It's getting hot but I bought some new goodies.

Hi all, another few busy days as we organize Christmas and my son turns 10 this weekend too. 

It's getting very hot here, I have to be aware of my cat being left in the caravan for too long in the heat. So far it's been okay as by late morning the sun goes round far enough that we are shaded for the rest of the day, but tomorrow and Saturday it's going to get really hot so if I need to go into town I will have to make the trip short.

I bought a really cool esky yesterday, for those who don't know what an esky is, it's an ice box to keep foods cold in. I only have a little fridge in the caravan that's gas and electric, so when we move the caravan it goes off once you hitch up. I've only ever used it on electricity and wouldn't have a clue how to start it on gas, it doesn't really matter though as you're not allowed to have a fridge on gas whilst you're travelling anyway.

The esky is large enough to take a fair bit of food without being to big to store comfortably in the caravan while we are on the move, and it will fit perfectly under the table. It has wheels and a pull-out handle so you can wheel it along and not have to carry it. Ice and food can be very heavy.

I also bought a little lantern today too, it only cost $6.95 at the camping store but will be ideal to put on the table in the caravan if we decide to free-camp somewhere or do a sleep-over on the side of the road one night.

It's a kids lantern that takes 3 pencil batteries but will do the job and not be a pain to store when not in use. We have very limited space now and everything MUST have it's use or we can't keep it.

If we were to free-camp we would have no power and I'm not connected up to 12 volt yet either. We have a water tank under the caravan which I currently fill twice a week, but that's without watching our water usage. I would also take a few containers of water in the back of the car for hand washing, cooking, bathing, drinking etc.

I have a gas cooker in the caravan that we could also heat water on to do dishes and have a bucket wash, plus we have a porta potty for our toilet.

It would be rough but I think it would also be a good learning experience for us all, no screens would be my favorite thing!! I'm not anti tv but a break would be nice.

We spent the day fishing on Sunday, well the boys fished and I sat and did drawing in the car nearby enjoying the view. We tried many spots around the area, but only one small fish which they threw back after a quick photo.

 

 

 

I'm still Arting

A few months ago I joined in Shannon Green's 'Journaling by Fives,' and what a great fun experience it was.

I haven't finished the pages yet, I still have the doodling stage to do. The photos aren't the best but at least you will get an idea of what we did.

The idea is to do 20 pages in 15 minutes with one or two mediums at a time. This takes away the stress to think about it too much and just get on with having fun. I really enjoyed it too.

Back in Paradise

Hi all, I can't believe how much time has gone by, it's almost Christmas!!

Well I still haven't found my caravan yet BUT I downsized from my 30 ft caravan to my little 15 ft Chesney caravan. She's a 1978 old girl with a full annexe and very comfy.

We spent the winter up in the bush and it was HARD!! For the first time we battled flooding rains that went on for days and turned the annexe into a deep, sticky, stinky mud pit. Because we had so much rain the ground never seemed to dry out and the dampness came up and into the caravan. For the first time I had issues with mould. OMG it was revolting! Between the mud, the mould and the dirty amenities where we stayed I nearly went around the bend.

BUT we survived and now we are in summer again.

We are back down in Lakes Entrance where we have stayed before, I love this place, we have our own little beach that's perfect for swimming and fishing and just relaxing and watching the views or the sunsets. We've been back here 3 weeks now.

I have my towing car, an 80 series Landcruiser, and we have downsized enough to fit in the Chesney with just a little more sorting to do to make life more comfortable.

I'm letting my food stocks run down and will not replace the backup food. As my art paints in the tubes run out I will not replace them, the little bottles are smaller and lighter and I have plenty of those.

We put the big caravan in storage and that will stay there for the time being. We will be here in paradise until the 27th December and then our next adventure begins. As of Christmas the whole town is booked out and all the nightly rates go way up for the tourist season. We will move on.

My oldest son has finished special school, he had his graduation this week and it was a wonderful night with lots of laughs and tears. Who knows where our future leads now.....

 

 

   

 

 

Decluttering & Our Backyard

Hi all, it's been a busy week here, I took my son to the movie's for the first time in a very long time and we saw "Paddington." Well we laughed SO much!! Well worth the cost and we'll definitely be getting this on dvd when it comes out.

We continued our decluttering tasks in between our regular weekly stuff, it was very satisfying to fill the large wheelie (rubbish) bins here a couple of times, as well as take another carload to the Op Shop. We have quite a selection of Op Shops in this town by the beach, plus a few others in the main town 35 k's up the road.

I take my stuff to a few favorites, the reason I have chosen these particular ones is that they always have a friendly attitude and say thank you. It makes me happy when people are friendly.

I'm getting down to the harder stuff to part with now, the things I am more attached to. I had a lovely big owl figurine collection. I went through my huge collection a while back and got rid of over half. I kept my favorites and when all wrapped in bubble wrap I still had a reasonable sized tub full of them. It was too much, so I had to go through them again and was even more ruthless this time around. It was HARD. BUT, I don't have anywhere to display them and I have to keep asking myself, "Do I want to travel?" or "Do I want to sit around with a place full of stuff??"

And this really helps me part with some of my favorite things.

The other thing that is helpful in this process, is that I love playing with my art supplies. I will have limited space in the next caravan, plus we'll need to be aware of the weight of our things too. So do I want to use up my share of that weight lugging around things wrapped in bubble wrap in a tub? Or things that I will use and get a lot of enjoyment and relaxation out of?

And this helps me a lot.

We have been looking at caravans on the internet and haven't found quite what we're looking for as yet, but it's a very useful process because it's giving me a good idea of just how much space we'll have, as to how much we need to downsize.

Although it's sometimes a hard process, it's also very freeing getting rid of things that are no longer needed, loved, or we have space for.

When we moved from the main town to the beach here, I was quite surprised at how much had to go into the caravan for travel. When we arrived here, it all had to be unloaded before we could get into the caravan and start setting up. That REALLY bothered me.

Since that day we have kept on plodding along downsizing and everything fits more comfortably and easily now because we have gotten rid of so much more.

When we move again in four weeks, we will only have to put the barbeque (that we will be replacing later on with a smaller one), the boys bikes, the outdoor chairs and a couple of small clothes horses into the caravan. We can hitch up and be on our way.

We'll be staying longer at the next stop so will be putting up the annexe for the winter, this makes life a lot easier when it's bad weather as wet jackets and shoes can be left out there rather than inside.

We have huge winds here near the beach at times so I'm not confident to put the annexe up here, I'd rather go without than have to worry about it blowing down or getting damaged.

This next week is a busy one, the boys have horse riding for the disabled, swimming lessons, Doctor's appointments, and lapidary club.

Here is some pictures of our back yard this evening:

 

 

 

Catching Up

It's been a long time since I had the urge to blog, but as the day where my dream to travel comes closer, I get the urge to share my experiences again.

Since I was last here, we lived in a country town caravan park for a while, then that got closed down by the Council due to lack of profit and flooding risks.

So then we were offered a government house as we couldn't find another caravan park who took permanents and could fit my big caravan in.The area looked rough.

I knew in my guts it wasn't the right decision to take the house, but I felt pushed into a corner and that I had no other options at the time. I tried to discuss it with someone close to me but they weren't very interested in the discussion at the time. So I felt I had to go with it.

Well this turned out to be a major screw-up, it was the most awful rough area I have ever experienced. People drugged and drunk at all hours of the day and night, fighting, screaming, domestic violence, theft, destruction. I begged the housing officer to move us somewhere else, but was told that I "should be grateful to have a house."

Well I might not have a lot of money, but I am not that desperate, so we hired a storage unit, sold what we could and moved back into our caravan! What a relief!!

I learnt my lesson, LISTEN TO YOUR GUTS!!!!

We went to a lovely caravan park by the sea for a couple of months, almost got blown away a few times, but it gave us time to calm down from the terror of wondering when we'd be broken into or attacked.

Then we went back to the town where we'd had the house, but at a caravan park at the other end of town, where we stayed for 6 months and are now back by the sea again where we were last year.

We love it here, it is calm and peaceful, water is so healing. My life is quite difficult raising two boys with autism and other issues on my own. The support services for people with disability are being cut left right and centre. I have no supports now, all the autism groups we attended last year have been shut down.

So I have realised that I can only do what I can only do. It's up to me. If I want to be happy and I want things to happen, it's up to me.

I have been looked down upon a number of times by people who judge me because I choose not to live a traditional life in a house with a mortgage and all the trimmings.

I think I am a gypsy at heart because traveling makes me happy, seeing new places makes me happy, and meeting new people in new places makes me happy.

So at the end of this year when my older son finishes special school we are going to travel, we are going to potter around Australia from place to place wherever the urge takes us.

I already homeschool my younger son so there will be no change there.

This blog will be musings about our stories and adventures.

Should I resurrect this blog?

And that's the big question. SO much has happened and we have come full-circle.

Am I even still interested in blogging?

We move again tomorrow.

Much to think about.

I'll be back.

Wild Life

Hi all, just a quickie as I wrote a long post and loaded all the photos and lost the lot! grrrrr!

Today I took my younger son to the lake to feed the ducks, there were two huge geese that wouldn't stop hissing and spitting and were quite scary, but after a few stern words they quietened down and my son hand-fed them, lovely!

There were also pelicans on the mud-flat in the lake, they are such beautiful graceful creatures. There were about a hundred or more brown ducks on the mud-flat too, but they didn't come over to be fed, just the black ducks, seagulls, magpies and geese.

This is a blue-tongue lizard that slithered across the playground in town last week when we were there. I yelled to my boys to come quick and we raced over and I picked it up. I showed them and before I knew it I had a small crowd of kids and parents all patting it and taking photos.

We gently put it in the gardens away from the playground afterwards so it didn't get hurt by any kids running around and accidentally standing on it.

Yesterday we had VERY hot weather, the caravan was unbearable as we haven't got air-conditioning yet, the bugs were out in force! This is the big gas tank in the caravan park covered in bugs, they are a orange black and brown beetle type thing. They are about an inch long and really ugly, but harmless.

The tree behind our caravan is loaded with them swarming around it and all over the annexe roof! Ugh!! This was the best place to take a pic.

I get bugs like this all over my flyscreens at night too trying to get inside for the light, I'm burning mozzie coils like crazy. The bugs are taking a little getting used to but we're coping well.

 And this is a 3 foot long (highly poisonous) brown snake that my 6 year-old son found near our caravan!! This happened a week after we got here. He came inside after riding his bike and said, "I'm being a good boy mum, I saw a snake and I came inside to tell you!"

Well I mumbled something about it was probably just a stick but I'll come and look anyway..... out I went and there it was..... FUCK!!

Needless to say snake has been removed!

I cannot express strongly enough, if you go anywhere in the bush, TALK TO YOUR KIDS about what to do if they see a snake. Both of my boys have autism and I am SO grateful that they both know what to do, and my younger boy did it.

A bite from one of these can kill. Since then there have been 2 more in the park plus two Tiger snakes, which are even more deadly and one killed a dog.

Because we are situated over the road from the wetlands, and there's been huge floods this year, there's tons of food so there's zillions of bugs, who feed the zillions of frogs, who feed the zillions of snakes.

I'm not scared of snakes, but I'm terrified of my boys being near one, so we do lots of talking about it.

Some people have been horrified that we'd want to live in a place where there's snakes and bugs and all, BUT this is pure heaven compared to the concrete suburbs we left behind!

Life is great!!