Hi and Welcome to Little Aussie Travellers.
For starters, I’m here writing this post expecting that it may never be read by anyone else other than myself, but I truly hope to build this site into something that not only tracks our past Australian Travels, but also tracks our planning for “THE BIG TRIP” in the future. Only time will tell, but for now, here’s a little bit about us.
OUR PAST: In 2008 we had the amazing experience of travelling from Darwin to Adelaide with our 3 children. Little did I know that, that trip would spark a fire in my belly for Aussie travel that I’ve been unable to extinguish. Our children were aged 5, 3 & 18 months, we flew to Darwin, spent 3 weeks in a hire car – a Toyota Camry, and explored as much as we could cramp in, camping out in a dome tent right through Kakadu and Central Australia.
Now, some may call us crazy! I admit, a dome tent with 3 young children and only as many supplies as we could fit in our aircraft luggage does sound like a super wild adventure, but hey, we’re crazy people! We got to see sights on that trip that some will never see in a lifetime. Kakadu, Uluru, The Devil’s Marble’s, Katherine Gorge, Litchfield National Park, Coober Pedy, one of our favourite quirky stops was Larrimah Pub, and not to mention Daly Waters, oh yes and Wycliffe Well.
WHERE WE ARE NOW: We really thought our 3 week trip camping through Central Australia was the trip of a lifetime, but, as time has shown us, that small taste is just never going to be enough for us, and so, we’re now at the start of the end of this chapter of our lives. We’re realists, we own 3 businesses between us, have 3 children and need to be set up properly for long term travel, so we’re giving ourselves a year, maybe 2 to get things in order, and then we’ll start to make difinitive plans for our open ended trip. A life on the road, for who knows how long, sharing experiences that so few families get to share and soaking up all the wonder that this country has to offer.
WHERE WE’RE GOING: We’re going away… Living on the road, travelling Australia, but there’s so much to research, so much to learn and so much to prepare. So here on Little Aussie Travellers I’m planning to build the ultimate resource for families, just like us who want to travel with children around Australia, whether for a few months, or a few years. I’ll be sharing all of our research, all of our experience from our past trips, talking about the good, the bad and the ugly as well as the absolute confusion that comes with plans as huge as the ones we have.
WHO WE ARE: Matt & Ree, now in our early 30’s, married for almost 9 years and our 3 children – Our Big Man born in 2003, Our Little Cowgirl born in 2005 & Our Little Man born in 2007 so right now as we plan to start planning they are 8, 6 & 4
I’ll look forward to the journey, and you never know, I may even be lucky enough to have a few people tune into our site and share too.
We’ll we’ve read your post so its not be sitting in Internet land unread and unloved!
Sounds like an amazing adverture you have planned and an amazing resource you are building. Good luck with it. We look forward to reading some more blog posts from you as you prepare for EPIC Adventure!
Thanks so much for stopping by! I love your site and we own a couple of Explore Australia books, would highly recommend them to anyone, definitely great resources for anyone who plans to travel Aus. Ree 🙂
I’ve just discovered your blog and can’t wait to read a bit more. I’m from katherine and grew up travelling all over the territory and the rest of the australia with my parents. I have so many wonderful memories and I’m so glad my parents kicked us in the bum and got out there and lived life.
Danielle, thank you so much for dropping in, I feel honoured!
I’m glad you dropped over especially because I discovered your blog and loved it and couldn’t remember where to find you again (but I remembered photograph in the header) so now you’ll be in my reader 🙂
We loved Katherine, especially the hot springs, I have a weaving hanging right here beside my computer that we bought during our visit there. I have the most amazing memories of sitting outside a gallery watching an Aboriginal man paint with grass, wow, it took my breath away! The gorge OMG! Amazing, we did a whole lot, so I have so much to write about, but we’ll be going back again for sure because we were only there a short while.
I’m hoping one day our kids will be thankful too, it does worry me a bit they might think we’re crazy dragging them around the country 😉
Hi we are planning to travel for six months with two girls aged 6 and 8. Your site will be a great resource! Will try to feed in info from our research
Hi There,
We are planning to head off on a trip of our own for 6mths or more departing in December 2013. We will be travelling with three kids too – aged 8, 6, and 4 by then! Really keen to follow your website!!
Hi Jess,
How exciting! If you have any specific questions you’d like to know, please email us at hello@littleaussietravellers.com.au and I’ll do my best to help you out 🙂 Hopefully we’ll be getting lots of great new content up over the next month or two! Thanks so much for stopping by, Loreena x
Hey there ,
loving your site were heading off on our big trip around oz in May with our 3 girls 8, 6, &2 and I have been in touch the school as to home schooling they say as long as we do a journal a bit of Maths , reading and writing that we should be fine. Do you know if we have to register for homeschooling we are going travelling for 5-6months? I hope to use your site whilst away. Hope u can help.
Thanks Mandy
Hi Mandy,
Thanks for stopping by. What you need to do in regards to an absence from school will depend largely on what state you currently live in. Some states allow the school to give your children leave for up to 12 months, other states will require you to either register for distance education or home school.
You can find all the links to the legislation and rules for your state in this post here: http://www.littleaussietravellers.com.au/2011/schooling-legislation-for-travelling-families-australia.html I’ll drop you an email too 🙂 Loreena
Hi,
It is so great that there are Australians out there supporting travel in and around Australia! Many of us forget just how lucky we are to have such a beautiful country at our disposal.
TravelSafeOz has its own blog about travel safety when embarking on overseas journeys. Please check it out, we would love to hear from you all!
TravelSafeOz
Hi, I just stumbled across your site. Good on you for doing this!
Like you, I have also been bitten by the Aussie travel bug. My Hubby, Dad and I did an Adelaide to Darwin (inc. Kakadu etc) trip and after having a baby and a few years of dying to get back on the road, I convinced my Husband to have a month off work, and together with my Dad and another family (Mum, Dad and two kids) we set off from home (Newcastle, NSW) and travelled inland travelling through Lightning Ridge, Cunnamulla, and doing most of the Qld Outback to Winton and then back towards the coast to Brissy. It was AMAZING!
I was hassling my poor Husband again yesterday and he agreed that we should aim for a trip around the country as our 5 year plan. He’s self employed and we thought in that time frame we could expect to be able to take a good 9 months off. This is why I’m here checking out websites for families travelling Australia!! I’m just a tad excited!
Anyway, I could talk for hours about this, but I’ll refrain 🙂 Thanks again for a great site. I’ll be checking in regularly.
Liz