Tag: Life lessons

Life lessons learned from full time travel

Selfies.

Maryanne Steitz - AuthorLeave a comment

Today is our 34th wedding anniversary. WOW! 34 years! In that time we have lived in Germany and Australia, raised two daughters, owned two houses, visited some other countries and had a variety of jobs. In 2016, we made a spur of the moment decision to rent out the house, buy a caravan and head off on an indefinite trip around Australia. That was five years ago and possibly the best decision we ever made. (Click this link to read more about how it all started https://workingholidaypress.home.blog/2019/03/08/how-it-all-started/)

The little church where we got married. Herons Creek NSW

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Cape York

Maryanne Steitz - Author1 Comment

In June 2018 we made the trip to Cape York. We left our van at Mount Carbine Caravan Park. You can store your van there for free if you stay there before and/or after your trip to the top. After our little adventure in the Aurukun forest, (see previous post https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/workingholidaypress.home.blog/580 ) we made our way along the corrugated-tarred-corrugated-tarred road.

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That time we visited the Aurukun Bush

Maryanne Steitz - AuthorLeave a comment

After working a few months in Wauchope NSW for the summer of 2018, we headed off to our next bucket list destination, Cape York. We were particularly excited about the plan to camp with friends on the beach for three weeks. These friends are regular visitors to Far North Queensland and experienced fishermen. They were taking their boats, skills and knowledge and we were going to fulfill a life long fishing dream.Read More »

Adventure before dementia

Maryanne Steitz - AuthorLeave a comment

We settled near Mackay for the winter of 2018. Thomas was employed as a truck driver to cart bogasse, the dry, sawdust-like end product after the sugar cane has been crushed. The bagasse is stockpiled at the local sugar mills who then burn it to produce electricity. I found the whole process of sugar production fascinating, from the machines that cut the cane and spit it into trucks which remain in exactly the right position to catch the cut stalks, to the network of train tracks throughout the fields, supporting locomotives pulling long snakes of carriages carrying the harvest to the mills. Photos and videos of transformer-like machines, trains and trucks were a big hit with our three year old grandson.

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Finding work

Maryanne Steitz - Author44 Comments

Questions about how to find work when living on the road often pop up on my Facebook feed, so this post will describe our experience.

There are a lot of things to consider when looking for work while traveling around Australia. What do you want to do, how long do you want to stay, where do you want to be, where are you going to live, what skills do you offer and how do you be competitive for the job.We don’t really want to do the same thing twice.Read More »

Learning to live for less

Maryanne Steitz - AuthorLeave a comment

Heading north in the hope of warmer weather and employment we made it as far as Rockhampton. We spent a week in a caravan park at Yeppoon, where we desperately searched for jobs. Obviously, the small amount of money we saved was not going to go far if we had to pay for a caravan site. It was here I learnt one way to drastically reduce costs of living, and this was to offer our services in exchange for somewhere to park our van with access to power and water. We got an offer within a few days of posting an ad on social media and gumtree. We moved to a large block of land between Yeppoon and Rockhampton, where Thomas helped with the renovation of a house in exchange for a powered site. This gave us some time to apply for work while practically living for free.Read More »