'Are We There Yet?'

Farewell to Matt from Skroo Turner – Flight Centre Limited

Posted on May 26, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

Farewell to Matt from Skroo Turner – Flight Centre Limited

We have had a really great weekend, successfully moving out of our house, a lovely farewell lunch today with great friends and family and the first of some tough ‘goodbyes’. I have lots to share about the last week but am just too tired tonight.

Instead – I wanted to share a blog post from Skroo Turner with a farewell to Matt from Flight Centre – it has definitely been a journey at FCL over the last 10 years – some lows but lots of highs too!! We are grateful for the opportunities Flight Centre has given our family and Matt’s time there will certainly not be forgotten!

Categories: About Us | Tags: Flight Centre Limited | 2 Comments

2 Weeks to Go!

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

Not many days to cross off now!

Well, thought I’d better do a quick post so you all know we are still alive – just – and we haven’t decided to call the trip off just yet! We have however, spent the last week arguing over whose dumb idea it was to head off around Australia in a camper van for 8 months – especially heading off in the middle of winter! We have decided that we never, ever, ever want to do this moving gig again – the next move will be it!

Having said all that – we are getting there – the container is just about full, the house is mostly empty and we are probably a third of the way through the cleaning. It hasn’t been all bad – I am finished up at work – yippppeeee (I will miss you though BMR crew!!) and my mum is here visiting (ok – not so much visiting as slave labour, but nice to have her here all the same!) and it does feel good to have done a bit of a sort of our life possessions (probably not ruthless enough)! We have been feeling very grateful for the kind friends we have around us! Big thanks to Michelle for dropping over a yummy batch of freshly baked muffins on the weekend, it was a big lift when I was feeling pretty over it all and wondering how on earth we would get it all done! Also thanks to Luke for giving Matt a hand to lift the really heavy stuff after I went on strike, cried, and said ‘I wasn’t a man and I couldn’t lift any more’! And thanks to Luke and Duncan for the loan of the trailers again – we should have bought shares in those trailers!! We really appreciate all your kindness neighbours and friends!

With hopefully only a few more days of stressful cleaning and packing to go to make our ‘handover keys’ deadline on Saturday – a little bit of excitement is starting to creep in! I can’t wait for next week when we will just get to focus on finalising all the packing into the camper! Less than 2 weeks to go!

The muscles are very sore from all the lifting and carrying and mum and I have to get back to work – tackling the walls in the lounge room tonight so must drag ourselves away from the fire and get back to it! Hopefully the next post will see us all moved out!! Anybody got any good cleaning tips for us????

Spoilt on my last day at work with a farewell morning tea, lunch, card and gift!

Awww – lovely farewell cards!

Watching Grammy’s plane arrive!

Mum & I hard at work late one night packing up the kitchen.

Packing chaos!

Container, camper, rubbish – piles going into each!

Empty container

Matt is very good at Container Tetris

Halfway Mark

Trailer load off to Vinnies

Camping out already – at least we have a fire in the house though!

Camping out in the lounge room – enjoying the last days with our fireplace!

A quick trip out to Bribie Island to see my Aunty Glenda who is visiting from New Zealand. And to meet my Dad’s cousin Cheryl.

Packing, packing!

Grammy slave labour – the things you have to do for your kids!

Giving his chooks some quality time before we go!

Categories: Planning | 4 Comments

Coral Bay Tragedy

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

We have been given a very harsh reminder over the last couple of days, that things can go wrong when travelling in remote areas. A reminder that we need to be careful and extra vigilant while travelling. A reminder that there is a serious side, and some risk to our adventure that we must always keep in the back of our minds while we explore some of the ‘not so travelled’ parts of our country.

Those of you in Australia have probably heard the sad news about the travelling family at Ningaloo Reef, this is an article from ‘The Australian’ online;

Police name couple in Coral Bay tragedy

The mother who drowned while snorkelling at WA’s Ningaloo Reef has been named as Kathreen Ricketson. Source: AAP

THE mother who drowned while snorkelling at Western Australia’s Ningaloo Reef has been named as Canberra woman Kathreen Ricketson, as the search for her partner Rob Shugg continues.

The body of Ms Ricketson, 41, washed up at Elle’s Beach south of Coral Bay on Wednesday afternoon as her two children, a 13-year-old girl and 10-year-old boy, watched.

Mr Shugg, 48, is still missing despite a massive air, sea and land search on Thursday.

WA police said the couple and their two children were on their dream trip at the beach with another family they had befriended on their travels.

The couple’s son raised the alarm after realising his parents were in trouble when he went into the water to swim with them and saw them face down.

The other family activated an emergency beacon just after 4pm (WST), south of the coastal hamlet near Ningaloo Reef, which alerted authorities.

Police said there were failed attempts to resuscitate Ms Ricketson, and Mr Shugg disappeared before he could be recovered.

“It must have been horrific. It must be any child’s worst nightmare,” Inspector Dominic Wood said.

There were no evident injuries on the woman’s body, police said, seemingly ruling out a shark attack.

Family members from Tasmania flew to WA as the search continued.

Expert police divers travelled from Perth to help the land and sea search for the missing man, assisted by the Department of Environment, State Emergency Service (SES), Volunteer Marine Rescue Service (VMRS) and Coral Bay Volunteer Sea Search and Rescue Group.

Senior Constable Barney Hutchison, from WA Water Police, said hopes were dimming as time passed.

“The missing man has been in the water a long time and hopes of finding him fade with each passing hour,” he told ABC radio.

“We have been in contact with the family and they’re making their way over to WA from Tasmania.

“But as I said, we are really hoping to get a favourable outcome if we can.”

Ms Ricketson’s website said she and her husband were planning to write a book about their travels around the country.

“The book is not just any old travel book. It will be part on the road memoir, part family camping adventure how-to, but mostly it will be a whole bunch of fun projects that can be done in a day or a weekend by those who want to get away from it all and reconnect with their families,” Ms Ricketson wrote.

On a blog, Ms Ricketson described the trip to Ningaloo as a “dream come true”.

“We are bush camping at a station on Ningaloo reef, Western Australia. A dream come true – is that totally corn ball?” she wrote.

My heart goes out to this family. A fund has been set up to help support their children, you can find the details here http://whipup.net/2013/05/17/how-you-can-help/.

I really don’t know what to say except to send a big virtual ‘hug’ and condolences from the Fealy Family to all of those who knew and loved this family.

Stay safe out there to all of those currently travelling!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Categories: Camping | 1 Comment

Bribie Island Camp

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

Probably my favourite ‘practice run’ camping trip leading up to our big trip around Oz has been our long weekend away at Bribie Island in late November last year.

Bribie Island is less than an hour’s drive north (65km’s to be exact) of Brisbane. It is linked to the mainland by a road bridge. It is beautiful, with lots to see and do and such an easy camping weekend away!

We camped at site ‘K’ in the Ocean Beach Camping Area which was a site suitable for a camper trailer and a tent – perfect for us and Ben, Amy and the kids who joined us on this camp. It was lovely and secluded and we had our own private stretch of beachfront! This was our first experience camping without any amenities, and our first attempt at taking Karen Camper on to the beach. We were very nervous! Especially when we stopped in the car park entrance to ‘air down’ (drop the air pressure in the car and camper tyres to a suitable level – about 20 PSI – for sand driving) and we had some people come over and say to us that they weren’t sure we would get the camper down onto the beach – eeeek! But we decided to give it a go anyway as the whole point of this camp was to test out the camper and ourselves with some beach driving/towing. We were fortunate that a nice man offered to drive ahead of us down on to the beach and make sure we made it through the ‘cutting’ okay. We were chewing our fingernails even more when we hit the cutting and saw a Prado bogged in the sand in front of us and they were not even towing anything!!! But – we followed the car in front who had visited Bribie many times and we made it through just fine – phew!

On the beach in front of campsite ‘K’

The next challenge was then getting the car and camper up the sand dune and into our campsite! It took two goes for Matt to get the camper in after backing out on the first run when he realised he hadn’t given himself enough of a run up and power to get up, and managing to reverse out! It is very nerve-wracking being on the beach, knowing the tide is coming in and not being sure if you are going to be able to get your camper off the beach and up into your campsite – I had visions of our camper having to be left on the beach at the mercy of the ocean while we watched from the top of the dunes! I guess this is what doing something new/having an adventure is all about, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t get stressful sometimes!! The campsite was quite small so it was definitely a test for Matt’s reversing skills to finally get the camper in to position for the weekend. We suffered a small dent to the front of Peter Prado when Matt hit one of the National Park ‘bollards’ (posts that mark out the campsite) so we didn’t entirely avoid a small amount of swearing!

Great view from our campsite

Our setup – there wasn’t a lot of shade

Kids having their before breaky swim at 7am in the morning

Over the course of the weekend we tackled the ‘Fort Bribie’ walk which was a 5km return trek that ended up being quite tough for the kids but they managed! The walk wasn’t very well signed so we got a little lost a few times but did make it to the Fort in the end with hot faces and scratched arms and legs! This is an extract about the walk from the National Park website;

“Near the northern tip of Bribie Island, you can take a walk through coastal plant communities featuring casuarinas, melaleucas and some rainforest species to heritage-listed remains of gun emplacements and searchlight buildings. Wayside signs provide information about the forts and the men and women who served here during World War II (1941–1945).

During World War II, Fort Bribie was strategically located near Bribie Island’s northern tip to secure the passage south. Moreton Bay’s shallow waters are scattered with small islands, banks and sandbars, so large ships are limited to the main north-west shipping channel that runs close to shore near Bribie Island.”

A bushwalking challenge!

Jack having a look at one of the gun emplacements

Fort Bribie

We were pretty cranky to find that we could have just driven up the beach to the Fort rather than bashing through the bush!

We opted for the walk home along the beach rather than through the bush again!

We also had a fun afternoon four wheeling driving along the Northern Access Inland track and checking out the Poverty Creek camping area.

An afternoon of 4wding along the inland norther access track on the island - Roma Rav bogged!

An afternoon of 4wding along the inland northern access track on the island – Roma Rav bogged!

Can you tell that Matt is just a little happy to have a chance to use the brand new ‘snatch strap’ and get bragging rights over Roma Rav??

Afternoon stop at Poverty Creek – beautiful Glasshouse Mountains in the background

Amy at Poverty Creek

And other than that we just spent time lazing on the beach and cooling off in the Welsby and Mermaid Lagoons on the island. The lagoons were very shallow and lovely and warm – perfect for young kids!

Mermaid Lagoon

Welsby Lagoon

Cars on the beach in front of Welsby Lagoon

Another great weekend getaway so close to Brisbane – I think Bribie Island would even be an awesome day trip! We loved it and just wish we had more time to go back again. The kids, and me, even survived our first bush toileting experience of digging our own ‘bush toilet’ hole! If you live in Brisbane and have a four wheel drive then definitely go and check out Bribie Island!

I cooked my first chocolate cake in the camper oven while we were there – going to take some getting used to cooking with but tasted ok after we cut the burnt bits off!

Kangaroo visiting our camp site

Evening fishing on the beach – very quiet and peaceful

Tackling the cutting after racing the tide up the beach to head home

The worst bit about beach camping – the cleaning up and hosing down when we get home

Very thankful for ‘sand grabber’ floor mats!

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping | Tags: Bribie Island, Camping, camping close to Brisbane, Fort Bribie Walk, Northern Access Track, Ocean Beach Camping, Poverty Creek | 5 Comments

3 Weeks to Go!

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

Well, the container which we have purchased to pack our house into arrived today. This signals the start of ‘Hell Fortnight’ for us. By next Saturday the 24th of May we will need to be all packed up in the van and the entire contents of our house – 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, shed, deck and garage full of stuff into a 20 foot shipping container – eeeek!

I have heaps of posts I still want to write, hopefully I will get an update out this week on where we are at with our ‘Light Bulb Moment’ – we’re still excited about it but finding it hard now to fit in time for all the research and connecting we would like to do! Please stay with us if you find the Blog posts a little less frequent over the next couple of weeks – we will be back on track once we hit the road!

Only two more days of work left for me which is exciting! I have really enjoyed the last five years at BMR Business Solutions and will miss the lovely people there – if you need a good accountant in Brisbane definitely give Brett a call!! I was so lucky to have such a flexible boss and rewarding role all only 7 minutes from my kitchen to my desk!! However, it will be nice to have a break from tax returns, financial statements and excel spreadsheets for a while!

Last week Matt did the final service on the car, replacing the brakes and fluids – something to do with coolant and diff oil??, put new windscreen wipers on, made a set of longer mudflaps for the car, and a few other things that I forget now – something to do with a secondary fuel filter install I think! He didn’t finish until 1am (thanks again to ‘talktotheroo’ from Prado Point for showing Matt the ropes)and made lots of mess and noise on the driveway! He is feeling very ’empowered’ about learning some new ‘blokey’ skills so I will leave it to him to fill you when he gets a chance!

Matt’s first go at making our own mudflap extensions to avoid having to spend lots of $$$ on buying something to do the job – we’ll see how they go!

Other than that last week was filled with a little more packing, some final purchases, one of which was a cheap inflatable kayak from Gumtree so that we can paddle out with one of the boys at a time in their kayak when we are in ‘safe’ water territory.

Cheap kayak off Gumtree

Matt also got a great bargain of water proof jacket on sale at Anaconda after he finished his shift helping out with the Scout BBQ. Also in the shopping basket on this day were some sand pegs as we didn’t yet have any, a fishing rod (a goal for the trip is for us to learn how to fish), a life jacket for the kids and some mosquito nets to go over our hats, oh and a new sleeping bag for me (to replace my 15 year old one that no longer zips up) and a warm polar fleece liner for Lexi’s sleeping bag. And that about rounds up all our pre-trip purchases – hopefully we have everything we need now to get started on the road!

I have been madly washing all of our sleeping bags and camper linen, but since I hung it out on the washing line two days ago we have had bits and pieces of rain which means they are all not getting that lovely sunny, line dried freshness and smell grrrr! Oh, and Lexi and I have been doing some ‘Procrastination Baking’ too – fun but not helping get the packing done!

Procrastination Baking

Other than that I had the best Mother’s Day yesterday! This year was the first year the kids remembered all on their own! I was treated to a 7.45am sleep-in (6 am is the normal wakeup from the kids usually to an ‘I’m hungry’ or to break up a fight happening in the lounge room!) and was then brought breakfast in bed (albeit a bowl of soggy nutrigrain – but it’s the thought that counts!) and some thoughtfully choosen gifts using their $2 each at the Mother’s Day Stall at school – a candle from Toby and a pot plant for Jack along with a handmade bead braclet and chocolates which had been made in class. I also had a lovely sign made for me and stuck to the kitchen bench!

Happy Mother’s Day!

So grateful most of the time to be mum to these three!!

Now I’m just counting down the sleeps until the BEST mum in the world – my mum, arrives on Wednesday – can’t wait!!

PS. Just had to share this little picture that I took from Toby’s workbook which I was shown during his parent/teacher interview last week – makes us feel like we are making the right decision with our trip!

‘Prep’s had to draw a picture of a person of personal significance to them in their family’

Categories: Planning | Tags: Mother's Day | 7 Comments

Elanda Point Camp

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

Elanda Point November 2012

We still have so many blog posts to add about our lead up camping forays before we head off, but time seems to be galloping now!! We really should have been blogging as we were doing these things like we planned, but hopefully better late than never!

Our third trip away with Karen Camper and Peter Prado was in November last year to Elanda Point which is a one and a half hour drive north of Brisbane. We camped at the Elanda Point Education Centre and Adventure Park which had great facilities but unfortunately no campfires allowed – bummer! The campground is set right on the edge of Lake Cootharaba. When we arrived it was very windy so despite the fact that I desperately wanted to camp right on the water, we opted for a quiet spot at the back of the campground after several campers who had been there the night before showed us the damage that had been done to their annexes and awnings – we couldn’t risk having that sort of damage to our camper. Apparently it is very common to have severe winds down on the water at Elanda Point.

Our 3rd setup – Elanda Point

Heaps of kangaroos all over the campground

Kangaroo

We had Matt’s brothers and Amy join us on this trip, along with the Fealy cousies. Elanda Point is great for young kids as the water in Lake Cootharaba is very shallow – basically knee deep for hundreds of metres out and very warm. Our kids had a ball playing in the water – especially on the Monday when we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves!

Gotta love Uncle Jimbo!

Lexi Lou!

Helping to set up Uncle Ben and Amy’s new tent.

We camped here for three nights and could have easily stayed longer. There was heaps of room for the kids to run around and lots of lovely shady spots.

Took the hammock this time but I think the kids were the only ones who got to use it!

The kids doing some ‘rest time’ activities in the shade

Jacko spent the whole weekend rescuing baby birds that kept falling out of their nest in the tree – and trying to bring them home!

Lace Monitor

There are a few great walking tracks that you can tackle from Elanda Point. As our kids are still quite little – we choose a walk that left from the campground and which was just a short 3km return walk to Mill Point, the place where a timber mill township flourished from 1862 to 1892. It was a really easy and scenic walk with quite a few interesting spots to stop and see along the way – a fun way to give the kids a bit of a history lesson!

An afternoon walk to the old ‘Mill’ site at Elanda Point

The ‘Family Tree’ – Fealy Cousins at Mill Point

We used Elanda Point as our base to try out the first of our 4wd tours from the ‘Dirty Weekends’ book. It was a bit of a disaster! We blew a fuel line on Peter Prado at about 20kms into the drive so spent the rest of the day worrying about how much diesel we were losing! Then we got a bit lost and couldn’t pick up the track that the Dirty Weekend’s book was directing us to (a first lesson for us that we are not going to just be able to rely on our iPhones/Ipads for help when lost as we had no reception!!!) so we ended up driving all the way to Rainbow Beach along a forestry track, which was not the scenic 4wding experience we were hoping for! We would definitely like to go back and do a bit more exploring of the Cooloola National Park! Despite the frayed tempers, frustration and disappointment, we still managed to have a pretty good day and see some beautiful spots!

Time to go 4wding!

We found the first stop on the 4wd tour ok – Harry’s Hut. It all went down hill from there!

Noosa Everglades - beautiful - would love to go back with Kayaks.

Noosa Everglades at Harry’s Hut – beautiful – would love to go back with Kayaks.

Group photo (credits to James) at Freshwater Campground – Rainbow Beach, where we stopped for a very late lunch!

A bit of beach driving - it was a spectacular afternoon!

A bit of beach driving back from Rainbow Beach to Noosa North Shore – it was a spectacular afternoon! We drove past the beach camping at Teewah Beach – it looks great, definitely something we would still love to do!

Red Canyon – Rainbow Beach

Red Canyon

The car ferry back to the mainland at Noosa North Shore

Zip tying the fuel hose back up with the assistance of a very helpful man at the Noosa North Shore car wash.

A pretty good weekend away but we did blow our first tyre on the camper on the highway on the way home, which was a bit of a downer way to end the weekend, but all a learning experience for us!

We blew our first tyre on the camper coming home – this is where we discovered we had no tools – not even a tyre iron that fit! Definitely a wake up call and thankful for our RACQ membership!

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping | Tags: Camping, camping close to Brisbane, Cooloola National Park, Elanda Point, Harry's Hut, Lake Cootharaba, Mill Point, Noosa Everglades, Red Canyon | 2 Comments

The ‘Worry’ List

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

At this point in our trip preparations I am flipping between being totally excited about heading off and the places we will see, the time we will have to spend all together and the adventure of it all, or like today – totally freaking out about what on earth we have gotten ourselves in for!!

I know I am a stressor and an over thinker. I know we are heading off on the 1st of June no matter what and that our reasons for doing our trip are important to us. But I’m worried and just a bit scared and nervous. Not helped by the fact that today the kids were little terrors – misbehaving, fighting and making so much mess!

So here’s my ‘worry list’. I’m concerned ……………………………………

About how on earth we are going to get our 1 acre block, 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 5 person house all packed up and cleaned in time.
That we will be so freezing cold and miserable for the first few months of our trip as we are heading off in the middle of winter. I’m worried our sleeping bags won’t be warm enough and nor will our clothes!
About our kids thinking that life is just one big holiday and not knowing the value of hard work! I’m sure with all the camping/travelling we have done with them it seems like all we do is go on holidays!
I feel a bit guilty, that maybe we don’t deserve this trip. Some people work their whole lives before they get to go off on an adventure like ours.
I’m worried that after 8 years of shift work and crossing paths like ships in the night most of the time, that Matt and I won’t know how to spend so much time together anymore!
About the kids fighting ALL of the time and driving us all nuts!
That we haven’t had enough experience with 4-wheel driving or travelling in remote areas. I’m not sure what we are in for! We really wish we had of joined a four wheel drive club a year ago.
That by probably getting to the Kimberley in August we have left it to late and won’t get to see the true beauty of that area.
I’m worried about leaving behind all the great friends and community we have here in Brisbane and not finding anything like that again! It has taken us this long to finally start feeling like we belong!
About the kids schooling and that we won’t do enough with them while we are travelling and they will get too far behind and have to repeat a year.
I love routine and organising. I’m not sure I will like not having that.
That something major will break down on the trip or on our house that we are renting which will throw our whole budget for the trip out!
About our little car not selling and having to offload it for whatever we can get, therefore significantly reducing our fuel budget for the trip.
That we are not going to fit everything in the 20ft container we have ordered to store our house.
I’m worried that our dog is losing his marbles and is going to be a burden on those who look after him for us.

And there are so many more little silly things but those are the main ones! What on earth are we thinking doing this trip?!?!

I’m taking myself off to bed, I am sure it will all seem better in the morning and hopefully in a few months I can laugh at all these worries.

Nothing Great is Easy, Nothing Great is Easy, Nothing Great is Easy …………………………………..

Categories: About Us, Planning | Tags: Travelling around Australia | 11 Comments

4 Weeks To Go!

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

Aaaaaargh! Feels very surreal to be saying 4 weeks to go until we hitch up the camper and head west for 7 or so months on the road!! Aaaaargh – soooooooo much to do before then! However, we are getting there. Only 5 more days at work left for me, 14 more shifts left at work for Matt. The kids have their last swimming lesson tomorrow. Our container arrives early next week along with backup in the form of my Mum who will spend a week with us hopefully getting us all moved out of our house and everything clean and ready for our tenants who have signed on the dotted line for a twelve month lease!! Welcome to the Samford Road crew, Van Schoor family!

Bonfire and roast dinner to welcome the soon to be new residents of ‘our house’.

The Samford Road kids! Don’t mess with them!

Matt has been super busy this last month, putting in lots of overtime at work, making a bizzilion phone calls chasing down car/camper parts and spare tyres, insurance quotes, changing our mobile phones over to Telstra so hopefully we get better coverage while we’re travelling, and organising our home removal/container for storage. It’s all made for a pretty crazy last few weeks!

Goofing around – showing off our new first aid kits and spare tyre rubbish bag!

We’re really excited (I know – excited about a rubbish bin?!?!?) about our new ‘Bushranger Wheelie Bin’ which goes on the back of the spare tyre on Peter Prado. We’ve wanted one of these for ages as we are always looking for somewhere to keep all our rubbish locked away from wildlife when camping, especially in National Parks where rubbish bins are not provided and you have to take all your rubbish out – as a five member family we are able to generate far too much rubbish over a week of camping which usually must be stored in the back of the car (very smelly!) until we come across a bin to dispose of it all! We got a great discount on our First Aid kits from Give Life Center for being members of the MySwag forum.

Matt has also spent two seperate days as an apprentice mechanic learning how to service the car and the camper this month. I was a little nervous that Matt had pulled the car apart and couldn’t put it back together when he had been gone for 10 hours on the day he serviced the car – but many thanks to ‘talktotheroo’ from Prado Point who spent the day showing Matt the ropes and sending both Matt and the car home in one piece! Last week we added a snorkel to Peter Prado – we’re looking bush ready now!!

Peter Prado’s new bling – a snorkel!

Karen Camper is now sporting new brakes and bearings, and has been greased all over after a day spent at Caboolture Caravan Repair. Many thanks to Adrian there who again allowed Matt to be on the tools for the day. Matt has learnt so much from those two days and we are feeling much more confident that we can deal with any small mechanical issues that we may come across as we travel. A trip back to Russell at Kedron Car Electrics sorted out all the brake/lights etc issues – many thanks Rus!

Karen Camper at the Caravan ‘Day Spa’ – getting a service!

The packing/clearing out continues – we have to be out of our house by the 25th of May so the countdown is really on! I came back from a night out at bookclub a few weeks ago to find our lounge gone – so Gumtree is doing its job!!!

Trailer load off to the dump – very liberating feeling!

Now we just need to sell our little ‘Haris the Yaris’ who is providing our petrol money for the trip. Anybody know somebody who needs a great first car or family runabout??

For Sale – Haris the Yaris http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/camp-mountain/cars-vans-utes/2010-toyota-yaris-5-door-hatchback-still-under-warranty/1017844289

And just proof that the kids are still alive – we haven’t given them away yet! So, we’re getting there, we just want to get on the road now!!!

Fealy kids still smiling despite their tired and stressed mum and dad!!

Categories: Planning | 5 Comments

Lake Moogerah Camp

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

This weekend we squeezed in one final camping trip, one last test run before we head off on our 7 or 8 month adventure exploring Oz!

We are home now and all enjoying an afternoon of resting and quiet time that always comes after a weekend away camping. The kids are playing lego in the lounge room with a movie on, Matt is crashed out asleep and I am wasting time on the internet, downloading the photos off the camera from the weekend, and writing this blog post. There is a massive pile of wet togs and towels, and dirty washing in the laundry which really should be taken care of and the bags unpacked, but we all love retreating for some quiet time in our own corners when we get home – the washing will wait, it will be scrambled eggs on toast for dinner and early to bed for us all – this is our normal ‘post camping’ routine.

We had originally organised to camp at ‘Camp Lakefire’ at Lake Maroon outside Boonah, but after finding out on Friday that the 4wd track we had planned to tackle (The Condamine Gorge Track) was now permanently closed due to flooding earlier in the year, and then arriving at ‘Camp Lakefire’ and being told we could no longer camp on the lakefront due to new SEQ Water regulations (and the fact that camping at ‘Lakefire’ was very expensive!) we decided, thanks to some quick thinking from Jai, to head to Lake Moogerah about 20 minutes away, instead. So – after a bit of a bumpy/grumpy, disappointing start – we managed to keep our ‘Happy Faces’ on and have a great weekend camping at Lake Moogerah Caravan Park.

Lake Moogerah – was busy but great camping right on the lake’s edge!

The kids wasted no time on getting into the water - it was cool but not freezing yet!

The kids wasted no time getting into the water – it was cool but not freezing yet!

Jack’s mate Connor joined us this weekend!

And my mate Shell and her family joined us too!

And Ben & Aimes and the kids were brave enough to give one more Fealy Camping weekend a shot!

Lake Moogerah is located about 90 minutes away from Brisbane in the very beautiful Scenic Rim area. The campground was fantastic with lovely shady, grassy sites and direct access to the lake (although it is quite muddy/weedy on the water’s edge). The amenities were great and there was even a playground where Shell and I took the kids early this morning to have a play in order to let the rest of the campground wake up without the alarm clock noise of our gaggle of rowdy kids at 6am in the morning! The campground was very busy and obviously a popular spot for water skiers and jet skiers, which was only a problem when they went past us while we were trying to master the Johnson family’s stand up paddle board. Ben and I both ended up having a refreshing dunk on two occasions!

Me first go on the Stand Up Paddle Board - Jacko coming along for a paddle too.

My first go on the Stand Up Paddle Board – Jacko coming along for a paddle too.

Matt & Toby’s turn (the kids Kayak got plenty of use Grammy & Grunda!!)

Jack had a go

It was so lovely and peaceful! Thanks for letting us all have a turn Shell & Jai!

It did get quite chilly at night and first thing in the morning so we were grateful for the camp fire and the extra liners in the kids sleeping bags! We need to give a special mention to our dog Jerry who we brought with us on this trip as dogs were allowed at Camp Lakefire. They were not however, allowed at Lake Moogerah, so poor Jerry spent the whole weekend in the camper, only being snuck out every now and then for toilet breaks!! He didn’t seem to mind though – we would look back at the camper from the lake and see him sitting up at the window watching us all – just grateful to have come along!

Home made pizza for tea this time (not quite in the wood-fired oven like it was supposed to be at Camp Lakefire!) but our little oven in the camper managed just fine!

Never too cold to toast marshmallows!

Snug as Bugs in a Rug!

Sunrise at Lake Moogerah

Early Morning View

Bit chilly the next morning! The Boys – I hope I see this picture again in about 10 years time!!!

The ‘Scenic Rim’ side of the dam on our early morning walk.

No luck with the fishing this time.

An absolutely beautiful spot to camp and the campground was really quite reasonably priced for all of the amenities. We have really fallen in love with the Scenic Rim area – wished we had have found it earlier – just another of the many great spots to camp around South East QLD!!!

Fealy, Johnson and Hanstede kids – Lake Moogerah 2013

We can’t wait to get on the road – 4 weeks to go!!!

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping | 4 Comments

Light Bulb Moment

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

Ben Avon Station, Far North QLD

We are too excited to sleep tonight! Today presented us with an epiphany! You will remember that we wrote on our ‘Why are We Doing This’ post that part of wanting to do our trip was to have some time out to rethink our life and try to find a way to make a difference in this world, to give back, to do something useful. Well, we think we may have come upon an idea to kick start that!.

My Mum sent us this email today;

On 02/05/2013, at 2:34 PM, Mum wrote:

been thinking ’bout your trip and what it means – and trying to extend the parameters so the kids ( no, all of you really ) get the most out of it
… so maybe you adopt a cause, sport a few stickers, talk a bit – it should not be a task, or a job – haven’t really crystallised my thoughts, but I’m putting it out there to let you think about it too

your blog is an awesome tool …

a couple that I found HelpQldFarmers.com.au

Every Family Needs A Farmer

as I said, haven’t thought it through

xxxx Mum

And my response;

On 02/05/2013, at 2:36 PM, Jessica Fealy wrote:

mum – that is sooooooo awesome! Matt and I talked about this – similar thing – a couple of months ago and couldn’t think of anything to lock on to/that we were passionate enough about – really love it – great idea – hmmmm – I am going to think some more too ………….

And so that is where we are at (big thank you Mum)! Matt and I are both from farming backgrounds in Far North Queensland – I grew up on a dairy farm and Matt’s family own a cattle station and potato, corn and peanut farm up there. The future of Australian Farmers is something very close to our hearts, something we are very passionate about.

The Dairy Farm where I grew up.

We love the idea of being able to educate our kids (and ourselves) as we travel around Australia, about the broader community we are all a part of, and the responsibility that we all have to ensure the country we live in is an amazing place. We are excited about the thought of promoting Australian Farmers and Rural Australia and maybe helping more people understand why they are such an important part of our country. We want to try to make a difference, no matter how small it may be.

Can we do this? How do we do this? And how do we balance this with our other objectives for the trip, to slow down, take some time out, no pressures – we don’t want to fill it all up with another purpose??? Can we just start small and see how it goes?

I know lots of our friends and family have already been thinking along these lines and have made changes to the food they buy and consume, so what do you all think? All ideas and feedback would be greatly appreciated!!

Jack

Categories: About Us, Every Family Needs A Farmer | Tags: Australian Farming, Every Family Needs A Farmer, Help QLD Farmers, Light Bulb Moment, Rural Australia, Tropical North Queensland | 8 Comments

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