Living the dream!!

Good on you guys.We are actually thinking of doing the same thing.If we go it will be head off mid next year.As you guys are doing, we/I will be looking for work while we do the tourist thing then once we have had enough travelling, we will head back to Kununurra for our second attempt at settling there
Good luck with everything.

Matt & Caz,

Firstly, let me say good on you for having the courage to make such a decision. I wish I had done something like that when I was younger.

My only concern is that depending on the model of your 80 series, you might just be illegal towing the Retreat.

If the vehicle is a Sept 96 or later model then you can legally tow 3500Kg but prior to that the 80 series were only rated at 2500Kg by Toyota.

May be worth looking into as I wouldnt like to see you run into any issues regarding the legallities.

Cheers,

Cruiser

Hello Matt and Caz,
One of my friends and his wife have a Retreat van the same length as yours, my wife and I really like it as it seems well finished off etc .
They really love it as well which bodes well for yours. They were mid way around Oz when they traded a Paramount (which had a few issues) on the Retreat in QLD.
Good luck with your trip.
Regards Alan.
Oh one thing that did upset my mate was when I told him his near new Prado was illegal to tow the van as it was overweight for the car.
He traded that to buy a 100 series TD which was rated at the right capacities. You need to be aware of these weight issues as it can void insurances and make you possibly responsible in any accident scenario.

Hi Matt and Caz,
We met a young couple with three children ( two school age and thus home schooled ) who are travelling Oz on a longterm basis and working their way around ( he's a chippie and also does caravan repairs ) and having a wonderful time . They have a blog site that you could visit for some tips , it is ..... bugbitten.com and they can be found at ..... Shaun and Cheryl Tunstall's Travel Journal on that site .
Do have a wonderful time out there ....'tis a wonderful country.
Charles.

With the kids, don't go don't he track of buying all sorts of dvds and games. Get them to look out the window.

I am often puzzled when travelling to see vehicles travelling through unbelievable country with their kids wrestling with games controllers or watching dvds as they travel. No point in going away if that is all they want to do.

But congratulations on a gutsy move. You can't lose and will never regret it. Good luck.

jack

Matt and Caz

Good to see there are more people doing this. We have our house on the market, pick our van up on Tuesday and are heading off as soon as the house is sold. Three kids 4yrs, 3yrs and 8 weeks. Same deal, no time limit, just as long as it takes to get around oz. A member by the name of kidsandall are doing the same, have been travelling for 20 months so far and invited people to contact them with any questions about travelling with kids. Read it on a previous thread. Good luck.

Matt & Caz
Good on Ya. We sold our home two weeks ago and are looking around for our next home. A family caravan. Heading to Adelaide in December and coming back through the Great Ocean Road, Vic High Country and The Blue Mountains in our current 17' unit. July is Tip time with out the van while keeping base in QLD. Then Sept stuff (whats left) is going into storage and were off to WA to work. John has MC & DG licences. He has had a gutt full of the city traffic cameras log books and the rest of the crap that goes on this side of Aus. The three Kids love travelling they are use to it. Our middle fella is 7 and can read a map. They have their own. The three of them can tell you who James Cook is. We teach them Australian History. We don't have electronic games in the car. Hell we don't even have a nav yet im it. We have a munches box. If any of us get cranky the rest of us gets a munches simple. I so want to go tomorrow but schooling is one of our priorities. Until we head to WA they will stay at their current school. The last term of next year will be home schooled. We are keeping our options open and like you will listen to anybody that has done the same. I have gotten sick of the oh its expensive over there. Oh its hot over there. Or gee a caravan isn't very big. To hell with negative comments. Were going anyhow . So far there is two bus motor homes and another van travelling over with us. All truck drivers two of them mechanics too.
Sharon

Hey Caz,
In reply to the follow up you wrote just above.. Dang girl go for it!!!!!
We too are renovating the house to sell it and given half the chance would do the travelling that we want to do but with hubby sick and on transplant list we have to stay based somewhere within hospital range. So we will sell and just rent somewhere.. I know it isn't the same as having your own home, and I will miss it (not the traffic and idiots that treat my street as a drag strip though!) I will miss it, but we are financially better off to be renting.
Our mortgage is now $420 a week! then add rates, maintenance etc, I have had enough, I could move out towards Esk, hop into Lowood or similar, and rent two houses for that and not be paying anything extra! I love having my own home for the stability side of it, but with Marks income protection finished, we really don't have any choice but to go back to renting.. If he could work it would be all good to keep the house, but weighing it up, it seems to be in our better interests to go back to renting, (but not in suburbia!, getting out into the sticks area and maybe no more than an hour or so travel to the hospital.
email me..

Whatch out you Grey Nomads!!! Seems to be the era of the "bugger this, we're off" brigade..

We are waiting for the money for our joint so we can leave mid January on a year long adventure. Ours will be in our Allterrain camper behind an LC105.

Our kids are 13 and 10.. I wanted to wait till they were old enough to experience it with us. I reckon they will get the best education available out there.

Good luck with it all you fellow BTWO Brigaders :)

Joff, Sonja, Jessica and Connor

Good on you, we are doing the same with our 3 kids, setting off at the end of January. We are looking at buying a Retreat Daydream Family Van with 3 bunks. Will tow it with my F250 and not sure if we should take it off the black stuff and go for some dirt roads, don't wont to miss out on some good sights. We to will home school the kids 4, 7 & 8 years. We have been thinking of this for some time and like you can't wait to go.
Good luck, we may bump in to each other on the way round.
Will probably head north first, taking our time so we are not in Cairns before march.
Brian

Hi Matt & Caz,
So many coincidences!! We are in our 7th week of our adventure around Australia, we are currently in Rochedale and we also have 8 & 6 yr old children. Lastly Luke is a mechanic also.
Which way do you plan on heading? We may be heading in same direction..... Good on you for doing it. We have found that the children have settled into the whole process extremely well. Would be great if we met up somewhere.
Good luck with it all......
Simone and Luke