Fair go sponser, the weather in Sydney may have been crap, but Oz is a big country so if you want flying time you go to where you get good weather......Western Australia.
We get close to perfect flying wx here (if there is such a thing) and lots of open airspace to do the flying, thats why Singapore Airlines, Singapore Airforce and China Southern do their training here.
A flight to Perth is cheaper than a flight to Sydney if I'm not mistaken, and its shorter/quicker.
As far as accomodation and transport go it depends on what you want to do here.. .If you want to build hours you hire a plane and go on a trip around WA, accomodation is pretty cheap although mostly not even close to 5 star but then thats all part of experiencing the WA outback.
We currently hire out a C-172 at AU$123.00 per hour wet(which I think works out to about 44-45 pounds)and we can put together a block rate for extended trips.
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