Sydney Devotional

With only 8000 tickets available, we were blessed with the opportunity to attend a devotional at the Sydney International Convention Centre, and spend an evening with the leader of our Church President Russell M Nelson and his wife, who gave inspiring talks to help us navigate our way through these times. 

We drove the 7 hours to Sydney, spent 2 nights and were able to take Jordan with us too, and found a few hours to take him on a ferry to Circular Quay from Darling Harbour where we stayed, so he could see the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

100 Days Since.......

Derek, what do you think of the last 100 days since we became “homeless”?

    Response: it’s great

Do you regret anything?

    Response: no

Do you miss having a home?

    Response:  absolutely not!

So that’s it in a nutshell.  100 days has passed since we moved out of our rental property, and became full time nomads.

We have explored regions of Victoria and South Australia, done a little housesitting, and are getting use to calling our van home.  We are learning alot about van life and being on the road, learning from our mistakes and mishaps, but most importantly we are totally enjoying the challenge.  We have mixed feelings regarding our landcruiser with it being a petrol motor, our fuel economy is not great, and as much as more internal space in the van wouldn’t go a miss, we are daily grateful that we are only 15’ not 20’ long. We are finding it easier than we thought to go with less, it is surprising how few clothes, makeup, and household things you really need. But, if I could take the grand kids with us I would, missing family is the downside, but we are definitely no worse off than if we stayed in the Sunshine Coast with half the family in Cairns and the other half in Finley.

We love waking up to a new day knowing the day is totally what we make it, and are feeling excited about our future.

Murray Moments

We are back in Finley for a month to do a bit of babysitting and generally helping out whilst Jessima has knee surgery on her anterior cruciate ligament, after completing our 73 nights away visiting south west Victoria and parts of South Australia. It gave us a chance to get a good taste of van life, sort out some small issues to make life more comfortable and help us gear up for long term travel.   Total Kilometres 6,045.

We criss crossed the Murray R a few times as all vehicle ferries are free and operate 24 hours per day.  We have seen the marvels of irrigation at work in what would be a very arid region, and developed a liking for slow travel and staying in secluded, quiet campsites with a great view, by this we mean non-caravan/holiday park camp sites. There were many very enjoyable moments and scenery......  and probably even more if you are a foody.....

Fun Fact #4 Growing Cricket Bats

We drove past this sign today at Wood Wood ( no pun intended) on the Murray Valley Highway,  ummm, we grow cricket bats? 

We are attempting to give England a run for their money in the manufacture of cricket bats.  See their web site for some great history and back story.