Travelling with 4 kids & 2 dogs!

keep in mind the dogs will really restrict you in your travels, many do get rather cranky about the lack of places you can go to and lack of facilitys that cater for travellers and dogs but still do travel with them ....
I guess if you keep in mind you will not get to see a LOT of places and accept that then you will be fine, just plan well ahead and be accepting of what you CANT do and you will be fine eh..
Cheers
Joe

The dogs will restrict your plans. How big are they.
I know that wasnt your question but it was the first thing that came to mind. Do they bark a lot. Nothing worse than a dog that barks when people walk past.

Hi Evelyn,
Picking up from your comments regarding free camping in WA, yes there is plenty of open space but most of it is either pastoral land or national park plus a few indiginous communities as well.
Most of thise areas are regularly 1080 baited for wild dog and/or fox control and the bait used is absolutely lethal on dogs.
Some farm land can also be baited
I would recommend that you keep your dogs muzzled at all times you are in the bush, they can pick up a bait before you can do anything about it......and there is not a lot you can do to save them if they do. Watching them die is "fairly" traumatic and definitely not for children's eyes.

I would recommend "Canps 6" and "Free Camping In WA" (both north and south) as guides for free camping in WA. These books give you the best available information on free camping in WA.

Hope this helps,

Disco.

Hi we;'ve been travelling mainly up the coast from Adelaide and are presently on the Gold Coast , we've been gone for two months and have 3 kids 16,14 and 5 and a jack russell . Basically National Parks are out as far as camping goes , just have to do your research on the internet . Caravan parks seem about every 3rd. on average is pet friendly and probably about the same in bush camps , we've got the camps Australia book ( about $30 ) which has the symbol to suggest pet friendly on the header for the camp . Get used to the dogs being on a lead . Get in touch if you want to know where we've stayed and wether we'd reccomend it . Cheers Dave 0433 078 895

If you' have never been outside of WA then I think you will love NSW and VIC, like real mountains and real windy roads! My Husband is a WA boy and I don't think he'd ever seen steeper or windier roads than somewhere south of Canberra around the Snowies region when we were traveling back across to WA! He even saw snow for the first time in his life!

Can't help you much with the kids and dogs thing, we only have 2 kids and no dog. Ours are aged 7 & 9 now, one thing that buys us a couple of hours of peace and quiet when necessary on longer trips is their Nintendo DSes (with one of those cartridges that have heaps of games on them). But on longer trips we generally aim to do somewhere around 5hrs of driving a day. They were relatively easy when young though because they tended to sleep then eat then play for a bit then sleep again.

Involve them in helping set up camp if you can and stop at playgrounds where convenient. The 5yr old will probably be the most challenging I guess! I think it's great that you're doing it, I would have been mainly apprehensive on the home schooling part I reckon.....they always seem to believe what someone else tells them even if I've previously told them the same thing lol.