If gravel work does interest you, look at one of the drive days, theres a couple on offer in wa. Rally Action (karl is a member), rallyschool.com is another

Id suggest Dont be thinking rally just yet, for 1, only 1 of you drives, the other sits in the silly seat..

Starting in my above mentioned events are social and a great way of learning.
Light Car Club run many events per year.
If you break it, will cost fark all to fix.
RWD's are almost always more fun, but generally not nearly as competitive in standard form. A nimble excell, pulsar, 323, civic, etc etc are cheap and parts are everwhere. tests are generally tight and twisty and more about driver skill as opposed to outright powa..

If as suggested earlier, an excell would be a good bet, as an example, I bought a caged, logbooked mazda 323, started with local events, then once confident and had experience, moved to a rally (alot more expensive)
It is also worth noting, concentration on a khanacross etc event is generally limited to 2 minutes a test, a rally can go for 20+ minutes and really tests you..