And now to the North

It feels like an important juncture in our trip at the moment – we’ve finally left NSW and are heading north, soon to be REALLY north. Not sure exactly when the REAL north kicks in, but it has been fascinating watching everything become gradually more tropical. Like seeing our first banana trees or cane fields, or the pandanus and subtropical rainforest.

It has been seven months since we left home, and we have another three and a half months to go. We probably got a little more waylaid in NSW than we originally intended, but we were having so much fun surfing. And NSW in general was such a pleasant surprise. I think we were expecting just constant suburbia, but instead found a beautiful coastline, iconic surfing spots, and seriously friendly people with time for a chat and lots of tips and information and help.

And it has been good to take it slow and to travel such short distances between places in NSW, we really spent very little time in the car most days. That is all going to have to change now that we are in Queensland. Its funny, when we first got to Tassie (and then to Vic & NSW) we realised we had to stop reading maps in Western Australian terms - looking at two places on a map and thinking they must be many hours apart rather than 30 minutes. But now that we are back in Queensland we are going to have to go back to our WA map reading ways – the distances are back to WA style distances. We’ve already been caught out a few times completely underestimating a journey.

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A few weeks ago the Sydney Morning Herald had a special feature on ‘The Big Lap’ focusing mainly on the retirees/ grey nomads constantly travelling around Australia. But they also had a short piece by a thirty something woman who was doing a 12 month around Australia trip with her partner. And so many things in the article could have been us writing, like this bit:

Since we set out from our home town, we have slowly but surely been unwinding. Already the life and daily grind we left back home seem a distant memory and each day is full of new experiences and discoveries. Cliched as it might sound, we are also finding more time for simple pleasures, such as sitting under a gum tree and bird-watching (often with our trusty field guide in hand) or losing a few hours with a good book. The rest of the time we are busy doing the things we love. Our car and caravan are like mobile sport shops and activities such as surfing, bushwalking, snorkelling, cycling, exploring new towns and picnicking often fill our days. It’s wonderfully refreshing. We have vowed never to work too hard again. Living is too much fun.

Yep, this is us! We even have the bird book and use it quite a lot. After more than six months of this journey we are now thoroughly unwound and chilled out. At this stage we are not sure how we will ever manage to live in a city again, or ever work in an inhumane office environment again (but humans are very adaptable aren’t they?)

Surprisingly, the Man about the Van and I have fallen into stereotypical male and female roles when it comes to setting up our home at each new destination. This was foreshadowed by the elderly couple who sold us the caravan…. At the time, we laughed a little at such old-fashioned ideas. But more than a month into our journey, I must confess that we have, despite all expectations, slipped rather comfortably, almost instinctively, into those well-worn gender roles.

We too have surprisingly developed more gender specific roles than ever before in our relationship. Tim now does pretty much all the driving and maintenance of the car, and Nic does pretty much all the cooking. We justify it as each working to our strengths! Although Tim still does more than half of the laundry, and Nic still does a fair amount of heavy lifting.

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So at this important juncture in our trip we can report that it is all going fantastically well. In answer to the many questions we are asked:

* We are getting on fabulously. There is no doubt that we squabble more than we used to, but hey, 24/7 together is no mean feat! In general we are surprising ourselves with having so much fun and never running out of things to talk about.

* We are eating so well, and we eat out rarely. We do miss having a griller and an oven that doesn’t involve making a campfire, but otherwise we are eating far better than we were at home before we left.

* We LOVE our camper trailer, which we say to each other most nights when we ease into our comfortable bed. And having the decent sized shelter from the rain has also been very useful at times. By the way, a camper trailer and Toyota 4WD, preferably a troopie, is the rig de jour for the 30-something traveller around Australia! Every couple we’ve met of our age doing this trip, and there has been the grand total of 3 couples so far, have had a similar set-up.

* It is astonishing how easily our days are filled - we really don’t seem to have that much down time. Nic thought she’d be spending hours each day doing loads of yoga, playing guitar, relearning to draw, writing a journal every day, all that sort of stuff. And Tim thought he’d be fishing or surfing every single day. But we don’t have that much time where we just sit around, so all these grand plans have not come to much. Yoga is really the only habit that has developed so far.