It’s been a hard slog trying to write this post, many starts and stops, after the most amazing year of our lives, we’ve come back to Sydney at a very difficult time, at the beginning of a global pandemic. It’s been an extremely big come down.

We always knew the end of our trip would be hard, knowing we were on our way home and this fairytale we had been living would soon be over. We also realised after an 18 month summer the weather would start to turn colder and neither of us are fans of that. But to throw in social distancing and isolation just as we got home to our closest friends and family was beyond upsetting.

So here I go again, trying to write this last blog post to recap our last leg of the trip. Since we’ve been back on the east coast at lot has changed for us, and I’m trying to stay positive and optimistic about what lies ahead, seeing this change in our world as an opportunity to shake things up, and in a way, it almost feels like it was meant to be this way – a bit hard, and for us to really think about how we want our lives to go forward.

After our awesome couple of months in SA, we crossed the border into Victoria and were excited to see the great ocean road, but we weren’t quite prepared for the amount of tourists. We’d done pretty much the whole country up until this point without having to worry about other people, so this was an eye opener. Bus loads of international tourists and every car park overflowing. Once you get to the sights of the cliff faces, you are met with fences and barriers everywhere, shuffling the hoards of tourists along like cattle, something else we weren’t used to.

There were some secluded little pull overs on the GOR as well though, the beaches were pretty rough and the water cold, but we did find a great spot to free camp away from the crowds and up on the cliff tops with a great sunset view of the 12 apostles. We were feeling quite pleased with ourselves when someone popped out of the bushes and we realised we weren’t quite as secluded as we thought! She came over to say hi and appreciate our little home on wheels, she was on a walking track we didn’t notice and had walked from the nearby campsite. Her name was Honami from Japan and she was travelling through Asia and Australia. She took a photo of us on her disposable camera and we swapped email addresses so we could swap our photos of each other. She was a little ray of sunshine 🌞

After leaving the GOR, we popped into the small coastal towns of Lorne, Anglesea and Torquay where Tim enjoyed the surf but for the first time in ages with a wetsuit on, as the air and ocean temps had dropped and it was a bit drizzly. We also hit up the local op shops and started to find some great scores, which escalated as we got in to Melbourne. Tim had thrown out all his clothes before the trip except for a few T-shirt’s and shorts, so he needed to stock up on some warmer winter gear and work clothes.

We’d made plans to stay with some good friends of ours in Melbourne but turned up a day early, so we took the scooter off the back of the van and headed into the city. When we came back we decided to take the van out to the Yarra Valley for the night. It was a bit of a bust as the brewery we wanted to go to was only recently opened so weren’t even selling their own beer, but the next morning we popped in at the Chandon winery and we had a great time out in the sun polishing off a couple of bottles of bubbles.

When we got back to Melbourne that afternoon we went to park next to where we’d left the scooter, only to find it gone! Unbelievably, someone had nicked it! And in the state it was in… after a year around Australia strapped to the back of the van, and almost solely being driven up and down WA beaches, she was looking more than a little worse for wear! Still, we were a bit sad and annoyed as we’d planned to scoot all over Melbourne with it as the van is not something you want to be driving around in city traffic or parking.

We loved having a week break from the van and staying with our friends in a nice big house that came with the cutest little kitten Pepper. He is equal parts cute and psycho so heaps of fun to cuddle and play with. We actually didn’t do all that much in Melbourne with it’s bipolar weather, one day it was high 30s and the next low 20s and rainy. We mostly hit up all the op shops in the suburbs of Fitzroy and Brunswick. Tim is pretty thrifty at the best of times, but he got some great scores including Nudie jeans and a Hugo boss jumper – both $2.

We’d made plans months back to meet my Dad and his partner Christine in the Mornington Peninsula and convoy with them up to Sydney (us in the van, them in Airbnb’s). So before that we decided to duck down to Wilson’s Promontory NP and Phillip Island. Again the rain put a bit of a dampener on things (literally) so we couldn’t do many of the walks within the NP and also decided to pass on the penguin parade – there’s something about seeing wildlife in their natural state without all the infrastructure and human intervention. We woke up at sunrise on Phillip Island and went for a big walk around the headland and saw so much wildlife on our own, that was way more special.

It was so great to see my Dad, its been a couple of years since I’ve been home to NZ so I was so happy to be able to spend some quality time with them on our way home. The Mornington Peninsula is a busy holiday spot for Melbournites but I can see why it’s so popular – it has a beautiful coastline of pristine blue waters, perfect for SUPing and swimming, and we found the best jump rocks at a place called the Pillars, we went back 2 days in a row. It’s rock faces and water are like somewhere in Europe, we loved it! By far our highlight of VIC.

After leaving the MP, we headed across to Lakes Entrance which was a bit disappointing really. There was just something lacking about it. I think it’s probably a fisherman’s paradise but we don’t fish. The waterways weren’t appealing enough for us to SUP on and the beach was rough and kinda hard to get to, you have to park in town and walk across a bridge a few hundred metres. We prefer beaches where you can park up next to the sand, or preferably ON the sand! We did meet another lovely vanlife couple from SA here though and ended up joining them at a free camp on a winery where we had a few beers and shared travel stories.

We were already travelling a bit quicker than our usual pace, but we’d done a bit of research and wanted to get a bit further north into NSW to check out some places a bit closer to home we’d never been to before. We always tend to head north on our travels as it’s usually warmer! So after a quick stop off for a photo at an old historic rail bridge in Orbost, we crossed the border into NSW.

Around the VIC/NSW border there is a lot of evidence of the recent bushfires, hours and hours of driving through it. It’s so hard to imagine that much land all ablaze. But we were a few months out from the fires and it was great to see the amount of regrowth and how green it was starting to look.

We enjoyed our time in Merimbula, we did some walks and took the SUPs out around the waterways, but man the water was bloody freezing down there. We stayed two days and then popped into Tathra for a few arvo beers on the sunny deck of the pub. By this time there was talk of this Coronavirus and that some restrictions might start to impact our trip, but it was only a couple of days later in Narooma when the NZ prime minister strongly suggested all kiwis return home ASAP. So Dad and Christine brought their flights forward and cut their trip short.

Narooma was a nice surprise, and only a few hours south of Sydney, it’s somewhere we will definitely return to. The highlights were taking the SUPs out and swimming with the local seals and massive stingrays. The seals round up the fish and chase them into the shallows at the beach. The locals didn’t seem too bothered by them so we jumped in to have them swim all around us. Funny, we paid a couple hundred bucks to swim with seals in WA, but had no idea we could do it for free so close to home!

After leaving Narooma we popped in to Jervis Bay to stay with Tims Dad and partner Jackie at their holiday home before rolling into Sydney. The first thing we wanted to do was head to Tims sisters place to meet our new nephew Hugo! He was born in November last year while we were on the other side of the country, so we were itching to meet him and get lots of cuddles. He’s so cute!!

We were lucky enough to have a great place to stay when we got back to Sydney – my best mate Suzi’s beautiful house at Balmoral Beach. Not only was it awesome to spend some quality time with her and Dunx, but we also started to fall in love with the Mosman area – so close to the city but so many great bush walks around the harbour and a great spot to take the SUPs out. She also has a great pool and we were lucky to have summery weather for weeks! We ended up staying at hers for 5 weeks, so we were like an iso-family and it was the best.

Unfortunately our timing returning to Sydney at the crescendo of a global pandemic meant I was unable to return to work. Tim on the other hand was being asked to return early! So our plans shifted a bit, and after failing to find somewhere we wanted to live in Sydney, we decided to look further afield and found a great furnished apartment in Byron in the best possible location – on Lighthouse Road across from Clarke’s Beach.

We’ve been here a little over a week, Tim is working remotely and I’m keeping myself busy trying to wrap up our year of memories with this blog and sorting through our some 26,000 photos, doing creative things and enjoying our new ‘hood! I’m not sure exactly what the future holds for us, but for now I’m just taking each day as it comes and am so thankful to Tim for being so amazing and supportive and being just as excited and positive about where the next few months will take us, and reminding me that no matter what, we will always have each other.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/B_4GpMDDvXy/?igshid=8ez2rjp4ngo6

As we popped out the eastern end of the Nullarbor and into SA we spotted a familiar van coming out of a free camp – it was Brad and Sophie! We drove in convoy to our first camp spot at Point Brown, down a long rough and rocky track, one of the worst we’d been on – it was a sign of things to come for the rest of SA! The camp spot was perched in some sand dunes at the top of some rocky cliffs with a sweet little rock pool just below.

While NT is the best state for waterfalls, SA has to be the best state for rock pools! And great secluded empty free camps right on the beach.

After leaving Point Brown we drove along the coastline and stopped in Streaky Bay – quite likely the friendliest town in Australia – the day before Australia Day, but on the day of the Triple J hottest 100. Brad and Tim went for a swim off the jetty and crashed the drone where it stayed overnight until the tide went down and Tim snorkelled in to retrieve it. (Believe it or not, it actually turns on! But it when connected it says the computer is fried ☹️)

Our sweet camp set up in the dunes at Point Brown where we enjoyed our first campfire since the Northern Territory! One of the last images poor droney took before he drowned :(

A local guy came up for a chat and to invite us over to his place where they were having a bbq, listening to the countdown and had an epic waterslide ending up in the ocean below.

The next morning we went along to the local breakfast the town puts on, where they cook everyone bacon and eggs, sing the national anthem and read out their Aus Day community awards.

We made it on to the local tourism Instagram page after sitting next to the lovely woman who runs it… unfortunately she sprung us hungover, mid mouthful of bacon and egg sambo and an almost-up-skirt for me 🙄

After ticking off some points of interest on the tourist trail (if there even is one in SA!) like Murphy’s Haystacks (some cool/weird rocks in the rural spread) and Talia Caves (a cave carved into the cliffs alongside the rough open ocean), we found another amazing free camp on the coast at Greenly Beach complete with another awesome rock pool. The beach has nice rolling little waves and a seal even came and played in the surf near us. Our camp spot overlooked the water and we had another fire.

Just another epic SA free camp! The water definitely got colder down here!

After popping in to Coffin Bay for a feed of their famous oysters, we made our way down to Sleaford Bay near Port Lincoln. Another great spot where Tim finally got the boards off the roof and rediscovered his love of surfing (finally! First time since the east coast)

After setting up at another great beach side camp at Fishery Beach, we wandered around Whalers Way on this 40C+ day walking around the cliffs looking for this rock pool. We eventually found another one down a ladder and across some rocks, had it to ourselves and had a little skinny dip!

Too hot for togs! (No I’m not wearing a white bikini!)

It was that night we realised we had a new housemate. Someone had decided to move into the van and try to get at my burger sauce flavoured chips! Mouse in the house! He stayed over for 3 (sleepless) nights, stalking my packet of chips! We even hid them in the oven thinking there was no way he could get in there, until we heard the distinct crinkling of the chip packet! I flicked on the oven light and watched him squeeze his little body through the tiny holes at the back of the oven! We tried a few different ways to catch him to no avail. It wasn’t until the morning when we started pulling everything out of the van that he leapt across my foot and out the door! We’ve since learnt that mice moving in is all a part of vanlife.

Vanlife buddies 🙂

In Port Lincoln we picked up our mail from the local post office, a second hand Canon DSLR camera and a dress my favourite designer sent me to create some content for their social media! Unfortunately they needed me to film indoors and the only indoors we ever really do these days is public toilets, supermarkets, post office or a Kmart! Not exactly photoshoot locations 🤣 Luckily there was a gorgeous shop in town with an upstairs space to use, but a storm was rolling through, it was over 40C and sooo humid! We had to wait for the loud heavy rain and thunder to pass before I could film the video, and by the time we got downstairs the streets were flooded and the shop had been forced to close as the water was starting to come in! The storm actually featured on the national news that night.

Soooo hot and sweaty… but such a pretty dress!

Port Augusta isn’t really worth a mention, so moving on we made our way down the Yorke Peninsula. Our fav spot down there was Corny Point where the water was turquoise, there were a million steps down to the beach and almost every time you looked out at the water you’d see a pod of dolphins cruising past. Tim and Brad had a blast surfing the waves while Sophie and I hid from the kazillion flies and captured the boys on film. We stayed a few nights in the area, the last one featured a beautiful sunset and an equally beautiful bottle of honey flavoured whiskey!

Tim and Brad enjoying the nice little waves at Corny Point

Right at the end of the Yorke Peninsula is Innes National Park, which ended up being one of my favourite national parks in Australia and is somewhere I’d love to go back to one day. The beaches are gorgeous and even though we were there on a weekend it was pretty quiet and we often found we had the beach to ourselves.

Just us

One beautiful morning the beach was deserted and we went down to check out the shipwreck of the Ethel and upon seeing a big pod of dolphins swim past we went out to join them. We could only see about 6-8 dolphins on the surface, but with the snorkel masks on we realised there were about 30 and they came so close, it was really special.

So many dolphins! This is a snapshot from some GoPro footage we took of them cruising past

Adelaide is a nice little city we zipped through pretty quickly, exploring around the coast mostly Glenelg and had a look around the fringe festival.

We headed to Down the rabbit hole wines in McLaren Vale for Valentine’s Day with Brad and Sophie, a great atmosphere and beautiful grounds including a double decker bus and live music. The wine went down nicely but all four of us had the most horrendous hangovers the next day!

Cute spot for some Val day wines and live music

We were debating whether or not to go to Kangaroo Island after the recent bushfires, but the #bookthemout campaign had us hooked – they need people to go and spend their time and money there as the island and it’s small businesses survive on tourism. We got a super cheap ferry over with the scooter, opting to use that to get around since we had booked some nice accommodation and planned to have a little break from vanlife. The first day getting around on the scooter we enjoyed the beautiful beaches and bays and saw no sign of the fires.

Emu bay was lovely and we got to drive the scooter on the sand right up to the end of the beach where we had it to ourselves for another lil skinny dip!

Day 2 on KI was a different story – we took the scooter a lot further to Vivonne Bay (and almost ran out of petrol!) where the ground was blackened with ash and hectares were burnt, including even the dunes at the beach. Flinders Chase National Park was closed as it was completely destroyed by fire.

A highlight for me on KI was a visit to Raptor Domain where they care for orphaned and injured birds, including some amazing birds of prey – many of which we have seen on our travels. The most impressive bird in Australia is the wedge-tailed eagle – we’ve seen many of these on roadsides picking away at kangaroo carcasses, but never been able to get very close. There are wedgies here that they’ve been caring for for years and are unable to go back to the wild so are very used to humans. I was lucky enough to hold one and pet some of the others as they flew around and jumped from lap to lap in the bird show.

So cool! Bird geek

After the weather turned cold and wet we left KI and headed back to Adelaide to say our goodbyes to Brad and Sophie with a big Thai feast and of course a few pints. It was a sad goodbye as we’ve enjoyed meeting up with them along the way for 6 months and have shared so many great memories together. Our trip would not have been the same without having our travel buddies along the way!

Sophie and Brad – beautiful people, inside and out 💜

The cold and wet weather had really settled in, so we moved right along to Mt Gambier where we checked out all the sinkholes, blue lakes and our highlight- Ewens Ponds. An amazing place – 3 ponds connected by narrow shallow passageways to snorkel through with beautiful green gardens. The water is super clear and reminded us of the hot springs around Katherine, but instead of being hot were really cold! Wetsuits are a must!

Just recently they have introduced a booking/payment system at Ewens Ponds that we decided to ignore, so Ranger Steve gave us a warning and we might get home to a fine in the mail! We’ve been to so many cool places like this in Australia for free!

Now that we have crossed the border to Victoria/back on the east coast, the landscapes and scenery are so familiar. There are only a few weeks left before we get back home! I’ll do another post then where we can wrap up the trip with our favourite places and memories and Tim can provide a full tally of stats and costs from his epic spreadsheet!

Believe it or not, we’ve spent 5 months in WA! I guess it is almost half of the Australian coastline. I haven’t written in ages because we’ve been on the go so much with Xmas and NYE in Perth and being on the move with visitors from Sydney. But now we’re down on the south coast we’ve hit a patch of cold and grey weather so I’ll try do some catching up.

Just your typical Perth beach…

We hit Perth in early December and slowly made our way down the coast towards the city. Immediately we were impressed with Perth’s beaches and the facilities provided – Sydney beaches could do with some freshening up after seeing how they do it on the west coast. All the way from Yanchep in the north to Coogee in the south, we loved the beach. We found ourselves spending a lot of time at City Beach which was perfect for us to park the van and sit out on the grass overlooking the white sand and beautiful clear turquoise water.

We pretty much lived at City beach, where we could enjoy sunsets like this from the back of the van. We ended up loving the western aspect – it made the days feel much longer.

We had a blissful couple of weeks in Fremantle staying with Tims aunt and uncle who have an amazingly designed house up on the hill overlooking the historic port city. We had the bottom floor apartment to ourselves and as much as we love living in the van, it was so great to have a break with showers, kitchen and laundry at our fingertips! Fremantle is a great place and we loved exploring the markets, op shops, breweries and small bars. It reminded us of our time living in Newtown when our weekends were often big days pub crawling.

We spent two Sunday afternoons at the outdoor free concerts at the Fremantle arts centre (so awesome – we’d go every week if we lived there!) before a lovely Xmas lunch out on the deck, with all the trimmings. Tims aunt sure knows how to cook!

Xmas day with Tims lovely family 💗

We had saved up months of repairs on the van for our time in Perth so we got onto that (new back window finally yay!) and also finally got my engagement ring fixed after 3 months without it, so I was ecstatic to get it back looking good as new and on my finger!

I was excited to catch up with some friends in Perth from my hometown in NZ I hadn’t seen in 20 odd years – and that was a real highlight of our time there. I know I’d see a lot more of them if I lived in Perth, and it made the city seem that much more attractive to us.

I forgot to get any photos from my catch ups! ☹️ disappointed in myself!]

Tim’s birthday was an epic day – we caught the ferry over to Rottnest Island and hired some bikes to get around – I gave my poor legs a real shock by trying to keep up with Tim and his ridiculous calf muscles by cycling the whole way around the rather hilly island. We stopped at all the beaches some were great for snorkelling with some of the clearest water we’ve ever been in.

Clap if you love Rottnest! 🤣

We were staying in a swag we borrowed from Tims cousin at the campsite which was perfectly situated behind a fancy resort so we helped ourselves to the resort facilities and had a nice birthday dinner at the restaurant overlooking Pinky beach with quite a few bottles of bubbles. On the way home we encountered a few quokkas which were subjected to our drunken coos and cuddles. They are so cute!

A lot of our time on Rottnest was spent with these guys and of course trying to get the best quokka selfie 🙂

After a bit more time enjoying Perth’s beaches, our good friends Suzi and Duncan arrived to celebrate New Years with us and convoy in a rental van to the south coast. New Years was a great party on the rooftop of the QT hotel with free flowing drinks, canapés and a lot of dancing (to a strictly 80’s and 90’s soundtrack, I guess they were catering to a certain demographic?)

Duncan and Suzi met us in Perth in time to celebrate NYE at the QT hotel rooftop

We were so excited to hit the road again with Suz and Dunx in tow, our first stop black diamond lake but the elation was short lived with another van issue – she just wouldn’t start. Tim diagnosed the starter motor and after making our way through Busselton and down to Margaret River he found got it fixed without too much drama.

Busselton’s famous jetty – by the time we had started walking down it, like 5 minutes after this photo, a big storm blew us all the way back to the vans to hibernate. It was nuts.

In the Dunsborough area, we spent some time relaxing at Eagle Bay in the ridiculously clear calm blue water, jumping off the rocks and floating through the spa pool at Injidup, and patting the friendly stingrays at Hamelin Bay.

Injidup spa – magical! I loved this place and it made its way onto my top 10 places to visit in Australia. We went twice though, the first time we had it to ourselves, the second time was school holidays and it was overrun with people!

My big birthday rolled around when we were in Margaret River and Tim organised for us to go on a brewery/winery tour. After breakfast at camp complete with decorations on the vans, beautiful presents to unwrap, pancakes and even a visit from a donkey, we left on our tour. We had a great day checking out some of the best wines in the country.

The big 4-0! Let the celebrations begin!

After leaving the Margaret River region we travelled a day through a beautiful forest and climbed the Bicentennial Tree in Pemberton, which was a little bit scary!

The tree has spikes stuck in to work as a sort of ladder/staircase and it’s a 75m climb to the top, with no safety netting or anything to break your fall should your legs start wobbling enough! It was worth the sore legs the next day and I’d recommend anyone to give it a go.

In Denmark we woke early to go see Greens Pool and Elephant Rocks which was on a bit of a grey day so we were lucky enough to have to ourselves for a little bit. It’s a beautiful scenic part of the coastline with smooth granite rocks plunging into super clear water. Tim of course made his way up all the rocks he could, only to throw himself off. On the way out we called into Boston Brewing Co. where we discovered the best ginger beer ever (Tingletop – will def be ordering some of this when we get home!)

Elephant rocks, when the sun started to peep through

Next up was Albany, which we fell in love with – such a great little/big town which seems to be very camper friendly. Heaps of great free camps overlooking the beautiful beaches (Shelly beach, Bettys Beach and Gull Rock were our faves). The water was getting clearer and bluer and by the time we got to Two People’s Bay, we thought we’d found the perfect beach…

The iconic rock at Two People’s Bay serves as a great photo. Also good for climbing on and leaning against. The waves break so nicely here and again we had this place to ourselves for a couple of hours. The only two people at Two People’s Bay!

After popping in to Bremer Bay for a quick swim out to the floating pontoons, we finally arrived in Esperance – somewhere we had been looking forward to going the whole trip. On our way down the WA coast when chatting to locals they would all say to us “just wait until you get to Esperance!”. When we first arrived in town we were a bit like “meh, just another port town” but then we drove over the hill with West Beach in the background and our jaws dropped! The blue of the ocean is unimaginable and iridescent!

Twilight beach was our favourite spot in Esperance, we spent many days here (and a few nights!) Tim was especially fond of the rocks you swim out to and throw yourself off! Even despite the shark alarms going off…

Unfortunately we hit some bad weather in Esperance and only got 3 perfect summer days out of the 9 we stayed there. The temps had certainly dropped too, so our hoodies and jeans came out for the first time since we left home 9 months ago!

But those 3 days we had sunshine were magic! We had a great day at Twilight Beach just before Suz and Dunx left to go back to Perth – we all jumped off the rocks and got a bit too much sun before heading to the best little restaurant/bar in town Taylor St Quarters where we polished off a few cocktails while listening to live music.

The best day with the best people in the best water! That blue is no joke! 💙

After Suz and Dunx had left us (sad face) we managed to get a last minute booking for one night at the Lucky Bay campsite in Cape Le Grand National park. We love being able to park right on the sand at the beach, and this one was even more special because of the friendly kangaroos who live there.

Does it get any better than this?

Well, that’s it for the WA coastline – my absolute favourite part of Australia – all the way from Broome to Esperance, WA beaches are world class.

Wave Rock was a detour we did just to get the photo really, there’s not much more to it. But it was cool to see, and so is the photo. We did it in the middle of a heatwave though so we had to make it super quick before we melted.

Wave rock was a heat wave indeed! It got to 43C!

We also popped into the mining town of Kalgoorlie, where the “super pit” mine has been in operation for a hundred years and just keeps getting bigger and deeper. The historic buildings in town were pretty cool – literally a historic pub on every. single. corner. But mines and history aren’t really our cuppa tea in case you haven’t noticed.

Neither are boring straight long drives like the Nullarbor, which a friend pointed out means “null arbor” – very accurate as it’s just a vast plain of nothingness. We spent a couple of days to cross into SA, the state we knew we were going to be completely surprised by, because we literally knew nothing about it!

Nullarbor Roadhouse – a good place to stretch your legs! 😂 check out Tim’s ridiculous calves!

SA so far is more than we could have imagined, and I’ll save that for my next post since this one has yet again got away on me! If you’ve made it this far, congratulations and I’m sorry 😉

We slowed down so much we actually started going backwards…

We have a bit of a timeline to stick to, with plans to stay with Tims Perth family over Christmas and also not wanting to get too far south while the temps are still a bit low. After all, we are trying to chase summer around the country!

Ayers Rock is only 100m off the main beach at Coral Bay and is 3,500 years old and one of the biggest bommie corals in the world!

We did finally leave Exmouth for a few days in Coral Bay, but it was still school holidays and so busy. And as we pulled into the tiny little town we kinda went “meh. Is this it?” Just caravan parks with an IGA and a couple of tourist shops. But we jumped the gun a bit and after a few days exploring the coastline, the abundance of coral gardens just off the beach and an awesome tour of some snorkel spots and chasing some manta rays, we were won over.

Snorkelling in Coral Bay

When school holidays finished, we decided to go back to Exmouth and spend some more time in paradise. Our favourite campsite, Osprey bay had some availability so we jumped on that and booked another full week. It was great to be able to go back to some of our favourite places, and enjoyed the days when the wind was down, like one morning we took the SUPs 3km out to kayak moorings at Osprey bay where we had the reef to ourselves and got to have a great swim with a reef shark!

As soon as we jumped off the SUPs we saw this guy under an overhanging coral. He slowly came out and swam at a nice pace in a big circle so we could keep up without flippers!

After heading back into town where we enjoyed more beers at the brewery, more iced coffees at the bakery, and a good shower at town beach, we headed back to Coral Bay. It was a completely different scene with school holidays over – so quiet! It’s their off season now, when temps get ridiculously high and so do the winds.

A short walk around the shore from the main beach at Coral Bay is a shark nursery, where hundreds of baby sharks live in relative safety in the shallow water. We waded in knee deep and they swam all around us. It was pretty cool and after our time in the water at Coral Bay I have a new appreciation for sharks.

“Baby shark do do do do do do” (cmon, just try to resist?!)

Baby shark nursery at Coral Bay. Apparently we got lucky, there are always baby sharks here but not always so many!

So after 5 weeks in our favourite place in the world: the Ningaloo Reef region, we reluctantly left and headed south to Carnarvon where we stocked up water fuel and groceries and made our way out to Quobba Blowholes. A really weird place where locals set up beach shacks about 30 years ago but the campsite is free in off season, is right on the beach and the blowholes are awesome to sit and watch.

The impressive king waves at Quobba. We had rain for the first time in almost 4 months here!

After leaving Quobba we stopped at Wooramel Station for one night where we camped with some horses and enjoyed a sunset and sunrise soak in the artisan hot tubs. The next day we arrived in Shark Bay with the van vibrating and feeling a bit wobbly… once we stopped in at Shell Beach we realised we had a tyre that was hanging on my a thread! (Oops writing that reminds me we are still on the spare! Must nag Tim…)

Not sure how long we drove on our shredded tyre – could’ve been up to 400km! 😬

We passed through the ghost town known as Denham to Monkey Mia, which is famous for the dolphins who swim right up to the shore. We did a sneaky and avoided paying the $15pp entry fee by booking into the resort campsite nice and early, and spent the day relaxing at the resort pool and doing our laundry! (Awesome new facilities blocks and brand new washing machines!) There was a big family of emus living there, a daddy with 20 babies under his careful watch! They were soo cute, we spent a bit of time following them around as they went about their business in the resort and even went for a swim in the ocean.

Emu daddy day care!

We found the whole Shark Bay Area to be a bit too touristy for our flavour but managed to do some sneaky free camping and still enjoyed it nonetheless. We popped into Eagle Bluff on the way out of the area and loved sitting up high on the cliffs and watching all the sea life below: heaps of sharks, some turtles and a pod of 5 eagle rays, which Tim managed to catch on the drone!

Watching the sea life below

Next up was Kalbarri, which was a cool little town on the coast with good surf, impressive cliffs and a national park with some nice scenic spots (but too hot to do much exploring in!) We arrived in the middle of a heatwave so thankfully we found a nice spot to park up for a few days at Chinamans beach where we could pop in and out of the water.

Tim rock climbing at nature’s window

We were excited to get to Geraldton, the first big little town we’d been to in months! We are Aldi shoppers and have missed it since last shopping on the east coast! So excited to get there and buy some of our favourites. Also Maccas and the op shops are worth a mention too, I got so many goodies! Geraldton is definitely an RV friendly town – they actually have two dedicated oceanfront free camps in car parks, both equipped with toilets and showers!

Pink lake at Gregory did not disappoint. So pink! So salty! We snapped off a chunk of salt that looks like rose quartz.

Just before Geraldton we stopped over at the infamous pink lake at Gregory. I’ve always wanted to visit this place, how does a lake get so pink?! Apparently it’s the algae. There is a salt crust around the edge and I think the whole lake is pretty shallow. We walked out a way but the salt crystals underfoot were pretty sharp! We spent a couple of hours here taking photos in my cutest pink outfit and Tim flew the drone.

Awesome camp at Cliff Head with our travelling friends

Dongara was a cute little port town where we stopped for a swim and a coffee and then another few hours down the coastal route to Beekeepers Nature Reserve where there were a number of free camps along the coast (3 day stay max). We got a great site between some trees at Cliff Head with enough space for our friends, Brad & Sophie and Graeme & Diane, whom we met all the way back at Edith Falls in the NT. We made a cool swing to hang in the trees and added our own hanging art to those that were already there! We had a great Saturday night exchanging travel stories and lots of drinks and in the morning said farewell to Graeme & Diane as they drove to Perth to fly back to NZ.

Sophie loves climbing trees! 🐨 Here she is hanging our tree art

Down the coast a bit further we hit Sandy Cape, where massive sand dunes are formed by the finest white sand blowing across the land by the wild west coast winds. The sand is bright white and (if the wind is down) you can have a great time on the sand dunes. Tim took the fins off his surfboard and he and Brad exerted all their energy throwing themselves down the dunes and then crawling their way back up! We snagged the best camp site right on the beach and had a relaxing couple of days.

The dunes at Lancelin, fun to slide down on a sand board, not so fun to climb back up!

We had a couple of grey days and colder temperatures when we got to Jurien Bay, but decided anyway to book in a tour to go swimming with seals and sea lions at one of the islands off the coast. So glad we did as it ended up being the most fun you could possibly have in the water! They’re called the puppies of the sea due to their playful nature and their cuteness! The more playful you are with them, the more they interact with you. It was actually quite exhausting but we loved every minute of it!

Play with me!

A bit further south yesterday we passed through the Pinnacles, some limestone rocks in the middle of a desert with a yellow tinge to the sand. It’s pretty cool here as they have a driving track you can do a loop around the desert. We set up my iPhone on one of the rocks and took heaps of silly photos.

Fun at the Pinnacles desert

We arrived in Lancelin yesterday afternoon and met back up with Brad & Sophie and another travelling couple they’d met earlier in the day all the way from Sydney, we settled in at the local pub in the beer garden overlooking the beach. That brings us to now, and me waking up in the van with a pretty mean hangover 😒 We are very close to Perth and will probably drive in later today or tomorrow morning. I’m quite looking forward to being back in a big city, I might even wear shoes and do something with my hair! We have a few people to catch up with so I’m looking forward to that. We have a month to fill in before Xmas and our friends Suzi and Duncan arriving for New Years and a couple of weeks in convoy around Margaret River and the south coast with them which will be amazing!

Had to pick up this lil cutie for a cuddle and a photo. Loving interacting with all the Aussie wildlife we’ve come across on this trip.

Some of Tim’s trip stats:

Day 224

• 38 nights in campsites / 186 free
• Distance travelled: 20,000km
• Food $4,342
• Drinks $3,322
• Fuel $3,155
• Tours $3,031 (incl. Bali flights)

• Van repairs $1,200 (soon to increase when we get to Perth – we have quite a list!)
• Coffee $364
• Kmart $274

It’s already been a month since we crossed the border to Western Australia and we’ve certainly slowed the pace! It’s awesome to be back by the ocean and somewhere I’ve always wanted to explore! The first stop was a caravan park we’d heard of due to its location and picturesque infinity pool at Lake Argyle. We met up with some friends we’d met in the NT, Brad and Sophie. It was Brads birthday that night so we celebrated at the parks own beer garden with some live music and lots of beers (a theme that has continued when we’ve met up with them along the way!)

The much instagrammed infinity pool at Lake Argyle Resort and Caravan Park – it’s easy to get the pool for yourself when the water is so icy!

After leaving there and passing through Kununurra we went to the first part of the Gibb River Road (we unfortunately couldn’t do the rest due to the 700km of corrugation!) and into the accessible part of El Questro, Emma Gorge. It was a bit of a tricky walk over the rocks but we were rewarded with a really pretty cave with some fresh (but cold) water to swim in. To the right was a trickle of hot water making its way through the rocks creating a little spa pool if you can be bothered to arrange the rocks around it, which we did half-assedly. There was also another really pretty turquoise pool we had a dip in on the way out, but were warned of the resident fresh water croc who lives in there (and was spotted only an hour before our swim!)

Emma Gorge in El Questro NP

After leaving Emma Gorge we had a few days of endless driving along flat straight uneventful roads, with the only interesting thing being the weird and wacky Baobab (or Boab for the lazy Aussie) trees. We found the roadside camps to be pretty good, offering shade, bins, toilets and lots of room to hang a hammock.

Tim inside a wacky boab tree

We stopped in at Geikie Gorge, if only to give us something to do, and made the rookie error of doing a big walk in the heat of the day. This was the last spot we saw crocs, after that we felt out of croc territory. Before leaving on this trip we were a bit nervous about swimming in croc territory, but soon learnt that fresh water crocs pretty much live in all the fresh water rivers and lakes, but they want to avoid you just as much as you want to avoid them. Tim actually jumped into Lake Argyle for a dip while we could see a freshy on the opposite banks (I wasn’t keen, I’d prefer to be ignorant about the fact they are there!)

Literally a croc on the banks behind him

The day we pulled into Broome was our 6 year anniversary! How time flies! It’s awesome and amazing to think that we are in the middle of this trip after dreaming it up so many years ago, and that we are truly loving life and enjoying each other so much after 6 years together.

Broome was a welcome change, being back on the coast and next to the beach. We pulled up and went “ahhh look at that water!” A vibrant turquoise I couldn’t wait to get into! We spent our anniversary at the main part of Cable Beach dipping in and out of the water and ended it with a nice little picnic with the sun setting behind the palm trees.

6 year anniversary dinner picnic on Cable Beach

Our second day in Broome we braved driving down on to the sand at the south end of cable beach – how awesome! We could set up our little home, put up the shade and take out the chairs, open up the van and listen to music – walking back and forth to the water for swims! We were marvelling at just how cool it was, how amazing the whole trip has been to this point, when Tim grabbed my hand and got down on one knee…

Not going to lie, I was hoping this moment would come (and was even a little disappointed when our 6 year anniversary came and went!) so I was completely taken by surprise and obviously ecstatic when he asked me to spend the rest of my life with him.

Needless to say, Broome will always be a special place for us, and we ended up staying for over a week, generally spending our days parked down on the sand, going for dips in the ocean, collecting shell treasures and catching up with travelling friends we’ve met along the way.

The beach has always felt like home for us! In Broome it literally was home.

Despite hearing that the campsites were way overpriced and free-camping is strictly monitored, we found a great spot along the coast near Ganthueame Point where we had nice quiet sleeps, and one night after a particularly boozy catch up with some friends on Cable Beach we simply reversed and made our home for the night on the sand! Gantheaume Point was particularly cool for the scenery – my eyes couldn’t quite believe the contrast in the red dirt and turquoise blue ocean. We saw plenty of whales making their way back down the coast.

Seriously cool place to camp for the week!

It was hard to leave Broome, and in doing so we had a few days driving ahead of us to get to Karijini NP. Back to the dusty dirt (insert eye roll here), back to hours of boring long straight roads, roadside campsites loaded with flies, and heat with no reprieve. I was starting to regret leaving Broome at all… but then we got to Karijini, first stop Dales Gorge. We set up in the campsite and made our way down into the Gorge and had swims at Fern Pool, Fortescue Falls and Circular Pool. Fern Pool was my favourite with a little waterfall and a grotto tucked behind the water. We went back later in the day to continue our celebrations with a sunset champagne.

Happy hour in the grotto

After Dales Gorge we headed over to Hancock Gorge on the other side of the national park. The walks to Kermits Pool and Handrail Pool were so cool, traversing the narrow rock faces and at times having to swim your way through. Almost all of the walks in Karijini are grade 4 meaning they are pretty difficult and hiking boots recommended – of course Tim did them all in his thongs again. We did Kermits Pool first thing in the morning so had the whole gorge to ourselves and took heaps of pics.

The water was pretty cold – and despite the tricky walks through these gorges, apparently the no.1 casualty for visitors to Karijini is hypothermia. Cold water is typically a non-issue for me though, due to my kiwi blood 😉

By far my favourite spot in Karijini, or actually any of the inland national parks we’ve visited so far- was Hamersley Gorge. We almost didn’t even go there as we’d had enough of the red dirt and were almost desperate to get back to the coast, so we’d left the park and got reception back on our phones when I realised we’d skipped it! We had to turn around and go back, unfortunately the quickest route was across 100km of gravel road. But when we got there it was all worthwhile- the gorge was lined with crazy red rock in wave like patterns encasing beautiful emerald green water. At the top were a couple of spa pools which were deep enough to jump off the rocks above into. Great photos too which can deceive the actual size of the pools.

Tim jumping in the spa pool. The water was a good temperature here and we spent all day swimming around

We ended up spending the whole day at the gorge and ended it by hooking up the hammock and had some wine and cheese for happy hour as we watched the sun set show across the rocks in the gorge.

Loved it here- can’t believe we almost missed out on it! Even worth all the hellish white-knuckle driving to get there! Those tans are not just due to the sun – credit also goes to the dirt.

When we left the park (for the second time) in the morning, we unfortunately had to drive back along the 100km gravel road, back past the weird little ghost town Wittenoom, past all the mining road trains kicking up red dust galore, and by the time we got back to Port Hedland (for Kmart, water and food restocks) we realised one of our back windows had shattered from a rock which had no doubt flicked up from one of the road trains. What a downer! Another downer was having to clean out the van, top to bottom, to get out all that red dirt. It’s so fine and literally gets into everything and gives it a red/brown tinge. All our clothes and bedding had to be washed twice, all the crevices in the van dusted out and all the walls and surfaces wiped down multiple times. The poor scooter strapped on the back of the van was covered in dust inside and out.

After a long day cleaning the van, the window is still smashed and taped up and will hopefully stay intact until Perth (where Tim has researched how much cheaper it is to get fixed). Back on the coast, but if it’s not windy: flies.

After restocking everything and a full day of cleaning the van and everything within it, we left Port Hedland for Karratha. We could have skipped it all and headed straight to Exmouth from Karijini, but google maps told us that would be cutting out a big chunk of the coastline, so we hoped we’d find something to make the extra kms worthwhile. We didn’t really. Hearson’s Cove near Karratha was a good place to visit at high tide, if you could ignore the wind and abundance of flies. We got the stand up paddle boards out for the first time since the East coast, but the wind made them pretty hard to navigate.

Hearson’s Cove – lucky you can’t see wind in photos ;) this place was meh at low tide, but the tide comes in within minutes and the water was really nice. Also helpful to get away from the flies! Apparently the wind/flies rule doesn’t apply here.

Driving into Exmouth we saw our second wild Emu- a dad leading 3 little babies along the main road, so cute! I didn’t know it beforehand, but lots of emus live in Exmouth. I love them. I might have to move to Exmouth. Not just for the emus either – they also have an amazing bakery. Oh and the national park. We’ve been here for over 2 weeks now – by far the longest place we’ve lingered on our whole trip. It’s getting kinda hard to leave. We’re supposed to leave today… but we were supposed yesterday too…

Welcome to Exmouth!

After a couple of days checking out Exmouth we managed to get a few nights booked in the campsites within Cape Range National Park. Driving down the coast the water is breathtaking – you can’t help but wow at the peeks of bright turquoise ocean. When the wind dies down, the place is literally paradise, above and below the water. Our favourite place to camp was at Osprey Bay, where we saw our first turtle and then saw many, many more. Every time we got in the water there was a turtle nearby just waiting for you to go for a swim with him.

The turtles are so chilled out, happy to have you swim alongside them. Easy to spot from the beach too, often popping up their heads in the shallows

There are many great spots to snorkel in the national park, all easily accessible, just a short walk off the beach. Lakeside was our favourite snorkel spot as the coral was big and colourful, heaps of fish and was a bit deeper than other spots like Oyster Stacks which you can only do at low tide.

Osprey Bay – paradise. The water was this amazing colour and you didn’t even need to snorkel to play with the turtles

The campsites in the park are oceanfront and awesome, but basic with no services or supplies like water. So we popped out of the park for a few days to refill and refresh (and shower etc) and then headed back in. Unfortunately it was the start of school holidays so getting bookings in the campsites was difficult. When it wasn’t windy, it was paradise – our favourite destination on our trip so far! We loved all the snorkelling but also loved just chilling on the beaches, Osprey Bay, Sandy Bay and Turquoise Bay were the best.

The best water in Australia (so far…)

So after another few days chilling out in Exmouth, enjoying the bakery, the palm trees at town beach and the 2 local breweries, we are ready to go. On the way out we are going to head back up to Charles Knife Gorge, a very impressive canyon with some epic walks and sunset and sunrise, on our way down to Coral Bay. So excited to see the rest of the WA coast, if it’s anything like what we’ve seen so far we may never leave!

Our journey so far – half way! In both time and distance! We’ve done so much, looking back at the start of the trip when our hair was shorter and cleaner and our skin paler, it feels like much longer than 6 months!

Oops once again I’ve let this blog get away on me, the only excuse being that we have been so busy! Vanlife is not as much lying around in the hammock as I thought it was going to be! (Although I am currently writing this from the comfort of my hammock)

So after hitting the Northern Territory and our last minute decision to head down to Uluru after all, we did a bit more forward planning than usual and booked some flights from Darwin to Bali for a little holiday within our holiday! From Darwin flights are super cheap and super quick (only 2.5 hours). Booking the trip meant we had a certain time frame to stick to, to head down the red centre and back up again. We spent hours each day driving, stopping at any grassy spots we find for yoga and lunch, and spent our nights at roadside free camps as recommended on our wikicamps/CamperMate apps. In general the camps are just off the road dirt patches with some shade from trees and simple drop toilets and the occasional fire pit. They’ve been awesome and have certainly helped keep us on our (Tim’s) tight budget.

After a few days heading south we soon noticed that the days were still hot but the nights were getting colder. Much colder. South of Tennant Creek we approached Devils Marbles in the late afternoon and what a contrast to the surrounding landscape! These massive rounded boulders all delicately balanced on top of each other and in the afternoon sun they glow orange. We only just squeezed in to the busy campsite and set off for a walk and a bit of rock climbing, and thank god we had some fly nets for our heads because we were definitely in the midst of fly country!

Tim monkeying around at Devils Marbles. There’s hundreds of these all dotted around an area a few kilometres surrounded by nothing but flat scrubby land

We’d heard a lot in the media about Uluru being overcrowded and the campsites overflowing due to closing the climb later this year. But the national park is big, as is the rock itself and there were plenty of times we found ourselves in a spot along a walkway where there were no other humans about. We parked in the sunset viewing spot in the mid afternoon and took the scooter off for a ride around the rock with a few stops along the way to check out sections of the walks or scenery. When we got back we opened up the back doors and enjoyed watching the changing colours of the sunset on the rock from the comfort of our bed (and with a pack of chips and some beers!)

Tim snapped this from the back doors of our van. Love the way the big rock glows almost fluorescent orange for a few minutes, then a few minutes later is almost dark purple

After leaving Uluru we noticed something wrong with the van, she wasn’t starting up easily. At first we thought it was due to the freezing overnight temperatures, but when it was also happening in the heat of the day we decided we’d better get back to Alice Springs before she stopped starting at all! Unfortunately we got back to Alice on a Saturday morning when all the garages were closed, but fortunately the Alice Camel Cup was on that day, so we had something fun to do! At the races we met another travelling couple, Ebony and Izzy, who turned out to be staying in the same campsite as us and also share our love of champagne. We had a really fun day with them and suffered through the Sunday until we could book the van in to get a new alternator.

We had a big day at the Camel Cup! So much so we didn’t even remember taking this photo at the end of the day

So after being stuck in Alice Springs a little longer than anticipated, we hit the road back up the middle, stopping again at Devils Marbles where Tim kindly offered to help a Chinese man put up his tent for his first night camping. I watched from the comfort of my hammock while they struggled with the instructions and I realised Tim has good intentions but is really shit at putting up a tent.

The red centre

By the time we’d left the red centre and started heading north, we were craving some water so luckily we came across Mataranka and Katherine with all the amazing hot springs. The water is a balmy 30C and is ridiculously clear and blue. We met back up with Ebony and Izzy at Bitter Springs where you float down a lush tropical river and there is just as much scenery below the water as above.

Bitter Springs was awesome. The water was so clear and warm

At Nitmiluk National Park just north of Katherine we visited Katherine Gorge where we did a short 900m walk that accidentally turned into a 5km walk. Unfortunately Tim doesn’t always wear shoes, actually he never wears shoes and only occasionally wears thongs, so he struggled through the 5km gravel walk barefoot (with some attempts at fashioning some shoes out of bark and straw). Luckily there was a resort at the end of the walk which had an awesome pool so we let ourselves in and relaxed a while.

Katherine Gorge walk 900m mark. The other 4,100m was just gravel and bush.

Also in Nitmiluk is Edith Falls, where a big lake at the bottom (see pic below) is fed by awesome falls and pools further up, where we spent a good few hours in and out of the water. We ended up staying at the campsite and struck up a friendship with some kiwi grey nomads, Graham and Diane, who we met up with a few more times along the road, so hospitable having us over to their patch of grass for a wine and some snacks.

Edith Falls was one of our favourite swimming holes. Be warned though, only strong swimmers should enter the water as someone drowned here a couple of days before we visited and we saw someone struggling to make it back to land.

After leaving Edith Falls we headed into Litchfield National Park which ended up being one of our favourite places. Litchfield was really beautiful and green after so much red dirt and there are awesome waterfalls and really nicely maintained and operated campsites for a small fee $6pp/night. Florence Falls was super pretty, down a steep staircase to a cave like green oasis with 2 waterfalls landing in it. Heading back up you follow a walking path next to the river leading to Buley Rockholes which were a series of pools of various depths running down the river. Tim delighted in jumping into the deepest ones. We also visited Wangi Falls but the water was quite warm and brown so we didn’t really rate it. We made another new friend here, Brad who joined us at Graeme and Diane’s patch of grass for a few beers.

Swimming at the bottom of Florence Falls

Also up the top end we visited Kakadu National Park. We were a bit undecided whether to go here as it’s such a big park, it takes days to drive through, it’s expensive and we’d read that most of the spots worth visiting are on dirt tracks 4wd only. But like with Uluru, we had time and figured we might not come back up this way and didn’t want FOMO. There’s a lot of kms to cover with only a few things to see, but we loved watching the salt water crocodiles at Cahills crossing, and the yellow river cruise at sunrise was also awesome, lots of crocs and so many birds. The river itself is also really pretty.

Lots of croc watching in Kakadu

We made it to 2 waterfalls – Maguk and Gunlom, Maguk was possibly our favourite waterfalls so far- with one big pool at the bottom and a series of pools at the top, some really deep and one even was like a cave, you could jump in and swim under to come out. Tim was brave enough to do this a few times. Gunlom was pretty cool too but the corrugated road in was 35km and ended up in a flat tire. We’ve now set a limit for off-road driving to 15km.

Tim jumping into one of the upper pools at Maguk in Kakadu

Before we flew to Bali on Sunday night, we had to haul ass to Darwin so I could pick up some packages at the post office (yup, I’m still doing a little internet shopping!) Darwin is actually a really nice city and we enjoyed our time there. We caught up with Ebony and Izzy again as they’d decided to stay for a few months. As we got ready to take off to Bali, we were lucky Tim had a contact in Darwin who agreed to babysit our van (park it in their driveway) for the duration of our trip.

From the top of Gunlom Falls in Kakadu

Bali was awesome, we stayed in a few different spots over the 2.5 weeks and saw so much. Our highlight was snorkelling at Gili Trawangan, I’d highly recommend it! But I’m not going to share the Bali trip, I’ll keep this blog about Australia, and since I keep leaving it too long I’m never going to be able to keep this as short and sweet as I wanted to!

We are now in Western Australia after crossing the border a few days ago, I’ll pick up the next blog post there!

Well here we are – 65 days into our trip and 3,500kms travelled, and this is only my third blog post – whoops. I know this sounds ludicrous, but we have been so busy it’s hard to find the time! I suppose the days are shorter now that it’s winter and we really only exist when the sun is up. So this is gonna be a long one.

Now that we are exploring new territory (we’ve never travelled the roads north of Noosa and south of Cairns), it’s exciting to hit the road and discover new places. We’ve met a lot of people along the way – mostly well travelled retirees – who give us heaps of tips and suggestions for places to check out. Some were on our radar already thanks to Instagram and some very helpful Facebook friends, and some are new to us (we have a list saved in our Notes app). We’ve also found a bunch of great places on our own just using the satellite view on Google Maps.

SUP in Noosa NP

Noosa was amazing – as always. We had one epic day where we woke up early for the good parking spot at main beach and took the stand up paddle boards around to Granite Bay where we saw turtles and dolphins. After a poke bowl from our favourite place in Noosa we drove around to Sunshine Beach and approached the national park from that end to walk the track around to a spot called Devils Kitchen where we went off track and scrambled over some rocks to the best little mermaid pool and a beach called Paradise Cove. Aptly named, it was the perfect spot for an afternoon skinny dip with no one else around.

Paradise cove mermaid pool

We stayed that night with some very hospitable friends (thanks Bruce and Larns!) and in the morning winter hit! We actually had to go buy some warmer clothes (Tim had to get a beanie for his newly shaved head!) we definitely felt it at night in the van. We hit some wet weather after Noosa and decided to bypass Fraser Island in favour of some of the other islands up north.

We wanted to get some kms behind us to make up for lost time and to hopefully get north enough to find “summer” again so we were not lingering long in each place.

Heading in for a snorkel at Coral Cove- wetsuits were required!

We did the Bundaberg rum tour on a rainy day and afterwards went to the Bundy coastline where we found a great little snorkel spot called Coral Cove. The next day we travelled to Agnes Waters and Seventeen Seventy where we finally splashed out on a campsite. Unfortunately the campsite sucked. It was too shady to charge our solar, muddy, and the site we chose smelled like the previous inhabitants vomit. No joke. It really made us appreciate free camping! 1770 was nice though and we found some great private little beaches and rocks for Tim to jump off.

1770 – had to jump the fence and scramble down some rocks, but worth it!

After that we passed through Central Queensland – Gladstone to Rockhampton where we went to the Wednesday night Rodeo at the Great Western Hotel for date night. The food was pretty crappy but the beers were good and the rodeo was pretty fun! The next morning we went to Yeppoon on the coast and waited out a couple of days of rain before the sun came back out and we got a boat over to Great Keppel Island. Apparently it used to be a Contiki party island in the 80’s but changed ownership and is now a bit of a wasteland of abandoned buildings. But the beaches are amazing and we had a great day exploring and snorkelling. We’d love to go back and camp there for a few days.

Great Keppel Island

With the weather being a bit changeable, we started toward Mackay and went up to Finch Hatton Gorge for an awesome walk in the forest up to a long stream of waterfalls and swimming holes. We ventured down a path that was closed for path regeneration down to Araluen waterfall so we were the only ones there! The water was a little chilly but damn you feel fresh afterwards! We left there and started to head up to Eungella NP where you’re pretty much guaranteed to see platypus, but it was rainy, muddy and we were being eaten alive by mozzies and midges so we hightailed it out of there back to Mackay.

Araluen Falls in Finch Hatton Gorge – Tim did the slide down the falls!

We were excited to move up to Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays- somewhere we’ve both always wanted to go. As soon as we got to the Whitsundays area, the temps had risen to high 20s and it felt like we were back in summer. We’d read that free camping in the area is a big no-no so we found a deal at the Discovery Parks campsite for just $20/night. We had a massive grassy site next to some perfect hammock hanging trees and finally got to do a big load of washing and have hot showers. We had a relaxing 4 nights there while we waited for our 3 day/2 night boat tour of the islands.

Pretty sweet camp set up at Discovery Airlie. Tim getting his omm on ready for yoga

Of course the morning of the boat tour it bucketed down with rain. But by the time we boarded with 20 other people, it had cleared a bit and we sailed off (at a crawl) for 4 hours to the bay behind Whitehaven beach. When we woke in the morning a pink/orange hue was streaming through the portholes and on deck was the most beautiful sunrise over the water.

Whitsundays sunrise

We ended up being the first people on Whitehaven beach and I don’t think there’s really anything else like it – the whitest sand in the world due to the high concentration of silica and the shallow clear waters are picture perfect. We even had a big stingray about 1m circumference come and check us out.

Whitehaven beach magic

After we left Whitehaven beach we moored at a couple of snorkel spots – and I have to say it was the best snorkelling I’ve ever done. There were so many fish, so many different colours and sizes, but the best were all the big Maori wrasse – the biggest and bluest one called George. They stay in that area as they know they get well fed, and they’re not shy at all. So fun to swim with them and chase them around! Some of the areas of coral were smashed pretty badly by cyclone Debbie a few years ago, but there is new coral growing and it’s varied and colourful like a well maintained underwater garden. I love snorkelling and being under there, it’s so full of life and feels like a another world. The last few days in the Whitsundays have been a real highlight of the trip, I’d love to come back and spend more time in the islands (preferably on our own 30ft yacht!)

George the 100kg Maori wrasse – pretty happy with this GoPro pic, sometimes underwater photos don’t work out. Lucky he wasn’t shy so I could get pretty close!

That brings us here, today we woke up in a beautiful spot called Bowen. Some local retirees invited us to join their yoga and meditation on the beach, so a great introduction to the area! It’s a beautiful spot; the water is so blue and the rock formations are very different to anything I’ve seen. I think we’ll stay here a bit longer.

Waking up in Bowen

Tim has been keeping a record of our budget and he’s done a great job keeping us on track. We haven’t even dipped into our savings yet, we are actually still living off our last pay checks and bond refund! If it were up to me… well, we would have a van full of clothes and homewares and fat bellies and no money 😆

Tims budget: $115 camping fees / $600 fuel / $1,800 food / $1,200 drinks / $110 coffee / $90 in Kmart

It’s been 6 weeks today since we left Sydney. We haven’t really done a lot of km’s, mostly due to one of my good friends having a 40th birthday on the Gold Coast this past weekend, so we hung around the area and took our time exploring some new spots around the border. We decided we love this area, it has a great climate (still like summer in late May!) and so many great beaches and little towns all within short driving distances. Brisbane only an hour north and Byron only 45 mins south with so many great stops along the way (Kingscliff, Cabarita and Brunswick Heads were our favourites). We found ourselves going back to Snapper Rocks in Coolangatta – great beach and chilled out vibe (and Tim found a pub overlooking the beach with $6 pints so he was sold!)

Snapper Rocks

Anyway, this post I’m not going to go on too much about the places we’ve been since it’s a well-worn track, but more about how we are going about just day to day living in the van.

Living simply or “The Simple Life” (thanks Paris and Nicole) is going swimmingly! We have a free camping routine down pat (we have only spent $13 on accommodation so far – that was at a national park) and I’ve truly realised how little people need in life to be happy. Literally water, food and shelter. Luckily in Australia (or at least everywhere we have been so far) water is very easy to acquire, even free camping. There are taps everywhere and we have a hose with multiple connections which means we can keep our 70L tank in the van full.

Water = life

Food is also easy, though we have barely eaten out due to Tim’s tight budget 🙄 – we have a fully equipped kitchen with a 4-burner stove, a full sized oven and a decent size fridge (when not full of beer!). Last night Tim made us an amazing spaghetti bolognese (my fav!) and I’m looking forward to the leftovers tonight!

Home is where you park it!

Our shelter (Van’s van) really has become our home. It’s small sure, but it’s easy to keep clean and tidy and has everything we need. The bed is huge and is a great place to retreat and watch Netflix when the weather turns or the sun has set. We have a great little table we can set up to eat dinner and slide away when we don’t need it.

People often approach us when we are hanging inside or around the van to compliment the fit out and ask us how long we’ve been on the road and where we are going (one guy even asked to come inside and take photos!) At first we thought all the looks we were receiving were negative (“look at these dirty free campers”) but after a while we realised people are mostly just curious and/or jealous! And the ones that approach us all tell us so! We’ve also received a lot of great tips from people who have done the trip around Australia before.

As for keeping our days full, that has been easy. After setting ourselves up in the morning at a good park near the water, we do a 30 or 60 minute yoga class, have brekkie, clean and tidy the van and then head to the water. Today we took the stand up paddle boards out past the waves and then went for a big walk around the coast for 2 hours. We are averaging 12,000 steps each day. Sometimes we jump on the scooter to explore the area which is also a great way to get around and see everything.

We are both half way through our 4th books (I’ve finally discovered Dan Brown), which we generally do lying in the poof in the sun or chilling in the van.

Before we left, the thing I was probably most concerned about was my clothes and having enough storage for them, and my personal hygiene routine. Firstly, I’ve probably only worn 10% of the clothes I brought, hand washing them has been no issue and I only do it when the sun is out. I may not be plucking my eyebrows or shaving my legs as often as I should but Tim doesn’t seem too bothered and I don’t care what anyone else thinks! Because we’ve had a few social events on though, I’ve probably kept on top of that ok (I even managed to colour my roots in the van/beach shower!)

Feeling fresh and clean; plucked and shaved and roots un-greyed!

We are excited about the next part of our trip- north of Noosa on the way up to Cairns. Unfortunately we’ll be heading into croc and jellyfish territory and no more waves so I’m not sure how we’ll go, hopefully we can still get in the water every day.

So much for keeping these posts short and sweet – I guess I have too much time on my hands! If you are reading this last paragraph: let me know if you have any questions or anything you want to know more about 🙂

Well here we are, living our lives in the van and making our way up the northern NSW region, post an epic Bluesfest beginning!

We have officially been living in the van for 6 days after spending 9 blissful nights in an awesome beach house in Byron. Bluesfest was a little different this year as it’s usually just Suzi and I, but we had a big group this year and it was just as fun. Less shopping at the stalls, still lots of dancing and drinking.

The 2019 30 year anniversary Bluesfest crew!

The last couple of days have been very relaxing (detoxing!), spending our time parked up by the beach and enjoying the sun when it comes out and hibernating inside our cosy little home on wheels when it rains.

We spent a couple of days parked up at Brunswick Heads which is a spot we visited on our trip at Xmas. We love it there by the river, great for stand up paddle boarding and swimming at high tide and the little beach is also great for an early morning swim. It also has all the amenities you need for vanlife: water, toilets and showers.

Swimming in the river at Brunswick Heads

Yesterday, since the weather was still pretty grey, we headed inland to Nightcap National Park. Tim did a great job driving the windy and very pot-holed roads, we even did a little river crossing! We visited Minyon Falls, a very long drop but just a dribble of water (Here we are thinking this is a lot of rain!). We set up camp for the night at Rummery Park Campground, a very quiet and super tidy space where the local kookaburras are super friendly.

A friendly Kookaburra in Nightcap NP

We’ve been enjoying our downtime, reading our novels, preparing and eating food and (me) cleaning and organising the van. Tim has also done a few modifications to the van to make it more liveable such as moving the power to the back so we can charge our devices overnight, he successfully installed the reversing camera (omg life-changing! We can see behind us now!), and yesterday we installed a mosquito net on the sliding doors. Definitely starting to need it, and the need will only increase the further north we go.

Cooking dinner in the van. With daylight savings now over, we have dinner early, go to bed early, and wake up super early!

The first couple of days we were feeling a bit like “what the hell are we doing? I don’t think I can spend a year living in a van!!” but then we fell into our groove, got some better nights sleep and it’s starting to feel normal (ish). We often forget what day of the week it is, don’t always have any plans for where to go next, but ultimately we are enjoying each other’s company and living simply. It’s looking like the weather is set to improve in the coming days which really does make vanlife a lot easier!

(Oh and yes Tim shaved his face and head! It took a bit of getting used to, but he reckons its more vanlife-friendly. I’m heading towards dreadlocks, like it or not!)