Jason,
It's pretty good value. $1.00 US should get you around $1.25 Aus at the moment.
Accomodation varies according to where you stay, of course. Many B&Bs in the UK can be had for between 20-60 pounds sterling per night ($45-130Aus), and we generally don't have a lot of accomodation at the bottom end of that range, however the upper should be more than enough to find something pretty reasonable.
I can't imagine that Australia would be all that more expensive to get to than europe, especially from the West coast. I bought a one way return ticket to Australia in London in September, for 441 pounds sterling - almost half of what it would cost me from here - so I imagine you can get a pretty good price in the vastly bigger US market.
If you live on the East coast, you could always hitch a ride with Greggy.