End January/ Early February 2020

Travelling unbounded feels like ultimate freedom. Travelling towards an open end. An open end where anything is possible. And where ‘anything’ becomes a lot more with experiences picked up along the way. The sky is the limit. It’s simply inspirational living outside your comfort zone of a home sweet home. It’s wonderful. No worries and living life to the fullest. 😇 

Up until your mind decides it’s time to make some choices. 🤔 When your brain wants clarity about the future. Up until the moment you are no longer satisfied with “perhaps we end up selling ice screams on a beach one day… who knows?”. And when your heart feels that 2020 will be the year to resign from the interim retirement. Then it becomes a rollercoaster. Where to live on this planet? How to live? Jobs? When? And so on. Big life questions and a rollercoaster we encountered intensively in New South Wales (NSW). 

Which was actually pretty good as NSW was going through a weather rollercoaster at the same time. On our way South we went from everyday sunshine and enjoying gorgeous beaches to putting away the solar panel and being stuck at powered sites. Retreating in our campervan to escape heavy showers. Monitoring the spread of the yearly bush fires. Finding higher grounds to keep Kempie safe from flooding. Buying more guy lines to secure our tarp for strong winds – which turned into a hopeless project that failed. 🤪 Nothing bad happened though but it kept us busy… Probably the worst we experienced was the fact that we had to unpack warm clothes. 😕

Eventually we gave up and drove to the state Victoria. Ahead of the unpredictable rain and fires. Two days of driving, two days of burnt forest surroundings. We’ve encountered burnt bushes in all states. In the North, the red centre, Queensland – it’s part of Australia – but the immensity of the affected area in NSW and East Victoria is impressive. Luckily the black trees already start to shoot green again.

And that was New South Wales… 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♂️ Thinking about it… the only touristic escapade we had was a visit to the Nelson Bay Light House: a marine rescue centre monitoring vessels going up and down the coast. Like ourselves during our amazing sailing trip early January. So far, our explorer modus, in a state that is famous for magnificent beaches and interesting coastal towns.

Of course, we did notice the beautiful beaches, blue water, dolphins, waves… but I guess we were not fully in the moment… Not in the same way like we were until then.

These places are behind us now. And our personal rollercoaster? We’ve left it there too. All in all, it was an important chapter during our trip, part of the game and needed to draft the ‘open end’. An experience to cherish. 🙏🏻 And now it’s time to explore Victoria with renewed energy!!! 😎✌🏻

Ps. This blog was written before the Covid-19 measures became concerning. Eventually we decided to go home immediately on the 18th of March when the Dutch government advised travellers to go home asap. We never uploaded the blog as it needed a final touch which was lost in all the fuss and it was not the right time. Our minds were somewhere else.