We broke it to our families and friends at Christmas 06 that we have decided to travel around our beautiful country for a year and a half, now that the words were out and not just our family secret anymore it made it all so real.
 Our first step,
We only had Bubbles our 11ft caravan so we started searching EBay looking at what would best suit our needs and budget(not much) because our budget was so little we found a 19ft caravan in Ulladulla so we went for a drive and found what we were after i think she is a bit like Cinderella very unloved but we had a dream!!!!. Now i will say you only get what you pay for so we got a 34 year old beautie.  We paid the $2000. they were asking and organized for the tow truck to deliver Yep she was an old On Site Van!
So begins the hard work all week we kept asking each other, have we done the right thing???? all the girls wanted to do was have the first sleep out, but when our new baby arrived we just laughed at each other and knew we where in for a lot of HARD work. She sat in the front yard for a few weeks while Andrew worked out what would be the best layout for the van. Our Brother In law mechanic told Andrew that there would be no way that he would even look at registering the van if it didn't have electric brakes. So the search was on for lots of things that we needed to get the van registered. EBay did a roaring trade with us. Then the biggest blessing came our way! but terrible for the owners . Our local  tow truck came past Andrew at work and on the back was the bottom of a caravan chassis so Andrew flagged them down and asked about it, it turned out that it was smashed up on Mogo bridge they said we could put in a bid after the insurance people asses it. We put in a bid for $550. and with in 2 weeks we were the new owners of the bottom of a caravan what a pot of gold for us as our old girl ended up a fair bit rusty . We ended up with 4 brand new tyres,electric brakes,A frame draw bar ,water pumps and lots more. By now our front yard was looking rather like a caravan wreckers yard.
Next step- Now begins the real hard work, for 3 months Andrew burnt the candle at both ends getting her ready for rego and living.  He gutted all but the kitchen and overhead cupboards so we could have bunk beds, queen bed,toilet and shower. We squeezed in our last camping weekend with bubbles we even sold her at the surf camp we were at so we reluctantly said our good buys. She had been in the family for 6 years and we had been on so many fantastic camps with her. She really did have everything and the kitchen sink!. While Andrew was busy with the big kahuna i was busy with the inside of the house we decided to rent the house out to pay for our trip, now we have both only moved once in our married life and that was into our palace 14 years ago and now with two girls you can only imagine all the stuff we have collected along the way. We found it hard to give up work, i had two very good jobs with great boss's and Andrew had a little kitchen renovation business so to say no to work was very hard. After so many 2am finishes Andrew had the van ready for Rego what a big smile he had when he came home. We finally set 2 weeks till we leave but it ended up 6weeks we couldn't believe how long it takes to wind everything up. My very long suffering awesome parents came to help pack the house into the garage with the help of Adam one of my brothers and a friend Gordan and his son Matthew. Now i have to wonder what God was thinking? he chose the same weekend to brake the drought our town was in. So we filled the garage up in the pouring rain oh what timing. It was such a big job packing up,the girls finishing school,leaving work,saying good buy to family and friends that we almost gave up!!! but gee I'm glade we didn't its now 4months down the road and its a great life.
To follow our travels in the blog just click blog on the right hand side of this page.
Till next update stay cool love Dani