For as long as I can remember, the idea of traveling around Australia in a caravan has appealed to me. I think the inspiration must stem from meeting a family in Port Macquarie as a young teen, who just lived and traveled in their caravan – I was enthralled. How does it work, how do they school, where do they stay I wondered. Apparently they just fished their way from place to place. It must have been a great big prolonged adventure! Incidentally that family eventually settled in my home town and we are still very good friends.

The notion of traveling this great land of ours has not left me, I’m sure I’ve over-romanticised about it, but never-the-less I have longed to travel like this with my children. Once I actually started having children however, the time just never seemed right … until now. With Dakota turning 14 soon, his schooling will soon become a very important precursor to his HSC and adult life opportunities, therefore having time off for travel will not be an option. After his HSC he may not even be at home. If we don’t head off now, we never will be able to!

Even though now seemed like the right time and I dearly I wanted it to happen, I couldn’t quite see how. We’ve only just become settled here – we have a great rental, wonderful school, awesome friends and a stable job. I left it in God’s hands – what will be, will be.

Well God came through for us yet again and opened the way. Plans have begun. Some friends who need a rental for about 6 months will be renting our house while we are gone, and we will move back in when we return. It’s a perfect arrangement for both of us! So yet again, I find myself at the end of a year, packing and cleaning, cleaning and packing, and organizing frantically. This part is the hard work.

Leaving the rat race is going to be an amazing experience! Not having ongoing bills to chase after, work to keep me from the kids or a house to maintain will be such a welcome relief! I realize that life on the road isn’t free, but we do plan to free camp as much as possible to allow extra money for outings and activities. In comparison to the life of fulltime study in two degrees, almost fulltime work, being the sole parent of three children and maintaining a house, it will be a breeze!!!

The children will home school. They are extremely excited, as am I. Dakota will be starting year 9, Shay-Lee will be going into year 4 and Kalahni will be starting his Kindergarten year. Our road trip will provide many more learning experiences than the school curriculum I’m sure – adventures to remember for many years to come.

The plan is: we will head off North on Christmas Eve, have Christmas with “The Macks” at Maloollaba, then stay and work in the homoeopathic first aid tent at Woodford Folk Festival for a week, then return for a week’s work back here early Jan. After that we'll head south. We’ll drive for however long we like then stay for as long as we like. I must add that I am keen to get down to Melbourne, because that’ll be where our real adventure starts. We’ve experienced most of the East Coast fairly thoroughly, and it will be nice to feel we are breaking new ground. I also want to get around to the West Coast early enough to keep North of the cold. We are traveling fairly light, and will be free-camping as much as possible – so minimal winter clothes and no electricity most of the time.

I’ll do my best to keep this site updated with our most recent events, although my wireless isn’t practical for uploading a lot of data (photos), so I will have to wait until I find the Wireless hotspots around.

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