How We Ended Up on the Road

For most of our adult lives, we had a plan.

Work. House. Family. Bills. Repeat.

I spent 20 years working in justice. Col did 33. Between us, that's more than half a century of alarms, workdays, responsibilities and knowing roughly where we were supposed to be on Monday morning.

Then things started to change.

I finished my career, and Col left justice after 33 years and started a new job. His new role involved a lot of travel and eventually came with a choice — he could be based in Canberra or Brisbane.

We chose Brisbane.

Obviously.

There are some decisions in life that require careful consideration.

Canberra or Brisbane wasn't one of them. 😂

There was, however, one small problem.

We lived in Melbourne.

Our house was already on the market, so we figured we'd just start making our way north. Col could continue working, we'd take our time, and eventually the house would sell and everything else would fall into place.

Simple.

We had our little 15-foot Lotus Off Grid caravan, Loki, which we'd already done some travelling in. We had our two dogs, Wal and Cheech, who naturally assumed that whatever we were doing would revolve entirely around them.

We sold my car to our nephew.

Col's Jeep was 13 years old and we decided that if we were going to be towing and travelling, it was probably time to replace it.

Enter Shaun.

Our shiny new black Ram.

The Jeep hadn't sold by the time we were ready to leave, so our wonderful friends Platty and Sandy in Lara took it to their place and said they'd deal with selling it for us.

And just like that, there really wasn't much keeping us in Victoria.

So on 1 February, we packed up Loki, loaded Wal and Cheech into Shaun and pointed ourselves north.

We weren't in a hurry.

The plan was to take our time getting to Brisbane. Col still had to work along the way, which meant Starlink spent quite a bit of time sitting on the dashboard while we travelled.

This was not exactly a conventional move interstate.

But it was working.

Then we got to Hay.

And Hay was hot.

Really bloody hot.

Wal and Cheech, having spent their lives as Victorian dogs, looked as though we'd personally betrayed them.

Thankfully, Loki had air-conditioning, so nobody actually melted.

Col's job involved travelling interstate, so while we were staying in Hay, I'd drive him over to Griffith Airport whenever he needed to fly out for work.

On one of those trips, I dropped him at the airport and drove the hour and a half back to Hay.

Nothing unusual.

I pulled into the yard.

And a light appeared on Shaun's dashboard.

The engine light.

Our beautiful, shiny, practically brand-new Ram had travelled approximately 1,500 kilometres.

Surely it was nothing.

Right?

After all, we'd bought a new tow vehicle partly because we didn't want to deal with reliability problems while travelling.

We had a house for sale in Melbourne.

Col was working all over the place.

I was in Hay with two dogs and a 15-foot caravan.

And we had somewhere we needed to be in Brisbane.

The last thing we needed was a problem with the brand-new Ram.

So naturally...

there was a problem with the brand-new Ram.

I rang Ram roadside assistance. There were phone calls, more phone calls, and eventually it was decided that Shaun needed to go back to the dealer in Griffith.

Which presented another small problem.

Griffith was an hour and a half away.

The tow truck was supposed to arrive at around 10am.

Ten o'clock came and went.

Eventually, at about 11:30, the tow truck appeared.

The driver climbed out and casually explained:

“Sorry I'm a bit late, ran into a mate on the road and stopped for a chat.”

Well.

Fair enough then. 😂

You really can't argue with priorities like that.

Shaun was loaded onto the tow truck and disappeared back towards Griffith, leaving me in Hay with Wal, Cheech, Loki...

and no bloody car.

At this point we'd been on the road for approximately five minutes.

Meanwhile, in Griffith...

The dealer wasn't initially sure what was wrong with Shaun either.

There was even talk that it could take up to ten days to sort out.

Ten days.

We had a house sit booked in Sherwood, Brisbane, that we needed to get to. Col was coming and going for work. Our tow vehicle was sitting at a dealership 150 kilometres away.

Our leisurely little trip north was going beautifully.

Eventually, after running diagnostics, the dealer discovered Shaun needed some updates. They did them, everything came good, and my son Conrad very kindly loaned us a car so we could get over to Griffith and collect him.

Shaun was back.

Crisis over.

Or so we thought.

Because looking back now, that little orange engine light in Hay was probably trying to tell us something.

We still thought we'd simply make our way to Brisbane, wait for the house to sell and then work out what came next.

We had absolutely no idea that the coming months would involve a house sale collapsing after our furniture had already arrived in Queensland, an electrical system giving up over Easter, a generator receiving fuel it most definitely did not want, three days trapped in a tiny caravan in relentless rain...

...and an innocent visit to a caravan show that would end up being very bloody expensive.

But we'll get to all of that.

For now, there we were.

Two dogs.

One little caravan.

One brand-new Ram that had already taken its first ride on a tow truck.

And one increasingly questionable plan.

Welcome to This Wasn't in the Plan.

What could possibly go wrong?