Walking away from a life that provides a fair amount of security and familiarity so you can travel Australia seems crazy to so many people that we meet. Heck, it seems crazy to us, and we’re the ones who have done it!
But, what is really crazy is waiting around for happiness.
Our big plan: To have no plan. We’ve been very successful in not planning, but not so successful at being quite where we wanted to be.
You see, we’ve still been waiting for the right time to create our happy life, when instead, we should be living by our own mantra of just doing it anyway. Your goals don’t need to be realised perfectly, they just need to be realised.
We promised you this site would be all about not only family holidays, but the truth about what it’s like to embark on long term travel around Australia with kids too, and so, it’s time we share with you a bit about what’s happened since the day we drove out of our home town.
If you take a look at the photo below, you’ll notice that our trailer full of stuff that was supposed to drive off into the sunset towed behind our vehicle as we did a final lap of our home town is actually propped onto another trailer with broken leaf springs. Because we didn’t realise the springs were broken until it was fully loaded, and the real estate had just finished doing our outgoing inspection for the new tennants to arrive that afternoon, we had no choice but to hire another trailer to carry our broken trailer and excess gear all the way on our seven hour trip.
This issue ended up costing us over a thousand dollars in extra diesel and trailer hire fees, not to mention 2 days of almost straight driving that left us very worn out in order to get our stuff there, then turn around and drive back to return the hire trailer as they didn’t have one way drop off points.
Prior to all this trailer excitement, our business sale had caused a lot of stress, and indeed all the loose ends have still not been tied up, six months later, it wasn’t something we were prepared for, or happy about. In short, we let it get to us and take the shine off leaving for our big adventure.
For the last few months, we’ve struggled a bit to take stock of what we’ve been through and how we came out the other side of it.
- We were left financially worse off than we had anticipated, exhausted from the humungous task of packing, selling and moving what was left by ourselves with three children in tow.
- We had no more than a tent and the few belongings and the camp gear we’d kept.
- We felt we’d failed somehow as things hadn’t gone to plan.
- We’ve stayed with family longer than we anticipated as Matt was able to get work and re-skill at my brother’s workshop (this is both a great thing, and a frustrating thing as it’s helped us re-group, but it means we’ve been restricted due to his work hours).
Then this happened:
Matt got sick.
There’s nothing like illness to make you re-assess what you’re doing and how effectively you’ve been working toward your goals.
The universe has given us a bit of a kick up the backside and we’ve had to make some important and tough decisions.
He’s undergoing a huge range of tests at the moment, and we’re keeping everything crossed that it all comes back clear, or at least as something minor that will be easily fixed.
It made us remember:
- We didn’t set off on this adventure to do it in a new caravan, with every gadget and device known to mankind.
- We didn’t sell everything off just to sit dormant waiting for the perfect moment to leave.
- We didn’t do this for anyone else but ourselves and our children and that is all that matters.
- Life is too short and any of us could be taken at any time, the best moment to achieve our dreams is now, because there’s no promise of any moment other than that.
The Secret to Happiness NOW:
- Be brave and trust that everything is as it should be – We’ve been brave to get to this point, but we’re at the point now that we just need to jump into the deep water and trust in ourselves to stay afloat.
- Acknowledge that perfection isn’t important – So what that we don’t have the van we wanted, nor do we have some of the gear we’d aimed for, none of htat is important. What is important is that we utilise what we do have and we keep working towards our goals anyway. We’re blessed to be in the position that we are, and it would be such a waste to sacrifice everything we have until this point only to back off just at the edge of success.
- Love each other and be crazy – If you aren’t just a little bit (or a lot) crazy, selling up everyting to travel Australia maybe isn’t for you. It really helps to be a bit bonkers when undertaking this journey. The most important thing to remember though, is that it is a journey, getting there takes time, plans are bound to fail, and the best reason to do it is to bond and strengthen your family. So, in light of that, love is the most important thing, and as long as you have each other, all will be fine. I know it sounds cliche, but it works for us.
Just get out there and live your dream. You only live once, and Matt’s illness has reminded us of why we’re doing this in the first place. There’s no time like now, and you’ll never get this moment of your life back once it’s past.
Hope to see you on the road.
Hi Guys,
We wish you all the best with Matt’s illness and sincerely hope it turns out to be minor. And totally agree with you that being happy is the most important thing, and why wait for it?!
If being a little crazy for wanting to pack up and travel long-term, whether that be in Oz or elsewhere, then I’m happy to be crazy.
Take care!
Thanks Craig 🙂
One of the best things about meeting other travel bloggers in person was the united belief in the benefits of travel as a lifestyle, and the joint understanding of the lifestyle choice to travel long term.
Life’s much more fun when you’re a little crazy. Can’t wait to see you guys on the road, hope your plans are all falling into place. See you for a beer somewhere for sure!
Keep your head up and stay positive. Everything will work out the way its supposed to. Best wishes for Matt to make a speedy recovery. I will keep my fingers crossed that his diagnosis is something small and very curable.
Thanks Fil, we totally believe everything is falling into place as it should be. We’ve still been able to do some travel while we’ve been here, and we’ve had some great times catching up with family so I appreciate it for that opportunity. I’m sure all will come back OK for Matt, and we’re keeping positive. I guess I just wanted to share a bit about what’s been happening so other people know that not everything is always happy and easy, but you can’t let that stand in the way of your dreams. Happy travels 🙂
I’ve been waiting to see when you were going to take off and this explains it! Sorry it hasn’t all worked out as you sort of had planned and I wish Matt all the best wishes in the world.
The thing I noticed when we travelled is that we didn’t really use all that much – we took waayyyyyyyyy too much with us.
Look forward to the day you hit the road.
Thanks Lisa 🙂 there’s been some positives, like Matt learning new skills to take on the road (he’s gone from cutting hair to building tail shafts) and I trust the journey has happened this way for a reason, but I’m feeling more positive than ever at the moment. We’ve had some down time and its now time to get out there and go for it! You know, I’m very sure we will take too much gear! We have a garden shed at my brother’s place with the bits and pieces of stuff we kept and I’m already re-sorting it to throw some away, it’s already lost sentimentality in just a few months. It’s so weird how I looked at things when we were standing in our home, and now I look at things and wonder why they seemed so important at the time lol! Thanks for your thoughts x
Oh no! I am so sorry to hear about Matt. Have faith and stay brave. In 2010 before our epic 12 month adventure, they told us my husbands cancer was back. We were devastated..crushed and life seemed like it was so cruel. Then after a 2 weeks of the Xmas holidays, planning chemo, having surgery and getting out affairs in order to cancel the trip – the doctors told us THEY WERE WRONG. The cancer was not gone, and it was a benign tumor. My point is that, things can seem so dark and then bam…. sunshine and rainbows. Bug cyber hugs for a good diagnosis.
Thank you so much, so far all the results look positive, no baddies have shown up which is a relief! Just a couple more tests and we should have a definite answer, but we’re feeling much more positive than we were 🙂 Glad things worked out for you guys too x