Over the last 6 months me and Lydia have been considering our options for the future. As Australia finally seems to be slowly returning to "normal" (If we can ever really get that back now...), restrictions are easing and the borders are opening up. Two years ago we wanted to go travelling around the country, working on farms and in small towns to help fund it along the way. Of course as we began to consider it seriously as an option Covid-19 struck.

As is well known Australia had some of the harshest lockdown restrictions around the globe, my state of Victoria was possibly the harshest of all introducing a curfew, mask rules, vaccine mandates, travel restrictions etc etc. We were in lockdown for the longest period of any country last I checked.

We had essentially given up our little dream of following the harvest trail and exploring the country and settled into what seemed like "the new normal". Deciding instead to save for a house deposit as houses in our area were a fairly reasonable price and all the "experts" pointed to a decline in the housing market as landlords tried to sell during the moratorium on rent.
Instead the exact opposite happened and the housing market went fucking parabolic. I mean the house we were renting was a 3 bedroom one bathroom with a decent backyard, not run-down but could use a little work here and there to freshen up. Sold a few months before we moved in for a measly $160,000. In the last 6 months almost identical homes in the same area including one down the street have sold for between $330,000-$400,000. Basically they have minimum doubled in price and not a thing had changed, the area isn't very nice and if I'm being honest it has been my least favourite place I have ever lived. There was no way I was paying a third of a million dollars for a house in the area so that idea slowly dissipated away as well.

Fast forward and it's finally opening up and we decided fuck it, let's go while we can. We used the money we had saved for a deposit and bought a caravan.
Our friend has decided to join us and is setting herself up a camper to come with us, this way if we decide we want to go seperate ways and meet up later it makes things easier.

The caravan

The caravan itself is nothing fancy, it seems along with houses and cars the price of these jacked up too and we ended up spending more than we hoped but nothing too ridiculous. It's around 18ft and should easily fit Lydia myself and our little dog Sassy. Over the last few weeks Lydia has been hard at work renovating the caravan and making it more our style, and just generally nicer.
She gave almost the whole thing a fresh coat of paint, tiled the splashback with fake rocks, installed new curtains and blinds and relined the floor.

I think it's looking much nicer and will do the two of us and Sassy just fine. Now we just need to find an acceptable tow car. Neither of our sedans are really suitable and my work ute, whilst capable, lacks the curb weight for a steady towing experience.
Here are some before and after pictures of Lydias hard work.

Kitchen area

Dining and lounge area

Bedroom area

The biggest problem I've found so far about the caravan is how much less space we're going to have. Still be worth it to get around and see the country more comfortably than a tent and cheaper than hotels.

Working

All 3 of us have experience working on farms, in pubs, general labour and most other seasonal kind of jobs or jobs often found travelling. Since there has been a lack of overseas workers allowed into the country we have continuously heard of the labour shortage, particularly on farms so I can't imagine getting work will be too hard. I personally plan to work as little as possible and hope to spend most my time exploring and taking photos. I want to restart our travel blog @exploreaus and be more active here. I've been building my stake on HIVE and between this and a number of other projects it may be possible for me to become a "digital nomad" but we shall see.
I'm not opposed to getting a traditional job as we move around if need be.

Picking and harvest work on farms is generally the go-to for most travellers and can be found almost all over Australia. There is work almost all times of year especially if you're willing to move around and it usually varies so you don't get too bored too fast. The plan is to head up north and probably end up working on mostly fruit farms but you never know :)

the route

We haven't planned a particular route or path we want to follow, the plan is to go where we feel or were we hear of cool stuff and play it all by ear. To start with we will probably head north toward Queensland. On our last trip we made it just south of the border but weren't allowed in due to restrictions so be cool to go that way, there is also plenty of work in Queensland so an ideal base to plan where we want to head next once we get some cash in our pocket.

Rough plan of first leg of trip in red

From there we can choose pretty much any direction, across the top of Australia and the Northern territory, back through the middle down south or head for Perth Western Australia. It will probably depend on how long we take in each place we stop as it would be nice to return around Christmas and see the families. Possibly head back south and then west after Christmas.

At the current rate it may also depend on the cost of fuel, if it keeps getting higher I might just stop in Queensland and not go anywhere else. at over $3.00 a litre in some parts of the country we picked a hell of a time to go roadtrippin.

We hope to sort of plan the route as we go and decide our next move based on how long it takes us to get around, how much time we need to spend working and how keen we are to see the other parts. Australia is a huge country and while most of it is desert there is still massive places to explore. I'm keen to get out there see some cool stuff and share some pictures with everyone!