Picture this: It’s 2020, where a regular family from Sydney had just been on what was possibly the final tour through the Emu Plains Avida RV factory before NSW entered another COVID lockdown.

We loved the concept of a motorhome and had an insatiable thirst for some real Australian adventure. We purchased an early Avida-built Winnebago motorhome just as a “weekender” and this morphed into an unplanned, all-in family restoration project. After a deep family discussion, we thought, “If we are going to do this, then let’s really do this. You only get one life, so let’s not waste it!”. We removed both our daughters (then 7 and 13) from their respective schools and we hit the road full-time for one year. What unfolded was life-changing.

Isn’t it strange where some roads in life take you? We had no idea that what we were to embark on would actually ruin our life. In a good way. We had heard that the hardest part of doing the lap of Australia was making the decision to do it. It is true! That initial step really feels like a big leap of faith.

We filmed our travels along the way and published them on YouTube, so our family back home could be with us, plus anybody else who was interested. We initially thought, “What content could we possibly offer in our videos?” After all, we didn’t have the latest equipment, we didn’t do extreme off-roading, we don’t have an off-road caravan, we don’t fish, we don’t own a boat, or have a dog, and we definitely aren’t trying to sell anything on YouTube. Looking back at it all now, that was exactly the point. We were very different from the usual travelling crowd.

We had a cat, an old vintage motorhome, older kids, and we had absolutely no direction whatsoever. Just hopes, dreams, and a tonne of tenacity. But, we captured something. We did the lap with very little and we did it with soul. My childhood hero was Alby Mangels. What a legend. If I could identify with any  past adventurer, hands down it would be Alby. Here was a guy with very primitive equipment, no formal survival training, and no military background. He came from a time before V8 Saharas, coffee machines and lithium batteries. What he did have though was an overwhelming sense of adventure. So did we.

Our family yearned to break bread with the real travelling community and see the real Australia. You don’t realise how great BBQs can be in the middle of absolutely nowhere, or how nice cold beer can taste in a heat wave in the red dust. How star-filled the rural night skies becomes, how great Australian music really is or how nice a meal that was cooked on a fire can taste as you share  your most personal life stories with somebody you met an hour ago. You will never be without help with a flat tyre and you will forge the most unique friendships out there, with the most salt of the earth people. I’m certain we’ll end up being friends for life with most of them. Of all the travellers we met, we were all on the same path. Happiness, serenity and just appreciating simplicity are something to intrinsically cherish.

Upon arriving home in early 2022, our lap around Australia was over. I knew we would never be the same. Looking back, it’s like life stopped for us the moment we were off the road, but I felt that one day the road would be a part of our lives again. Those world-class secluded beaches without a soul in sight, the red outback dust that drove us insane and that northern Queensland humidity. The Whitsundays’ white sand between our toes, the elusiveness of Tasmania’s west coast and the beauty of Victoria’s high country. I’ll never forget seeing sunsets on those rugged mountains, hiking through rolling valleys into the wilderness, people-watching in those tiny country towns and of course, us!

To travel around Australia and reconnect as a family is a gift. This  wasn’t about just being another traveller, this was truly about reconnecting as a husband and wife, and a father and mother. A situation only able to be cultivated in a motorhome on the road together for 12 months. We learnt so much that year, not just about how diverse Australia is, but about our own children, about each other and about ourselves. We never questioned or

undervalued the concept of homeschooling our girls on the road, as opposed to formal classroom education. I saw three years of growth in those girls during our lap. We have had some tough times out there, but I’m immeasurably proud of how much resilience our family has developed and the self-sufficiency I’ve seen in our daughters. I just can’t wait to see how our adventures shape their future. It’s definitely been the best thing I have ever done for their developmental years.

We met so many other families travelling, going to incredible lengths to get a taste of the nomadic family lifestyle. We have seen entire families sleeping in tents, just so they can reconnect with their children.

Early 2023, we once again did what we knew was absolutely right for us as a family. We resigned from our  Sydney jobs, took Jess, now 15, and Chloe, now 9, out of school, rented out our home and left our old lives for dust.

Unfinished business awaited us. Australia is a gift to us all and it absolutely must be explored. It felt wrong not to see it all. I must admit, I (Dad) shed a tear or two when my family agreed to return to life on the road, into the red dust of the outback and beyond, for one more time. But our toughest challenge awaited us this time. Tackling Coober Pedy, the Simpson Desert, up to The Capricorn Coast, the tip of Cape York, and across to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Places we never thought we’d ever see. Then to the Northern Territory, down through Western Australia and across that formidable Nullarbor Plain once again.

Prior to hitting the road this year, we became proud Ambassadors of Avida RV Motorhomes and Caravans, the largest and oldest motorhome manufacturer in Australia today. We have always loved the motorhome lifestyle, so it was with such irony to be invited into the Avida family, the same family who built our motorhome 30 years ago! I must say, for a company that is arguably at the top tier in their industry, they are a wonderful family, right to the core. A quality that certainly flows through to  their final products.

I often get asked if being a traveller is as good as what is depicted on social media. My personal answer is an immediate yes! Absolutely it is, and it is not to be missed.

For us, money will return but our time won’t, and we may never experience travelling around Australia in a motorhome as a family again.

People also ask us what our favourite part of Australia is. I always reply with: “Australia!” I honestly believe that we live in the best country in the world for motorhoming. Occasionally someone will challenge me on that and ask me if I have ever travelled across every country in the world to make that comment. The answer is obviously no, but what I do know is that there is nothing quite as unique as Australia, particularly the Outback. There’s just no other place in the world quite like it.

Shannon and Lisa publish weekly videos. Follow their family adventure on their YouTube channel, Camp Winnie Travelling Australia in a Motorhome.

Category: Features
Written: Tue 01 Aug 2023
Printed: August, 2023
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