This is an introduction to our epic 33 month caravan odyssey around Australia.
What it a Grey Nomad....you can get an insight here "The Nomadis Grisi"
The decision to become "Grey
Nomads" was a lifestyle choice for us after retiring
in June 2008. From the onset we didn’t plan a completion
date for our trip just, that when we were no longer having fun
doing it, we would stop.
Although we had travelled around the world we had never seen very much of Australia. When the children left home and the cat died all that was left was to enjoy ourselves.
Having never caravanned before we were uncertain what we would really need to embark upon our journey. We didn’t know if we would cope with the drastic reduction in living space from a 4-bedroom house to a caravan smaller than our kitchen. We decided to buy a second-hand caravan rather than do our dough on an expensive new one only to discover after a few weeks that we were not suited to this lifestyle.
Hubby outside the caravan shortly
after purchasing it.
There were really only three things we felt were essential on our must-have list:
- We wanted to get off the beaten track and wanted an off-road caravan, something rugged enough to cope with some rough terrain. So independent wishbone suspension was a must.
- There was no way I was leaving home with out a toilet on board. It was okay for hubby; blokes can always ‘go bush’.
- We wanted single beds. Having spent a lot of time in uncomfortable hotel beds over the years we soon learnt that the best way to get a good night’s sleep when travelling was to have separate beds. It also meant more space to move around in.
The view towards the front end
of the caravan, dining and sleeping quarters.
We had purchased a second-hand
Toyota Landcruiser at the Queensland Government Auctions
in January 2008. Landcruisers are real workhorses so
we were no restricted in what we could tow. They are also reliable,
essential when neither of us was mechanically minded. It took
a lot longer to find a caravan that was exactly what we were looking
for. Eventually we found it on the Internet and drove from our
home in Brisbane to the Gold Coast to view it. Luckily it was
exactly what we were looking for, and although already ten years
old, still in very good condition. Built in Queensland by Future
Systems (Boroma) it was a tremendously sturdy van, built
to last.
View through to the kitchen
at the rear & bathroom in the left hand corner.
Empty, the caravan weighed over two
tonnes; we then set about filling it with all manner of things
we thought we would need to make our life comfortable. Number
one was my espresso machine. Let’s face it; life’s
too short to drink bad coffee and goodness knows where I’d
find a decent cuppa in the outback. Then of course we needed an
inverter to run the espresso machine and to charge my laptop,
mobile phone and camera batteries. This we found on Ebay, and
rated at 2.4kW would power just about anything and everything
we envisaged needing. Although some electronic item didn’t
work as well on the inverter the cost of a pure sine wave inverter
was totally out of our budget costing thousands of dollars and
so we settled for a cheaper version from Ebay.
Connection to the Internet was another essential, as was a mobile phone with the best reception possible. Telstra offered both these services with their Next G network. Anywhere with a population of over 100 Telstra provides reception. Hubby wasn’t leaving home without his TV and thus we needed a satellite dish and 12V TV. At the time we could subscribe to pay TV over the satellite through a company that today, no longer exists. Many travellers we met along the way simply took the satellite pay TV set top box they had in their house. Telstra, however, will not give you a satellite subscription if your house is in a cable area. And if you are travelling, even though you have a street address and pay by direct debit they will not give a subreption to Grey Nomads for use in their caravans; very short sighted of them as, with our aging population of Baby Boomers, the number of grey nomads is growing every day.
As a safety precaution, we decided to buy a personal EPIRB, (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons). In an emergency we wanted to give rescuers a better chance of locating us out in the middle of no where. Thankfully we have not needed to deploy it yet.
Even when travelling in some of the very remote areas we never felt threatened and had no qualms about camping anywhere there wasn’t a “no camping” sign… and some where there was. And on that note I must mention the one piece of equipment no Grey Nomad should leave home without, “The Bible”. Not the religious one, its real title is “Camps Australia Wide”. It is an Atlas of maps of Australia pin pointing all the free and cheap campsites around the island. We almost wore ours out. It cost over $60 but saved us thousands. It is referred to several times on a daily basis and we would have been lost without it. In conjunction with “The Bible”, our trusty GPS was the saviour of our marriage. No longer did we argue over which road to take. And unlike when I told him where to go, hubby didn’t mind a bit when it’s the GPS doing the talking. Maybe it’s because I had selected the male voice to give us our directions.
click on this image to see some
of our free camp sites. And more are here.
Living in such close quarters we learnt a new level of patience for each other and settled into a division of labour roughly based along traditional gender lines. Hubby looked after the outdoor chores and I looked after hubby (& the indoors including all things electronic). Though it goes completely against my feminist beliefs, I am the first to admit it works for us.
By the time you read this article we have finished our travels (for now at least). We had been on the road for over 33 months and covered over 74,000km. During that time we did almost a complete circuit of the big island, cut a swath right down the centre and cris-crossed the little island (Tasmania). We took it slowly and try not to put ourselves under any unrealistic time schedules. We took each day as it came. Every day we woke up, was a good day.
It is a lifestyle being enthusiastically embraced by thousands of Australians each year. Given the opportunity, if it’s something that you have dreamed of doing, we would highly recommend you give it a go. Nothing ventured; nothing gained!
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