Timing selling and travelling.

Nothing to do with the post, but we’ll miss this little guy—a brushtail possum, looking for some sweet brushtail action, has set up a new pad in a hollow tree in the back yard.

So, we are in somewhat of a predicament—or at least, we will be. Sure, it’s not an unprecedented situation, but our circumstances are a little unique in that we are selling our home with the intention of hitting the road the moment our caravan is available, which means on the day we collect our caravan we will have with us everything we own, and we’ll be on our way. We’ll have no home, and no friends or relatives nearby to rely on or provide a place to set ourselves up—we’ll get a run down on how the van works, sign the paperwork, and drive out of the sales yard to wherever it is we have decided to go.

Ideally, we’d liked to have been able to keep our home, with the intention of renting it out later, allowing us to bring the van back home in the meantime, set it up, get ourselves sorted, and then be off on our way. With finances not allowing us to do that, we will need to work out how we are going to pull all of this together and make it happen. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as just finding a place to rent in the interim either. First and foremost, there’s a bit of a rental crisis going on across Australia, making rental opportunities difficult, and a short-term, or week by week lease, impossible. Add to this the fact that we will need to sell, throw, or give away our furniture and all other belongings that will not be coming with us in the van, meaning we’d have to find a fully furnished rental—also an unlikely find. The obvious solution would be an Airbnb but, with that, some quick research has found no Airbnb opportunities in our area that would allow for parking a van, let alone the room to get it set up. There might be opportunities further out in more rural areas, but I need to be working for as long as possible, and as close to the van handover date as I can, and so we are limited as to how far out we can go.

For the moment, if and when the house is sold, our only option is to find an Airbnb and time it as best we can to allow us to transition from there and into the van at handover. The difficulty with Airbnb, of course, is that you have to book specific dates, leaving us with the situation whereby the van is ready and we’ve still got a couple of weeks accommodation booked and paid for, or, there’s a delay for a few days or a week due to unforeseen circumstances and our booking has come to an end, and that could be a problem due to availability of accommodation at short notice. We’d be extremely fortunate, to say the least, if we found ourselves in the situation whereby all the planets align, and each stage of the process follows the other nice and neatly. But, it’s not realistic to hope that settlement for the house sale will fall in line with the caravan arriving, and so it’s all we can do to try and prepare ourselves for different outcomes.

While we’ve been tossing around ideas on how this is all going to work, Alicia has stumbled across the idea of house sitting, and with it, the opportunity to minimise the cost of Airbnb’s. We may have secured a 7-week house-sit down in New South Wales starting about 3 weeks after our van is ready, should it be on time. You might ask why we’d want to house sit for 7 weeks so soon after picking up a caravan and starting or adventure. I mean, the idea is to get out and see this amazing Country, right? It does makes sense, though—we’re completely new to caravanning and, really, we have no idea what we’re in for. A place to call home for a few weeks would be a great opportunity to get ourselves set up in the van, get familiar with how everything works, particularly things like the battery and solar set up, and practice a bit of parking and manoeuvring, something that we’re slightly terrified about. Also, we can use it as a bit of a base to get out and take in some sights in that region without having to find caravan parks, or free camps.

Having found a possible house-sit from out of nowhere, with a bit of digging around, who knows, we might be lucky enough to find ourselves a house-sit to fill the gap between settlement and caravan delivery. We’d have to be quite fluky to find a house-sit within a reasonable vicinity of my work, but that could see us saving thousands in Airbnb costs. If anyone can pull something out of thin air, it’s Alicia—amongst her many traits of genius, she’s an absolute whiz when it comes to digging around and making something out of seemingly nothing.

As usual, the plan will be to keep you posted and updated as to how our plan is coming together and, of course, any headaches and heart ache along the way. We’ve still got a long way to go, but there might just be a pin prick of light at the end of this tunnel. In any case, it’s all part of the adventure and we can’t wait to share more.