Jenny & I have been home for nearly a month now. We have made some small amounts of progress towards becoming full time travelers with a "home base".
Being home is a bit of a struggle, it's difficult not to allow yourself to fall into the same old boring routine. We miss our life on the road !
Firstly I'll take you back in time a bit to the 6 day Campervan journey home from Adelaide, which we departed on the 8/12/15 after an interesting morning getting from Kangaroo Island to South Australia's Capital City.
Jenny navigating us along a Cycle Trail that follows the Torrens River, Adelaide.
While I keep the bikes out of sight, Jenny does the Campervan deal with Apollo.
The Campervan turned out to be awesome, both bikes were easy to fit in the back after we removed the table. I took the pedals off & covered the chains in plastic bags as I didn't want to scratch or grease up the inside (& incur additional fees). At the end of the day we would simply roll the bikes out of the back of the van & make up the bed, the whole process took about 1 minute.
Camping was a mixture of caravan parks, bush camping and one night in our friends house at Norseman. For more details on the Campervan Journey go to this link:
Once we arrived home we found that our house was in reasonably good order, it just required a good dusting, vacuum & mop. There was also a mountain of mail & bills. Our 23yo daughter & her partner had done a pretty good job of taking care of house related things while we were on our Nullarbor Ride.
The next big job was to "encourage" them both to move out into their own place. Not the most pleasant task & it lead to quite a stressful few weeks. But it all ended as well as I could hope for. We are also waiting for our rental/investment house to be vacated so we can begin the huge job of cleaning, clearing & renovating it to a place we are able to live in. This place is located in Mandurah & we intend for it to be our "Home Base" while we are away on our travels.
While Jenny took care of "business" related office jobs, I got to work on repairing & repainting our 20 year old trailer, it's a bit worst for wear after a lifetime of neglect. We are going to need it to help with our house renovations, so I welded some steel plate onto the rust holes, repacked the bearings, repainted it with a paint roller, in some machine grey paint I had left over & replaced the wheels/tyres so it rides better.
Time to get our trailer ready for work...
We also had Christmas & New Year to get through. We generally find this part of the year very stressful ( like a lot of people I guess). It wasn't to bad & we caught up with most of our immediate family during this time.
Catching up with friends, who are temporarily living in a shed.
We have done 2 overnight bike trips during the last month, this one was to Bunbury.
New Year's Day, out on the river with friends.
Boating out on the Estuary, with our niece, Shaye.
Also went out "body boarding" for a morning.
Ken the painter made a start on repainting our current home in early January, but the horrendous bush fires 40 kilometres south of here dragged him away from the job. His home is located at Waroona, one of the affected towns. Once the house is painted inside and out, we'll replace a few carpets then commence the selling process....anyone out there interested in buying a good sized canal home ?
Currently Jenny & I are entertaining, Jesper & Thomas. Known to us as "The Danish Dudes", these guys & their families have taken great care of us in the past during our visits to Denmark. So we'll reciprocate during the next month & show them an enjoyable Aussie Experience during summer. There second day here it was 42 degrees celsius, with massive bush fires raging just 40 kays south of us .
Danish Dudes arrive at Perth Airport.
Massive Bushfire, 40kms away. One Town destroyed & 75000 hectares burnt.
Out Crabbing with the Danish Dudes.
Jesper enjoying the ride.
We eventually caught 13 Blue Manna Crabs.
Unfortunately having the worst bushfires impact this area in 50 years (which includes nearly the whole township of Yarloop burnt to the ground), means a camping trip down the South West will be difficult so for something different we will head over to Bali & Nusa Lembongan, Indonesia for a week, with the "Danish Dudes", managed to get return flights for $336 each. Then hopefully a camping trip up to Kalbarri (North of Perth) once we get back home.
So that's it for now folks, team "wiljen" are just doing their best to readjust into normal life and create a sustainable lifestyle that we both can enjoy for a long time to come.
Thomas wasn't feeling well, so Jen & I take Jesper & Shaye out for a Ski Biscuit.
Jenny has a go as well.
Wow, it looks like you're really living the dream. I've always wanted a mobile home and my husband has been dreaming of boating since he was a teen. We've been on hold since we had our two boys.They're getting older now so they might benefit from a few character building weeks on the road here and there... I loved the post.
ReplyDeleteAndrea Wilkins @ Getaway Oudoors