Travelling Australia in a caravan - with two toddlers! By Luka McCabe
Recently, my husband Jesse and my two children Flynn (4) and Florence (1) embarked on a 8 month trip caravanning around Australia, the country we are lucky enough to call home. We live in Newcastle (NSW) but wanted to chase the sun, so we actually technically started our trip in Perth (WA).
My husband hightailed the caravan over with my dad and his brother and a week later I flew to Perth with the kids, my dad and brother-in-law flew home and our trip began!
Over the next 5 months we explored the rugged beauty Western Australia had on offer, making our way up to Broome and Cape Leveque before we turned around and slowly headed south. We then crossed the Nullarbor and made our way to South Australia. We planned on spending time making our way around the coast back to home, however the Australian bush fires were heavily affecting the areas we planned to travel, so we decided to cut across from South Australia to Newcastle in a few days and be home for Christmas!
After a couple of weeks at home, waiting out the worst of the school holidays, we packed up again and headed north! We spent the next three months exploring the NSW coastline (and just made it to QLD) before having to turn around and come home for my husband to go back to work/reality!
It was an amazing 8 months, full of experiences, beautiful sights, spectacular beaches; but was also very hard with two toddlers!! It was non stop, busy, tiring, relentless and let me say, we were glad to come home to some babysitters!
I learnt a lot on this trip, mainly how little we can actually live with! We came home, had a panic attack at how much ‘stuff’ we had that we just don’t need, and had a HUGE declutter! When we were planning for the trip, I was really conscious of packing light, purchasing ethically and sustainably, purchasing products that will last longer than the caravan trip (because let me tell you, things get TRASHED when camping full time, and the caravan washing machines are not great!) and packing things that could serve many purposes. For example not packing a certain jumper that only suits one pair of your pants! When I was packing I would always think: how many purposes can this have, and can I live without it? For example, a saucepan can become a salad bowl, our mugs can also be our glasses, a bikini top can be a bra, Birkenstocks can be worn with socks to become winter shoes and what clothes can be made versatile to last the varied seasons we travelled through!
I was so thankful to have our Anorakki jackets with us on the trip; they are lightweight, compactable, warm yet cool, perfect for rain/hail and shine! We wore them ALL the time; early mornings on the beach when it was a bit nippy, running out to the caravan park toilet in the middle of the night, hiking in waterfalls to protect from mosquitos, on rainy days (we got stuck in floods for 2 weeks!) to get the kids out of the caravan, layered in the cool wintery days in the far South West Aus and as a wind blocker against the crazy Western Australia winds. They also washed so well considering the terrible caravan park washing machines and the wild adventures they went on!
We can’t wait to get back in the van soon, and explore the places we missed, such as Tasmania. I think our jackets will definitely come in handy there!!
Luka xx