Mark,
Do not spend one more cent gathering hours ect.
Go to WA. Its a boom state and the opportunities are there to be had. Start off wih the best place (for your life and career) and work your way down. The best place being Broome and the worst being east coast parachute outfit. 10 years ago the advice was to go to the worst place but times have changed. You only make your life harder by going to the worst place you can find.
In your shoes i'd start in Broome and work my way around WA before doing the NT.
Oh yeah, don't work or free. If they can't afford or are not willing to pay you properly you will also find that they will tend to carry this trait into other areas of the operation...get the picture?
I had 200 hrs in an era when opportunities were few and far between. It took me about 10 months on the road but evenually i cracked that all important first job.
Good luck.