when on the road for a lengthy period

Sorry - I just wrote a response and had to delete it and put this one back up - I was incorrectly logged on and it was confusing!

Anyway,.... I wanted to answer you as we have personally be in the same predicament. Fortunately, like you were were able to utilise the brother's farm. We sold most items, but the "treasures" were packed up into boxes and stored in a shed in NSW. 2 years later when we finally decided to stop travelling and settle in Perth we simply organised a transport company to go out to the farm and pack all our boxes onto their removalist truck and bring it to Perth. Having used storage sheds in the past, we had more control using the shed on the farm and the obvious cost saving over 1.5 - 2 yrs for you will be the biggest decision maker I would think!

Best of luck with the trip planning.

Get a container and make sure it is well sealed, store your goodies. It would work out cheaper than lockup storage and the SIL could end up with a great chemical shed.

We stored our stuff that we wanted safe in a self storage unit and took the insurance option. The house is left furnished and let out for holiday nletting other than the office and garage. We store the vehicles in the garage and stuff we use when we come home for short periods of time in the office.

Left home for 6 weeks 2 years ago, spent 3 months in total at home since then. 4 weeks before we are away again for 4 months.

Stevesub

IMO better to use a storage place, preferably one that has a multi story facility, not just a series of tin sheds. Get a unit on the bottom floor and the climatic conditions are usually excellent and quite stable, due to the insulating effect of all the other units.

A 'container on the farm' or 'the brothers shed' probably won't have any kind of climate control or fire suppression system. Insurance may replace stuff but it won't keep it at a reasonable temperature or humidity.

Cheers..........

we went away for three years, bought an old container put a metal roof on top of it just in case, put it on brothers farm , loaded it up put some silicon where suspicious on sides and doors, threw in some moth balls etc, closed her up . cost bugger all for container & roof.opened up after three years ,everything in perfect order, as if we put it in the day before. sold the container for more than it cost us. cheers