On the Road

So, after five months on the road am I ready to return to the real world yet? Well, the short answer is no, but I will give you the long answer otherwise there isn’t really much point to this blog entry is there?

Ok, so every once in a while it might be a little longer between hot showers than I would like, and sometimes it might be nice to have a little more space to move around in. Would I trade that for living to a daily schedule, going to meetings and having the general stress of going to a place of employment? Nope, not ready yet (the money would be nice though. Still haven’t found anyone willing to sponsor me to become a professional traveller). And anyway I can always have a cold shower or a swim and as for space, well, Australia is pretty big, and most of it is pretty empty.

Travel is supposed to be a great learning experience, so what have I learnt so far? Well for starters, I have learnt to live with less ‘stuff’ and actually feel that I could get rid of half of what we still have and still be fine with it. I have also learnt to break the attachment with my phone/technology and life is so much better for that. Most days I am not even sure where it is which is actually very liberating.

I have learnt how to fix most things on a Jayco Swift and a Mitsubishi Challenger with a bit of tape, glue and a couple of screws! I have even changed all the brake pads on the Mitsi (too hard to book in to a garage when you are on the move, and saved about $500).

I have also learnt that people are generally pretty nice and very helpful. We have met some pretty cool people on our travels, exchanged contact details with quite a a few, and so far have invitations to stay in various locations around Australia and overseas. We have shared many a tale of travels around a campfire or over a beer and sampled a few dampers and shared a few of ours. We have even played the occasional game of Qwerkle.

The best thing though is the way fellow travellers are willing to help each other out when there is a problem. Yesterday I was wiring a little fan into the back of the fridge and the guy camped next to us (Pat from Perth), came over with a soldering iron and a couple of beers and helped me do the job. What a legend.

When we were in Millstream National Park the bracket that holds Lucy’s spare wheel on broke. I was chatting to the camp host and asked on the off chance if he had any welding equipment. Well, turned out that over at the park rangers headquarters there was a whole workshop. However, due to workplace health and safety I wouldn’t be able to use it…..but they could, so the camp host and a couple of rangers fixed it for me.

When the corrugations shook Lucy’s cabinets apart a fellow camper gave me his bucket of screws and said ‘use what you need’ and also offered me the use of his electric screwdriver (got my own one of those though).

Every puncture has been accompanied by fellow travellers stopping to lend a hand.

In short, people are lovely, especially when you take them away from their work stresses and out of the busy cities, and if there is no phone service, then even better because people learn how to talk to each other again without all the distractions.

Ali has been keeping a few stats on our trip so I will share a few here as some are pretty interesting:

Kilometres driven – 21,581 (and still going)

Set ups/pack downs – 81

Most expensive coffee – $6.00. (Greenock in The Barossa SA. The wine tasting was free though).

Longest between food shopping – 4 weeks (Port Augusta to Alice Springs).

Longest stretch without a fuel stop – 861ks (across the Tanami with a side trip to Wolfe Creek).

Rainy days – 5

Most expensive camp site – $45 (El Questro WA).

Cheapest camp site -well we have had plenty of free ones, but the cheapest we have actually had to pay for was Keep River National Park, NT at $6.60

Nights not spent in Lucy – 9, two in a tent and seven at a house sit.

Times I have wanted to throw things at Ali – well, annoying as she can be, actually none really, apart from perhaps the time she woke me up in the middle of the night because the possums/Roos/dingos etc. freaked her out. I think I will keep her as my travelling companion.

Times I have thought ‘I wish I was at work’ – 0.

So, final words of wisdom….take some time off and hit the road for a little while if you can, it’s good for the soul and it helps to put life into perspective a bit. We have been living on around $700 per week all up but there are some out there doing it for less, so it doesn’t need to cost your life savings. Just do it (I think that slogan belongs to someone else…hope I don’t get sued……they will have to find me first).