Its hard to pinpoint the beginning of this grand adventure, its just something that has been part of Brian’s life plan for as long as I have known him! “One day I want to caravan around Australia”. Believe me, its way easier said than done. I can tell you now, there is NEVER a right time, never the “right” vehicle combination (you will always want more) and never enough money. So my advice to all is “Do It Now” and the rest will look after itself.
Perhaps one of our main catalysts to getting ourselves on the road was when we were wandering through a Caravan and camping show one year (maybe 5/6 years ago). We stopped and watched a “Workabout Australia” seminar. We saw a glimmer of hope that we didn’t have to wait until the proverbial retirement to actually start the journey. and maybe we didn’t need a huge pot of money to back us up.
From then on a more serious strategy started to formulate. We made plans to sell Brian’s business, Brian became a mad keen internet shopper (as the budget didn’t stretch to brand new, we were determined to buy a good secondhand van) and I googled my way through every site I could find about working while travelling. Then fate stepped in – the exact van we wanted turned up about 15kms down the road! (the only other one comparable was in WA) So in May 2013 we bought our dream van, without any actual plans to leave! And we didn’t even had a vehicle that could tow it. So Brian then switched his searching to the perfect tow vehicle….
A few months later we had our set up. A 2011 New Age caravan, and a 2008 Nissan Patrol. We spent the next 12 months heading off to local van parks to figure out how things worked. By May 2014 it looked like Brian’s business would indeed sell, so I gave my boss 6 months notice and we had a tentative departure date!!!
One of the biggest decisions now was what to do with the family home!! Sell, rent or leave our youngest daughter in residence. We decided on the path of least resistance, leaving the youngest in situ. So much easier to just leave all our stuff there!! Shoved everything we “needed” to keep into the spare room, lucky Emma moved into our ensuited bedroom, and all the furniture/crockery just stayed in place. Easy! Emma and her flatmate pay a little board that covers household costs (rates/insurance etc)
We left home in February 2015. We had a wonderful year being “Newbie Nomads”.
I wrote about our adventures (and misadventures) on our blog
newbienomadadventures.wordpress.com
But now I feel we are no longer Newbies, so I have progressed to this site, where I shall continue to chronicle all the good, the bad and the interesting encounters we have along the way.
Exploring Oz 
Glad to see you are off on your new adventure. We have 3 more days in London before we head home to Aus. Have had fantastic weather in the UK not so good in Europe. Not what we expected. We are off to Harrods today so hope Norm is going to buy me something!!
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