booked through “Mulga’s Adventures”at the hostel: “Annie’s Place”, also a camping trip, but this time not in tents, but in real ozzie swags!!!
The best city to visit in my opinion is St Kilda, Melbourne.
