Smoko

Here's Steve and I having smoko at the orchard we are working in at Kingaroy. We've packed peaches and nectarines for the past six weeks and we're heading off to NZ just before Christmas to celebrate my sister's 60th birthday on Christmas day. We're also looking forward to competing in the NZ Masters Games, touring the South island and possibly even working picking fruit for a few months. My daughter will be at home slaving away getting our book ready!

Joy

Hello from the other red dirt writer

This is my first effort at blog writing. I think Angela has done a stirling job to set up the site.

Nearly two years ago Angela wrote to me with the idea of us writing and publishing a book about Steve and my journey of our travels and work throughout Australia for the past 13 years, to which I readily agreed. For the first few months the going was slow and at times I was sorry I had agreed to the project. My time-consuming work commitments, moving around the country and nowhere to shut myself away for uninterrupted time, made it too easy to put off writing. Angela’s time was an even bigger issue. She had Peppi’s shirts to iron, Oscar to look after, became pregnant with Archie, her business to run and a busy social life. But every time we met and reviewed our efforts and bounced ideas off each other we became motivated again and so we have chipped away at it bit by bit.

While we still have a lot of work to do we feel our endeavours are paying off and we’re excited by the prospect of being in print by May next year. Your comments and encouragement are much appreciated – please keep them coming, along with any suggestions and ideas you may have. And keep blogspotting for further updates.

Many thanks – Joy.

Thanks for your support

Well it's been a whole week since doing my first ever blog and it's been great to get comments from family and friends. None of you said the blog or the book were shit, which is very encouraging!!

It seems mum and I must be in sync. When I called her (they are picking peaches in Kingaroy, no, not nuts) to tell her I had set up a blog I expected to have to show my expert knowledge and explain what a blog was. Mum said, "oh a blog, that's great. I was having a look at one a couple of nights ago. Did you know that blog stands for web log?" Mmmm, good work Joy.

Mum checked out our blog and she too was excited to see some great comments. We really do appreciate supportive and encouraging words from family and friends as sometimes it feels like we are in a vacuum writing this book. It's been a labour of love for about two years but finally, finally mum and I can see it coming together. We are excited and hopeful and probably a little fearful - someone will read this book one day - well we hope at least someone will!

So, thanks again for getting behind us. There'll be another post shortly. By the way, if there's anything you want to know about please let me know. I can post a bit more of the book, but if there's something specific you want to know I'd be happy to tell you.

Cheers
Ang and Joy
(Red dirt writers)

A taste of red dirt!

Well here goes. I'm new to this blogging thing so bear with me as I fumble my way around. I thought it might be a good place to start by giving anyone who's interested a little taste of what my mum's travel book is all about.

Just to give you a little background, my mum, Joy, and her husband, Steve, are in their early 60s and for the past 13 years they have been working and travelling around Australia. They sold their house and their life is living in a caravan on the open road. They are true nomads. They work part of the year to support their travels (but they also get plenty of time off to "smell the roses", or should I say smell the red dirt.) They are outback, bush people who prefer red dirt roads and unpopulated spots, however they are still quite civilsed and wear clothes!

Anyway, I could go on, but here's a bit from the first chapter. It's not the whole chapter and it's unedited. Let me know what you think!

The new great Australian dream

The great Australian dream is buying your own home. Right? Well maybe for young couples, but for many over 50s the great Australian dream is hitching up the caravan and travelling around Australia.

Whether you call us ageing hippies, grey nomads or silver sundowners we don’t care. Our reality is that we’ve cut loose from our bricks and mortar and our life is red dirt, magical sunsets and the occasional mushy mango! (But that’s another story.)

Steve and I hitched up our van 13 years ago and we’re still travelling. Lots of people say they’d love to do what we’re doing, and I always wonder why they don’t –what’s really holding them back? It’s not that hard. We’ve shown that you don’t have to be financially well off to spend your life travelling. With some planning and persistence anyone who has the dream can do it.

So what led us to sell the bricks and mortar and hit the road? Life was already pretty good. There was nothing too unpleasant about having our kids off our hands and lots of time to enjoy playing sport and taking the odd weekend camping trip away. We lived in a great country town called Mt Gambier in the south east of South Australia and enjoyed a healthy social life with a good network of friends from our work, sport and the community groups we were involved with.

Reflecting back on that moment in July 1993 when we pulled our van out of the driveway of the house Steve had lived in for five years, it was our dream of three or four years which had finally turned into reality. The seed had been planted a few years prior and continued to germinate over many a cold Mt Gambier winter’s day.

To be honest there were many reasons why the prospect of travelling around Australia was enticing. For a start, we both already had a taste of working and living in various parts of Australia.

Prior to us meeting in 1989, Steve spent time in Jabiru in the Northern Territory working for FR Mayfield on the construction of the Ranger Uranium Mine. He also worked at Stony Point near Whyalla on the Moomba gas receival plant. Then down the track (so to speak) he worked on the Gladstone Aliminium Smelter Potline on the Queensland coast. So it would be fair to say that Steve had some experience and knowledge of what lay beyond the confines of his comfortable corner of the country in Mount Gambier.

For me, my travel began in earnest when I became responsible for supporting myself after the break up of my first marriage. I had a rewarding and challenging job in the office of a local potato company, Kentish and Sons, but as the job was seasonal I needed to find employment for the rest of the year.

So in 1987 I headed to the Northern Territory, possibly because it was as far away as I could get from where I was. I found work at The Bark Hut Inn, which is 120km on the Arnhem Highway, halfway between Darwin and Jabiru - in the middle of nowhere in other words! My little Ford Meteor tore up the 3,000km of bitumen and dirt from Mount Gambier to The Bark Hut Inn without a worry, and I was about to experience my first taste of another culture. Working at The Bark Hut Inn was a good introduction to the tourist industry as it was a busy stop over for the tourist buses chugging their way up to Kakadu National Park. I gained valuable experience in the bar, waiting on tables and in the tourist shop. Life in the Top End was a little uncivilized in the mid 80s and although rough, it had an appeal all of its own. Locals didn’t care if you were young, old, rich, poor, male, female, black or white – they just took you on face value. It was five months well spent as it fostered my desire to continue to travel.

The following year I got the travel bug again, so I arranged some work in Kununurra, Western Australia. By day I packed rockmelons, and by night I was caretaker for the Travellers Rest guesthouse which provided accommodation for tourists. I also managed to slip in a few shifts in the restaurant bar of the Kununurra Hotel. And then there was not much time for anything else. But I was busy and happy experiencing a new life.

Steve and I both played tennis in the summer months but during winter we were free as birds. Steve had given up playing Aussie rules footy for the South Gambier Football Club at age 40, and all my daughters had deserted me on the netball court, so I too retired at 40. Now we had the opportunity to get a real taste of getting away for weekend camping trips that didn’t involve hard work!

We bought a tent and all the camping and fishing gear we needed. Steve was very good at making lists of everything we may and may not need. The list was checked, rechecked and checked again before we departed. God forbid if we ever left anything behind, even if it was just a can opener. ‘Captain Cranky’ prided himself on his lists and he was not happy if something slipped his attention.

We had some great trips to the Flinders Rangers, Port Neill on the Eyre Peninsula, where Steve grew up, the Yorke Peninsula, where my kids grew up, and a longer trip to Queensland. We found that good strong rope came in very handy on many occasions to anchor our tent to the car or a fence to stop us blowing back to where we came from. Rope made it to the top of Steve’s list for every trip (for safety purposes only).

So we both had a taste of working in other parts of Australia and we also started enjoying pure weekend escapism on our camping trips. This, combined with the growing stress and pressure of Steve’s work and our need to get more sun into our bones, was all adding up to some darn good reasons for hitting the road for good...

And there's more to come of course!