Almost exactly 4 years since setting off from Melbourne, we are finally finishing up our grey nomad adventure around Australia. Although not quite yet settled down in our new house, it is getting very close now and we won't be moving on in the van anywhere else. It has been a long and eventful time on the road, and we have thoroughly enjoyed it. The yellow lines on the map show where we have been with the van, which is almost everywhere there is sealed roads. We didn't do much of Victoria or coastal NSW, and didn't visit Tasmania at all, as we have seen most of these areas before we set off on this trip. The big swathes of Australia that we have missed tend to be remote and desert areas. We haven't marked the journey up Cape York which we did on an organised tour rather than taking our own van.We've covered 130,000 kilometres on the trip, about 52,000 of which were towing the van, so the Patrol has had a good workout. We've been scrupulous about getting it serviced whenever due, and it has barely let us down. In that time we've replaced the clutch and the manifold gasket, and apart from that it hasn't missed a beat. As a reward, we'll be getting some of the panels replaced and the rest buffed and polished, given there are some very deep souvenirs of our various off-road bush adventures.
The van itself has also stood up fairly well to the journey, although the paintwork is a lot more faded than when we started (unfortunately we seem to have gone the other way, and are both rather more 'robust' than when we left Melbourne). We have had a few hiccups along the way, having to replace the hot water service and, twice, the fridge element, and repaired a couple of minor leaks. Still it has almost always kept the weather out and provided a comfortable home, and we have had no issues with it on the road.We've spent most nights of our journey in caravan parks, having visited 137 different parks. Whenever available we have stayed in ensuite sites, which provide our own private bathroom (ranging from almost as large as a phone box to, rarely, quite palatial), otherwise we use powered sites, with only a handful of nights spent unpowered. Caravan parks have been by far our biggest cost on the road, almost twice as much in total as diesel, with the average cost of an ensuite site being about $38 a night, and a powered site $28.
We've seen and done many amazing things in the last 4 years. We've played golf on over 100 different courses, and gone walking in at least 200 national parks and reserves. We've been on boat trips, train trips and tram trips. We've been to the northern, western and eastern edges of the continent, and to the heart of the interior. We've taken nearly 2,500 photos (come around one night and we'll show them to you) and bought paintings, craft work and fridge magnets to remember it all by.
We've loved our around Australia trip and have memories that will last us a lifetime. We're now ready to move on to the next phase of our lives, and for the moment, leave the van behind and once again move into a house. We hope that anyone who has followed us on our journeys has enjoyed the experience, and who knows, maybe we'll see you out there on the track yourself one day.
