We are just an ordinary family, who have undergone an extraordinary adventure. What follows is our blog. A series of short stories about our life on the road.
I started it originally for my kids, so they would have a record of our trip, something in writing, something they can look back on, and reflect upon this time of their lives and hopefully cherish the time we had bonding as a young family.
Secondly, it is my hope that our story inspires, even if just one person or family to fulfil their dreams. Even if that dream is not about traveling around Australia, I hope it gives them the belief in themselves that whatever they dream, it is possible, you just need to put your mind to it and build towards it.
How it all started
I remember the day so clearly, it was mid May 2011, we were at Rainbow Beach, on holidays with my parents. We were out one day exploring the area and stumbled upon Carlo Point, aptly named after my Dad, or so he would like to think.
It was a beautiful spot, overlooking Rainbow Beach with views back to Double Island Point.
As we were playing around in the sand dunes, we saw another family. They had three children, the same age as ours, a four year old, and one year old twins. We struck up a conversation with them and asked where they were from.
“ We are traveling around Australia on a bus.”
The seed is planted….
That was all it took. I was one of those moments where you read each others minds. No words were spoken, but we both knew what the other was thinking. We spoke to them a bit more, and they invited us out to see their bus.
Jade playing in the sand dunes
At first light we rocked up to a camp site, right on the beach. And there tucked away in between the trees was this big old blue bus, just as they had described. An outdoor kitchen, a play area, bikes and an assortment of camping gear filled the area. An hour later, we were still there, discussing the joys and tribulations of life on the road.
The thought of what this family was doing would not leave us. They seemed so happy. The mother made a comment to Michelle, ‘If we were back home, I would be raising the kids on my own while my husband was at work all day. This really resonated with both of us. Only a few weeks before Jade had made the comment to me, “ Daddy, how come you work at home, but I still don’t see you.”
For the next few days we weren’t able to talk about anything else. Mum and Dad though we were both mad, but the thought did not leave us from that day on. And so the cogs started turning.
How do we make this happen?
At this point in our lives, we had established our home base in Queensland. We had our own home and our own business. All our worldly belongings had taken us quite a while to build up. But, we, like many others were getting snowed under with the pressures of it all. Time, money, stress, it found us.
So, with the fresh idea of travelling around Australia hounding us, we thought, why wait till we are retired to do this. Lets put everything on hold and do it now. However, there was one small issue, when we thought about it more, we remembered going camping about five years ago and it not being to successful. It was pre kids, someone suggested it, it sounded like a good idea, so we gave it a shot.
We went out and bought a tent, and well, that was about it, a tent, no idea of all the extras that you need to go along with it. We bundled up two of our nieces aged 8 and 9, the personalities of these two girls were at the extremes, with one who was scared of her own shadow, let alone insects, and the other who loved roughing it and playing with insects.
And there we were, four of us in a two man tent, on the ground with doonas, and it rained. Needless to say, not real successful. We tried it again a few weeks later with just the two of us, and this time we enjoyed it so much, we got home and put the tent in storage for the next 5 years. But, what the hell, we have two kids now, and a grand idea. Lets do it. So basically, that is what we did. Parked the business, rented the house and built a home on wheels.
OUR NEXT INSTALLMENT WILL TELL YOU HOW WE BUILT OUR NEW HOME
[sc:Honky ]
