Indeed, it very much depends on what subjects you take. The average contact hours for science student is around 20, a lot more than that of a commerce student. But, I heard it decreases as you get into your 2nd and 3rd year.
I live quite far from uni as well and in semester 1, I had to go into Uni everyday, which really sucked. I was doing 3 core science subjects (chem, bio and physics) which meant 3x practicals every other week. For me, I felt the pracs were the cause of my problems. They were long (2-3hrs) and they had their own schedule depending on what group you were allocated (which you wont know until Uni starts). And the lectures were also fixed on a specific day in which you must go that day or you'll have to watch that lecture at home. So, having multiple subjects with 2/3x 1-hour lectures on different days was very annoying to work with.
However, another reason was my inexperience in timetabling, I was wary of the amount of work I could do in a day without crashing and tried my best to spread out my classes so I wasn't overloading myself. Besides that, I was also trying to make time for social events around lunch time etc during semester 1. Now that I'm in semester 2, I'm know the number of classes I can have back-to-back while still staying focused and thus, can pile more stuff into a day.
I knew someone doing the same subjects as me who only had to come in for three days in semester 1 but her timetable was pretty packed with a practical running till 9pm at night. She was also watching lectures online to not come to Uni. So, 2/3 days at uni are doable but still it really depends on the subjects you choose, how the subject is structured (pracs/no prac & no. of lectures), how long you can stay focused and whether you're okay with watching lectures at home.