Introduction to us

Hi there, for those of you who don't know us, here is a bit of background as to who we are, why we are travelling around Australia, and how we are affording it.

Both Ross and myself had been married previously, but neither of us had any children in our first marriages. After we were married in January of 2001, we decided that we did want kids, but unfortunately, things didn't work out that way for us when Ross was diagnosed with Leukaemia in December of 2001. He underwent a complete bone marrow transplant, chemo, the works, and it took him years to recover fully. By this time we were both in our late 30's and decided although we weren't physically too old to start a family, that we were not prepared to be "old" parents, so we stuck with the dogs instead.

We had always planned to travel around Australia, but like most people, though we would do it once we retired. Ross' illness made us look at life a little differently, and we decided that one or both of us might not make it to retirement age for one reason or another, and we didn't want to go through life just going to work 9 to 5 for the rest of our lives and not experiencing what's out there. We made a pact that by the time Ross turned 40 that we would take our trip around Australia, whether we could afford it or not!!

Over the next few years while Ross was recovering from his illness, we bought a few positive/neutrally geared properties, and moved into my parent's place in Port Macquarie to save money. My parents have spent the last 15 years travelling around Australia and the rest of the world, so they weren't home much and needed someone to look after the place while they were away, naturally, we volunteered!

I spent the last 18 months doing a Medical Transcription Course that I could do online anywhere we could get wireless internet access, and could work as much or as little as I liked. I am just finishing the training part of that course and will be ready to start earning money from it any day now. Ross worked at Harvey Norman in Port Macquarie, and his boss told him that any time he was in a town that had a Harvey Norman, to ring him and he would organise for Ross to get work any time he wanted! We are currently in Brisbane, staying with family, and Ross is starting on Friday with Harvey Norman in Loganholme, just for a few weeks while we are here getting things more orgainsed for the trip. We might also have a go at some fruit picking, head up around the mines areas to see what's availiable, and just generally pick up bits and pieces of work as they come along.

We decided to bring our dog "Boris" with us, despite everyone telling us we are crazy, but he is our kid and we love him and couldn't imagine him having to stay at home and miss out on all the fun! We know that we will be limited in where we can stay with him, but that's fine by us - we will just work around it.

We are not planning on staying in caravan parks if we can help it, we have solar power to run everything for us and are wanting to go "off the beaten track."

We have a Landrover Discovery 2003 model Turbo Diesel. We decided on this vehicle because we wanted something affordable (Landcruisers and Patrols were too dear), we wanted something with dual airbags for safety, and we wanted something that we could sleep in the back of if we decided we were going somewhere the caravan couldn't go and we had to leave it behind. The Disco was the only vehicle that fitted all of the above criterea, and we have set it up with draweres and cupboards in the back, as well as a bed that we can both comfortably sleep in. In fact, the bed in the Disco is bigger than the one in the caravan!! Ross is 6'3", so we have to extend the bed in the caravan in order for him to fit in it.

What to tow was a big dilemma for us, as neither of us liked caravans, but we agonised over it for months, and took in affordability, towing weight, ease of set up, etc, etc, and a little old 14' pop-top caravan again was the one that fitted all of the criteria. We could have gone for a really good off-road caravan, but that would have cost $50,000.00 plus, and we only paid $2,750.00 for the one we ended up with. If we decide that we want to keep travelling in the future, we might upgrade, but as it is, we might only get a few months down the track and decide we hate it and want to chuck in the towel, so we will see how it goes before we start spending that kind of money! Ross set up all the solar himself, something that would have cost a small fortune if we had to get someone else to do it for us - he's such a clever boy!

So, that's our story, hope you enjoy following our adventures!

Lisa, Ross, and Boris