Caravanning around Australia

Janet Camilleri

11 years ago

My sister and her family are leaving this week on a six week trip around outback Queensland with their caravan.

It reminded me of the time we packed up all our worldly goods and put them in storage, rented out our house, bought a caravan and travelled around Australia – for six months – back in 2001.

We were fortunate to find a great caravan as our little home away from home. No hot shower unfortunately, but it did have a little toilet cubicle which meant we weren’t necessarily locked into staying at caravan parks.

We headed south as hubster comes from north Queensland, and only made it as far as Perth before we ran out of time and had to come home.

One of the first questions we get asked is “How did you afford it?!”

We were fortunate in that my husband was owed a lot of leave, so about half of our time away he was still getting paid – and he was able to take leave without pay for the rest, so still had his job to come back to.

Between that and the rental income from our home, we found we survived quite nicely and our only debts upon our return were for the car (which we kept) and the van (which we sold, for more than what we’d bought it for).

However, we met a lot of other people who were working their way around Australia – in many of the country locations, these travellers found farm work was a handy source of income.

Caravanning Around Australia – 2001

Our kids were 7 (Year 2) and 4 (Prep) when we set off on our “Great Australian Adventure”, so we home-schooled them while we were gone.

I have to say that trip was one of the best things we have ever done as a family. It was a great bonding experience, and we created some awesome family memories – even today, my kids will bring it up in conversation.

Now that the kids are 19 and almost 17, the hubster and I are starting to dream of getting a motorhome and hitting the road once more … but with just us two this time! Finally we will get to see the Top End 🙂

So for this (almost) Wordless Wednesday I thought I’d share some of our pics from our Great Australian Adventure – caravanning around Australia. Enjoy!

Ready to leave on our big adventure, July 2001

But we were snug as bugs in our comfy caravan!

Our rig, just outside Mt Gambier. By this stage we’d been to Melbourne, across to Tassie, and then over to South Australia.

Even on holiday there are chores to be done – and no dishwasher, like at home!

Ominous looking sky as we head into NT on our way to Uluru

We were quite cheesed off that it rained on our first day at Uluru, so we couldn’t do much sight-seeing. It was only later we realised how lucky we were to see waterfalls cascading off the rock!

The next day it was fine so we got to do the sight-seeing thing 🙂

Checking out an old opal mine in Coober Pedy

Crossing the Nullarbor – this is the old telegraph station at Eucla, on the WA border.

Fresh fruit after crossing the Nullarbor – orange snack in Norseman WA

The fact that these girls – from the motorhome next to us in Perth – didn’t have a word of English didn’t stop our girl from making friends with them!

Homeward bound, we stopped off at Dubbo Zoo

Back home again, Christmas 2001. We look very relaxed, brown as berries and maybe a bit rough around the edges LOL?!!!

Have you ever thought of caravanning around Australia – or is it on your bucket list?!