The Last Post

After leaving Melbourne on 27th June and finally arriving to our new home in Kaiapoi on 8th November we sure have crammed in some excitement in 135 days.

The people we have met along the way all have their own stories and are so interesting. Some have been travelling for months and even a couple of years. The tricks we learned and stories we heard were amazing. So many like-minded people and wide ranging ages from young families to all the grey nomads. Some rigs were enormous and others were more than happy living in a roof top tent. The record for me was 5 kids and parents in a Hiace van and tent which they set up each night. Another was the elderly couple with 3 dogs (one was a Great Dane) and a cat all in caravan and annex.

We stayed ahead of covid lockdowns – the closest was finding out on the NT WA border that we were 4hrs from being locked out.

Some facts:
94 nights in campgrounds (paid)
9 nights freedom camping
4 nights staying at a roadhouse
3 nights at the Big Red Bash
7 nights staying with friends
18 nights in a hotel (14 in managed isolation)
19000km driven
6300km flown (4 flights)
Nil breakdowns
1 puncture
1 new windscreen
1 oil change
1 new microwave oven
1 dentist appointment (and a pedicure at the adjoining shop. Guess who was at the pedicure??)
Quite a few hours under the caravan repairing plumbing due to rocks.
Unknown weight in collected red dust
6 Covid tests and the second covid jab each
Fuel prices varied from $1.34 to $2.06/ litre

Highlights- so many people have asked us what was our best place and that is so hard to compare what we have experienced so here’s a few:
Litchfield area- easy to get to, plenty of safe swimming and a relatively compact area close to Darwin.
Cable Beach- Broome- great beach but also the first sea swim after thousands of km driving inland.
Big Red Bash- a real bucket list experience and meeting up with such a great group of people.
Alice Springs – incredible landscapes and a very spiritual place.
Uluru- not many tourists there which made it very special.
Horizontal falls- natures best.
The long straight roads- yes sometimes boring but that countryside is spectacular.

Not so good:
Midge attack at Derby. The town was lovely but boy did we take a beating with midges.
Red dust- it just gets everywhere.
Bush flies in WA- little blighters.
The road into the Bungles.
14 days hotel isolation.
Now we are back in our little house in Kaiapoi which feels huge after 4 months in confined spaces. It all feels a little dream-like and we question ourselves if it really did happen. We are going to play a game next winter where I send Regan a photo of red rocks and dusty ground and ask him to guess which gorge it is! We both feel very privileged to have had this opportunity and for anyone thinking about a similar trip we would say go for it. Even the hard days were the best.Read more