In 2000 I got a Mitsubishi L300 for $1800 (with 6 months rego & safety cert) from an english backbacker heading home & it came with bed, gas stove, sink, 12v fridge, curtains, 2 boxes of essential 'stuff' and even a boogie board! Basically everything he couldn't carry on the plane. I'd recommend hitting up the message boards on all the biggest backpackers in your area as most of the sellers have a deadline and are on pounds anyway so they don't really care about the price too much.
Reliability wasn't that great tho in 2 years I went through a diff, alternator, blown head gasket, battery, various leads and hoses, and had to make lots of creative repairs like removing random bits from the carbie till it worked again (just), reattaching the clutch cable with a $2 padlock from crazies, etc.
Loved that van tho and it did make it from Brissie to Port Douglas and back (at 90kph max), with lots of other great missions as well.
As kitehard said one of the best things I had was mozzie screens which were made cheap by just sticking velcro to the edges of some screen, and screwing the other side of the velcro to the van walls. The L300 also had an electric sunroof (luxury!) which was great in summer, with the mozzie net up you could lie back, light one up, and see the stars all night. .
The good thing is kitted out van holds some kind of minimum value, at the end of it all I reprayed 2/3 of the body with spray paint (bogged up the biggest rust holes and covered the rest), got a dodgy roadworthy and sold it for $2000 to some more pommie backpackers...
/Also no-one has mentioned free campsites.. there are some good ones around, usually not right at the beach, but well worth the effort to find them. From memory there's one at 1770, just south of town, on the beach. Another favourite used to be Minyon falls, it's about 1/2 hour from Byron in the forest and has free toilets, showers, and firewood.
//Also places like the main van park in Byron use codes for the toilet/shower block, so you only have to stay one night and then you can have a hot shower and a poo whenever you like!
