The Simple Life living on the road in Australia - what is it all about....

Part of the attraction of living on the road in our caravan is that it is a simple life.  Nothing is complicated and our time is spent doing things other than cleaning, gardening and household maintenance.

There is some caravan maintenance and Nick is pedantic about that because the van has to last us a very long time.  Nick likes to keep the van (and the truck) clean so it gets a bath from time to time, and that is a task that he enjoys doing. He has diary reminders to check and clean the air conditioner filters and to change the anode  (which he did this morning) in the hot water system about every six months as well as the two water filters...and that is it as far as maintenance is concerned.  Oh, the other thing is emptying the toilet which Nick does every 2-3 days or sooner if we are bush camping and there are no toilets.

Yes, there is still washing of course.  But it is so easy, I don't even know I am doing it. For instance, I normally load the washing machine at night and then put on the wash in the morning when tea is being made.  Then we sit in bed with our tea and iPads and when we get up to shower, the washing is done. I may put another load on which will be finished by the time we have  finished breakfast.

I am the one who mostly vacuums and dusts, can do it in 15 minutes...maybe a bit longer if I take the floor mats outside to bash the hell out of them.

The shower is always clean because we use a natural soap free body wash that does leave soap gunk everywhere and the shower walls are squeegeed each time we shower by who ever is the last one to shower which is normally me because Nick is the king of breakfasts.

Making the bed is making a bed ....so that is no different.  But we have simplified it by having woollen doonas of different weights for different weather temps. So pull the sheets up, throw on the doona, plump up the pillows, put the cat cushions on the bed for Teddy to rest his head, and bingo...its done.

The other thing that makes living in a small space very doable and a pleasure is that we are both neat freaks. So things are put away where they live rather than being left out and we have a place for everything. The secret to having a place for everything is not to have too much stuff with you.  In our previous van, every time we went away, when we came back we would take out of the van stuff that we didn't use so I think we have got it down to a fine art.

So, what do we do with our time you may be thinking.  We have the time to spend planning our meals and cooking from scratch.  Cooking is something that we both enjoy.

Nick in the kitchen...what no apron!!!!

Nick vacuum packing boerewors ....
wont last long though, my son will be here tomorrow

Although we have a large fridge/freezer (215lt) it is prudent to buy only what we are going to use in the next couple of days.














As for the freezer, we have a great vacuum system and vac pack all our meat, as flat as possible to fit it into the freezer.

The vacuum system is a small had held one which works on batteries or 240v and has various size reusable bags.

We still buy our coffee from Skybury on the Atherton Tablelands, Queensland and Nick grinds the beans each week so our coffee is nice and fresh and drunk with Gippsland Double Cream and no sugar....is it coffee time yet?

Seed crackers ready to go into the oven 

Nick bakes two types of biscuits.....sesame biscuits (made with almond meal) and seed crackers (made with pepitas, sesame seeds, flax seed, cumin seed, salt and psyllium husks).  They are both favourites and lovely with cheese or home make chicken liver pate, which is another thing we make in 1 kg batches and freeze in portions.  I have even made butter, but to be honest, with the lovely butter from grass fed cows that Ashgrove produce here in Tasmania I don't bother making my own now.

Done...and ready for lunch...with avocado and triple brie...yum

Mise en place...all ready for the chicken liver pate

Sesame Biscuits & seed crackers
Tub of pate
Homemade butter
Peppermint coconut bombs

What else do we do, well pretty much the same as everyone I guess.  We read, play games on our iPads, ring/message friends, watch movies, that sort of thing.  We go walking and exploring.  We talk to and have sundowners with our neighbours.  And, we sometimes have afternoon naps...pure heaven.

Nick is working on his family tree and I have been sewing and knitting.  I am knitting a scarf for Nick for next winter and I have put in some pockets into my pants and covered my old pot holders.  All by hand, I might add.

New pot holders...pretty in pink and black

A pocket with a zip inserted into a pair of pants. 

So what it is all about?  It is about doing less and living more and doing what is important to us.

We are thoroughly enjoying the simple life on the road.....living wherever we want, doing what ever we want, going wherever we want, meeting great people and seeing this fantastic country of ours in our  fantastic mobile home.... a 23' Kedron XC3 Cross Country caravan.