After years of dreaming, planning and preparing we are finally hitting the road to live the dream! Our first trip is a fairly small one for a couple of months exploring northern NSW. We hope you will follow along as we find out what this Grey Nomad stuff is really like.

What’s the plan?

Each year we aim to head somewhere south during the summer months and then come back to a base on the Sunshine Coast for the winter months.

This year it’s only a short trip as we had a few setbacks selling our house, which delayed us by a few months. Later this year we will jump right into the deep end when we hitch a ride on the Spirit of Tasmania for a 5 month trip exploring the beauty of that state.

What sort of adventurers are we?

Vern and Merle aren’t really the rufty-tufty 4WD types you’re likely to find wrestling crocodiles in Kakadu. We’re more your sit down at 5 o’clock for a nice glass of wine and a few nibbles type travellers – preferably with a stunning view…

We love to go on bush walks, though not any over 5kms. We have pushbikes and use them to get to exciting places – as long as there aren’t many hills. And we also have a kayak , not for white-water rafting, rather for a more casual paddle on beautiful lakes and rivers.

Raring to go

We have road-tested Billie (our van) throughout 2019, and have already seen some beautiful places, as the photos below attest. It’s now time to take the plunge and and make the van our home.

The tyres are pumped, the batteries charged, the fridge is stocked, the pantry full… Here we go!

You can watch a caravan go by, and wonder where it goes – or you can join it and steer it to your destiny…

Merle, via Google

After a lifetime workIng at very busy jobs the time has come to head off on our adventure – travelling Australia as grey nomads in our Bailey caravan nicknamed “Billie”, after Bill Bailey or Billie Holiday depending on whether you ask Vern or Merle.

Speaking about Vern and Merle, we should explain that our alter-egos came from childhood reminiscences of Uncle Vern hooking up the Viscount van to the Valiant. Anyone of our era may be familiar with a similar memory. Pretty sure we were on the second bottle of wine when we decided it would be a great idea to assume the Vern and Merle aliases… but perhaps they are more memorable than just Robert and Sue! 

Becoming grandparents over the past 4 years has been amazing and we want to show our children and grandchildren how much fun you can have when you retire. I guess we want them to see us as the fun grandparents, if not the slightly crazy ones. We also hope we can bribe them to visit us as we spend our winters camped on the beautiful Sunshine Coast of Queensland – home to amazing beaches where the family can play.

Anyway, after four years of planning and research on what we needed to survive on the road, the time has finally come to take the leap. The house is sold, the van is packed and we are all prepped to head off on the adventure of a lifetime. 

We really hope you follow us on our adventures over the next few years as we highlight the places we travel to and show you the beautiful places we visit on our journey through Australia. Vern is a keen photographer and hopes to do justice to the beautiful places we visit.