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Published: November 12th 2012
Vistr RV
Our new Camper TrailerDay 1460
Today is a very special day in our lives, Four years ago today we arrived in Australia to make a new life and a new home for ourselves. These four years have gone in the blink of an eye, but when we think about what we have done on our adventure, it takes our breath away.
Some of you have followed Kangaroojack’s adventures, shared in our blog, when we circumnavigated our way around Australia, the places we have been, the things that we have done and the people we have met along our journey. Never in our wildest dreams did we ever think that it would be possible or even that we would have had the opportunity to do the things we had done. So I think this is a good place to start on the re-evaluation process.
Someone asked me recently, when we were back in the UK on our recent trip “home”, if it had it been everything that we hoped it would be, and I didn’t even need to think about the answer, it has been an amazing journey, and I cannot believe that it actually happened to us, so in
The Full Set up
With a back drop of Woodstock answer to the question, it has been more than we ever thought it would be.
Looking back, were we foolish?, leaving our safe comfortable lives, just turning up at Brisbane airport with no more, than a suitcase each, money in an Australian bank account, and an idea about what we wanted to do, some may say we were, and when were on the adventure in certain situations, and we wondered if we had bitten off more than we could chew, it made us even more determined to roll up our sleeves and get it on with it, which is the Australian way.
The funny thing about when we went back to the UK were some people were fascinated about how we got on with the spiders and snakes, well I’m sure our answer was disappointing to some when we told them, that you have to be extremely lucky to see a snake out in the wild and extremely unlucky to be bitten by one, and even though Australia has something like the top 23 deadliest snakes in the world you very rarely get to see them, though Caroline and I were driving down through the Brindabella mountain range
last Sunday, when Caroline spotted a snake just crossing the road, I don’t know if our non-Australian readers know this but all snakes in Australia are protected.
Now, spiders are another thing, the only ones I have seen in the last 4 years that are venomous are Red Backs, they are small and contrary to popular belief will only make you feel pretty poorly and White Tails, if you are bitten by one of these bad boys or girls it will hurt you but it won’t kill you, it has been said that necrosis may occur but that is in some doubt following studies.
Frankly there are far more dangerous things, other than snakes and spiders, that are home to Australia, like sharks, crocodiles, jelly fish the list is nearly endless, so my policy is treat everything as if its wants to bite or sting you and you will never be disappointed.
One thing I do remember when we got out “on the road” was realising just how big Australia is, it is a fact that the united Kingdom will fit in to Australia 32.8 times, Australia is home to the largest cattle station in the world,
“Anna Creek” which is in Adelaide (South Australia) it covers 6,Million Acres, which is the size of Israel or just slightly larger than Texas in the United States.
I do love these useless bits of information, but before we left we heard that there were 40 million nomadic Kangaroo’s in Australia, so with a population of 22 Million people, that would mean most people could have 2 Kangaroo’s each, how magic would that be and though these snippets of trivia seem interesting, we were so un prepared for just what they represented.
I think Caroline and my feelings about leaving the UK were quite different, Caroline was more prepared for the move whereas I just wanted to get out of the United Kingdom as soon as I could, I was over it and needed a change. We were happy with our comfortable lives and the huge circle of friends, but something was just missing and I guess we just wanted to shake it up a bit and have an adventure.
We actually left home on 7November 2008, which in its self was an anniversary, well to me it was, it was a year to the day, since
I had my heart attack so it is now 5 years since this event, though I did have the pleasure of being operated on by possibly one of the best Paediatric Cardio Thoracic Surgeons in the world, a guy who has my deepest respect.
12 November has finally come around and we have applied to become Australian Citizens as we finally qualify to become fully fledged Pozzies, that’s a cross between Poms (British) and Aussies, I don’t know how long the Pozzie apprenticeship is for, until we transition to full Blown Aussies, but we will await sort of patiently until this happens, as we did with the Citizenship fiasco.
In the four years, boy have we blogged, 648 entries, 6506 Pictures published on the blog site, out of an estimated 45,000 + photo’s we have taken. 891,823 words and 115769 hits on the website.
So let’s just have a review about the amazing things we have done on this adventure.
We left the UK, flew to Singapore, had a bit of a holiday dispersed with loads of jet lag, then flew to Australia, landing in Brisbane, staying 9 nights in
the Southbank Rydges, hiring a bright Green Holden SV6, which we named the “pea” and drove to Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast where we rented a holiday flat for 3 weeks and in that time, brought our first 4x4 Nissan Patrol and a camper trailer, plus knife fork spoon and plate, oh and the swag, had Christmas in Port Stevens, where we first met, Nala aka Princess Puppy Paws (the gorgeous Labradoodle), when we did our first house sit, then hit the road, travelling clockwise around Australia and following the sun, taking 16 months and covering 60,000 Kilometers.
The first thing that you notice about Australia is the space, you don’t have to go far to realise just what a big country it is and how far it is between places, and when you are out on the road the size of the trucks, would it be rude of me to now mention the sunshine, that big yellow football in the sky that is so prevalent over here.
Everyone’s perception of Australia is its sunny every day, believe me it is not! But when it’s hot, it’s just baking, I remember when Caroline and myself drove the sheep
truck back from Gunning when Robert and I took 20 Rams to meet their girls, (250 Sheep) in what could only be described as a natural organised orgy, and when we got back to Woodstock, as we were “farm sitting” the thermometer was reading 47.1 degrees C, and it was so hot we just lay on the floor under the chiller, unable to move, and even though we like the hot weather we started to appreciate just how powerful the sun was and to misuse it would lead to problems, have a look at this past blog date 07/02/2009 “All aboard the Love Bus!!
Along this journey, we have met some truly amazing people, who have restored our faith in humanity. Kindness comes in all shapes and sizes, from a little bit of good advice, to someone boiling the kettle for our morning cup of tea, when we had run out of gas or when our gas cooker had broken down.
Being lucky enough to circumnavigate Australia over a period of 16 months, not only did it give us great opportunity to explore this vast country, but it also gave us plenty of opportunity to meet some amazing
people on the road and we are happy that we are still in contact with the majority.
It has been quite an action packed week for us as on Friday 9 November we also took delivery of the new Wendy house Mk II, and before you ask yes we did align this date specifically with our various anniversaries.
Caroline and I have been talking about the new camper trailer for ages, and back in April 2012 we finally decided which camper trailer we would opt for, I truly think we umm’d and aah’d for two years, but I guess we were being overly fussy about our specific requirements as we knew exactly what we wanted in the new camper trailer, and as we had given the Wendy House Mk 1 a dam good test drive, dragging it 60,000 K’s around Australia, we felt we had earned the right to know what we wanted.
Way back in 2009 when we were in Tasmania, we saw our first T-Van, and without question we had a “wow” moment, and we sort of promised ourselves one, and the weekend in May 2011 we would have been in Sydney at the Rosehill
Camping and Outdoor Show putting a deposit on one, if Caroline hadn’t scuppered our plans and decided to have an appendicitis that very weekend.
Well we didn’t end up with one as we thought and we found something that we considered even better and eventually ordering one. We should have taken delivery last month but chose to wait to align these special dates.
After a great deal of deliberation and research (on Caroline’s behalf) The Vista RV Crossover is our new trailer of choice, it’s a fully off road capable camper, that is made fully in Australia that is far from the very basic Wendy House that we started with and is not just an expensive bed on wheels which is what the T-Van is often referred to.
Caroline said to me yesterday that in all the time we travelled with the Wendy house, 16 Months, we never watched the TV, which was awesome and we relied on simpler things to amuse us.
So with the desire to give the new camper trailer a name, and the Wallaby Wanderers started this by calling their truck and Caravan Sweetie Pie, Sweetie being the Caravan and Pie being
Parked up
With Cover On the truck as its registration was PIE, we have decided to call the new camper Gypsy and we may even start a new sub blog called the travelling adventures of Trevor and Gypsy.
Our new camper trailer came up from Melbourne, it was being delivered to our favourite farm, Woodstock, as it would cut a good couple of hours off the journey for the guys doing the delivery, as it was their journey would be a 6 hour drive.
We placed the order for this new trailer in April this year and admittedly have pushed the date back a couple of times to suit various situations, like flying to the UK etc., but the day finally arrived and the wait was over, and when it arrived, it really was one of those WOW moments.
Louie from Vista RV eventually got to Woodtock at 6.30 PM and he wanted to do a proper hand over and walk and talk us around the new trailer, we were so excited.
We set it up just at the end of the garages and worked through the operation, setting up the awning, going through how the dual water tanks worked and by the time we had finished it was pitch black, of course Helen, Robert and Helen’s friend Patsy wanted a look around, and the question was asked were we going to sleep in it for the first night, of course we were.
We had brought the temporary bedding down with us, as the new stuff was on order and had not arrived yet so we snuggled down in the warm evening and were soon asleep.
On Saturday, we left Woodstock and drove down to Oura Beach, which is only about 35k’s form the farm, it was a place we had never been to before that we had heard about, we pulled in about 5.30pm and set up, which is so much quicker than the Wendy House. It was a fairly cool evening so we sat in side and we played Rummikub.
So that’s about it for now, but just to thank everyone for making our first four years in Australia absolutely fantastic.
Our regards Kangaroojack
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Jo Trouble
Jo McCarthy
Wow - four years!
Finally you're in the home straight of the Pozzie fiasco! Congratulations on the first fours years, the success with your blog - but most of all for making the decision to go to Australia in the first place. Gypsy is in for a real adventure!