Steve, Sara, Savanna & Jen Baile at Cobourg Peninsula, NT on their "Big Lap" of Oz
FROM: Steve Baile
DATE: August 2007
G'day,
Welcome to Expedition Australia.
If you love adventure, exploring, discovering new things, meeting people and generally getting out into nature, then you are in good company. Expedition Australia is a hub for adventure in Australia.
We created this website for our own 16 month "Big Lap" of Australia and now we have transformed it into a place where you can share your adventure with the Expedition Australia community or follow along with others.
More than just a website, Expedition Australia is a community of like minded adventure lovers from all walks of life - we don't believe that age is a barrier to an adventurous spirit so everyone is welcome. Whether you're retired and caravanning around Australia, you're still in school and love trekking or you're a family like us who loves getting away from it all in the 4WD.
The first step to getting involved is to subscribe so we can keep you up to date with our regular newsletter
The next step is to use this site to research and learn and then when you are ready, share your experience with the rest of the community - this can be from submitting an article or Sharing Your Adventure with your own Expedition Website right here on the Expedition Australia site.
Most importantly, we welcome your suggestions as to what we can do to build Expedition Australia into something amazing.
There's a lot going on behind the scenes and plenty a new things in the pipeline so subscribe now and keep your finger on the pulse of Expedition Australia.
Cheers
Steve Baile
So where did it all begin?
Here is a snapshot of the history of Expedition Australia.
Back in 1998 after working pretty solidly in our own business for 7 years, my wife Jen and I finally managed to get away on our dream trip, a 10 week expedition to Cape York and back from our home in Melbourne.
This was a good excuse to trade in our old Hilux on a newer Landcruiser which we promptly decked out with about as much after market gear as we could afford.
This photo below is with our Landcruiser wearing its new Cooper Tyres but not much else.
We had a fantastic trip! We stopped in for a couple of nights at the famous Birdsville Hotel . . .
. . . and two weeks later made it to the Tip of Cape York.
Along the way we had plenty of time to talk and the conversation quickly came around to the idea of taking a year off to tackle the whole country. The only problem was that we were starting to think about having kids and were running our own business so it was not like we could just hand in our resignations.
Having kids ultimately posed no problems as we figured we would just take them with us.
Our dream persisted and as the years clicked by we edged closer to our goal.
In 2001 our first daughter, Savanna, was born . . . .
. . . and then at the end of 2002 we sold our business - things were looking up.
We still wanted another baby and we didn't quite have enough money yet to take the year off so we kept working for a couple more years during which time Sara was born . . .
By mid 2005 we were almost ready to go.
We had assembled all the gear we needed, tied up a thousand loose ends and put all of our worldly possessions in storage. It had long been a goal of mine to make a documentary and decided to film our trip and make this my first foray into the world of film making.
I also wanted to write a trip log and take photos and share these with friends and family so we created this website for that purpose.
With way more gear than we really needed and a loose plan as to where we would go we finally hit the road on September 18th 2005 - 7 years after our first Cape York trip.
We traveled for 482 days, covered 46,600km, setup camp 135 times, visited every state, territory and capital city. Traveled to the extremes of the continent - north, south east, west, the centre and the highest point on Mt Kosciuszko and even managed to roll our Landcruiser and campertrailer along the way - it was an amazing adventure!
What we hadn't counted on was how many people would follow our trip from afar through our website. Literally thousands of people visited our site during the time we were traveling and we had a steady stream of emails from well wishers with tips, advice and questions.
It was a dimension to the trip we never really considered at the start but one that turned out to be a major highlight. We have made new friends and discovered many new places through this website . . .
. . . and now our mission is to inspire others to get out and realise their dreams and help as much as we can through Expedition Australia.
Steve Baile