hay hay bliggers and bloggers, freedom fighters and foragers of new and exiting frontiers,

its been a lonnnng time since ive written a blog and well here goes..... "enough of this bushya" lol

welllllll whats we been up to, be4 xmas work work work $$$$$ and then the big ,and i mean BIG oz trippp and i ant talking acid or ekkies either i mean 16000 km of road in 6 and a half weeks omg aust is a huge place with not a lot in it almost boring perhaps lol well u be the judge look at the pics, pod boy neeeds a 4 wheel drive next time he does that trip.

any way i loved it and needed it.... ok pod life and how its impacting.... some people just cant seem to get it, one of my long time friends who would call himself "open minded " just could not get his head around me not having a house. and the hints and more hints about "responsibility" and how i should need a house and land and need bla need bla and well i kinda am trying to release the need for anything, which is one of the positives about pod life is that theres no room for things that are not a necessity, i was talking to my dad just the other day about the photos of the trip and he was the same u need to put them in a photo album and not just have them on face book....... well what the hell am i going to do with a book carry it around with me until i die lol just baggage thats all it will become ive got the experience and memories in my soul and there far more real to me than anything i could hold in my hand. but he could not seem to understand that, baggage is baggage and i dont want it. any way thats my rant finished ... well almost

lol

all over this huge country there are signs that the government have put up saying "dont drive if ur tied " only sleep cures fatigue stop and rest bla bla bla..... so one night at about 8 pm we stop in a car park on the coast and theres an other sign "no camping" lol "no sleeping in vans " lol but i was tired and sleepy lol so i wrote a note and pit it on my drivers side window

and we went to sleep lolololol welll at 730am the next day bang bang fucking bang "wake up u cant sleep in there " see photo park ranger lol soo hes says hes going to send me a fine lol i cant wait to get it so i can send it to the government cos they told me to sleep lol. i told this guy that i was still sleepy and he said that he didnt care and that we had to leave immediately...

now my rants done lol love to all ummm krickle will edit this rot latter and hopefully it will make some sense lol

Photos

Hopefully this link works:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=304206&id=773550831&l=b6cf89571d

We have traveled and conquered deserts, humidity and now are facing coastal highways and coral reefs as we start down the West Coast of Australia. The views have been amazing, we've had one puncture, been stuck in sand once and been very close to running out of fuel a few times. We've also braved a couple of very heavy rain storms, one was so bad that we all got up in the middle of the night and drove to the nearest town as we were expecting the roads to flood. The next night the guest house had a disaster and we had to replace the tent as the wind broke one of the poles.

We've spent way more than we planned to on gas (autogas) and petrol. Gas has been up to 3 times as expensive as it is back home and petrol prices would make lesser men than Pod Boy curse.

We've also shared the road with more road trains than I can count: 53.5m long is the legal limit and they all do 130km/hr through the desert!

I have so many photos to upload, I wish blogspot was easier to upload photos onto.

We're currently hanging out in Exmouth, a coastal town on the cape at the top of Western Australia. For the first time last night we had a very officious young man come and tell us we couldn't park where we were. It was 7:58pm local time and we had just arrived at Coral Bay. We needed toilets, showers and fuel and were hoping to spend the night as the petrol station was closed...as were the roads further south. This man came up to Pod Boy as he was chatting to another guy and informed him that we were illegally parked (outside the public toilets while myself and my sister used the facilities) as it was past 8pm. He also asked if we had accommodation in the town and then told us that we couldn't park anywhere in the shire. He was the rudest person so far on this trip - and we've met our share of rude people.

I can't get over how rude all the sales people have been that we've dealt with. Almost every supermarket is staffed by unhappy small town people who won't give you a smile if they haven't served you at least 100 times before.

Anyway, enough ranting...

We drove almost to the edge of Victoria on our first day driving and spent the night at a lovely rest stop, then we hit the road early the next morning and got to Hahndorf for dinner that night before traveling on to just North of Port Augusta (a very loong trip). We then started the beginning of our desert journey.

The desert colours are epic, and the sky always has interesting cloud shapes.

Pod boy standing over two states: NT and SA.

Coober Pedy: lots of underground housing here to get away from the heat.

We spent about 6 days between Port Augusta and Darwin. The days were too hot to stop driving as it was only the cool breeze coming in the open windows that made life bearable. Every afternoon in the desert there was a rain storm which I think was given to us by God to remind us that we weren't in hell. In all honesty though, I kind of enjoyed the desert. It all looked the same, and the people were few and far between but there was a nice feeling every time you passed another traveling party as they would wave and for a brief second you'd feel a flare of kinship.

We managed to find proper showers every day, although we had to pay about $3 a head for them. We also had bucket washes every night before bed. I found that if I tipped 1/3 of a bucket of water over my head followed by a small bottle of melted ice water and then jumped straight into bed wet I would sleep quite well. Getting to sleep before the water evaporated off me is crucial to my plan. Pod boy isn't quite as brave as me so he doesn't use any ice water, nor does he come to bed still slightly wet...he isn't sleeping very well at all. We bought a 12v fan which has been our best friend on this trip. It goes almost constantly, during the day to cool whoever is in the back while we're driving, or to move the air around in the van if we've left Pod dog in it and then at night over us as we sleep.

We spent a week in Kununurra, it had a lovely swimming hole: even though the signs said there were crocodiles nearby.

We spent 3 hours in Darwin, it was a hot, humid and seemingly boring place. We did manage to find some nice showers there though.

Broome was lovely, nice coastal breezes off the ocean. White sandy beaches, free showers. It had the makings of being a lovely place to hang out, but poisonous jelly fish meant no swimming so we only stayed 3 days.

We're now past the jellyfish waters and we're looking forward to slowing down in terms of the distances we drive each day as we enjoy the water and coral reefs along this coastline. Some places have coral reef within 15m of the shore and the snorkeling around here and further south is meant to be amazing.

When I have better internet I will upload some more photos :)

We're aliveeee

So much has happened since the last time I blogged...not least a massive earthquake in my home town which caused major damage. In some ways it would have been nice to have been there...if only to show people hoe conveinient it is pod dwelling as we would have been able to pack up and move to safety so easily. The subsequent earthquakes since would not have been very fun though. My poor wee city that I love so much is so changed. I hardly recognise it in photos. And they've had over 3000 quakes since the first one in October. They're still calling them aftershocks!

The pod people haven't disappeared. Since I came over in July we've been very busy, with very few days off. We've spent the last few months working (I've been helping Podboy on job sites). It's been good for the savings account and the credit cards...but not so great for us as we've had very little time to play! And as you know, vandwelling usually gives a lot of time for play.

However, we have made a lot of changes to the pod and I'll pop some photos up so you can see all that we've done.

We've changed the kitchen...actually I built all the shelves and have designed it so that I can access the fridge by only moving one thing. This is an epic accomplishment as we used to have to almost totally unpack the kitchen side of the trailer to get to it. We still haven't got it sorted to run off 12v but we're workign on it. We have all the things we need to make it happen, we just haven't had time yet. So we're still plugging it in during the day and then letting it stay cool by itself at night. If we don't have access to power during the day we sometimes put a bag of ice in it which lasts about 3 days in there. But Podboy is lucky as he has unlimited power whenever he's at work! We also have a brand new stove but I don't have any photos of that (I haven't even used it yet!).

In the picture above you can see the shelves really well...however the lower part of the trailer is now much more organised and has way less clutter!

We also got a new Webber which we're storing on the tyres. I can't work out it it's hobo hobo or hobo chic: I'll let you work it out ;)

We've also put air vents into the roof of the van. They're solar powered and make a lovely wee hum when they're spinning. I'm not sure yet how much of a difference they really make to the van as the weather has been awful ever since we put them in...but they are making a difference to the condensation. We actually have no more condensation problems which is wonderful. It was starting to truly annoy me!

Another thing we've done is put solar panels on the roof of the pod. I can't remember the specs, I'll have to ask Podboy...but they are enough for us to never need to plug in our battery again. Since we've had them we've only run out of power once and that was after 4 days of almost no sunlight. We're very happy with them. Thanks ebay!

We're about to take off on a 6-8 week holiday which may mean that the blog gets some more attention! I start work on the 31st of January (yep! registration finally went through so I can now leagally nurse in Australia). My sister has come over and she's staying in the guest bure...a tent on the roof of the trailer.

Podboy and I debated at length about how we would manage to have guests because we knew she really wanted to come on our trip with us. In a very facetious conversation I suggested that we give her a mattress and she could sleep on the trailer...from there the guest bure was born. Podboy built a platform that folds up when we drive and lays flat when we're settled. It is basically three planks of timber with bracing along the bottom to even them out. They have holes at each end which we weave rope through and tie them to the trailer. We then erect the tent and tie the 4 poles to each corner of the trailer. The whole operation takes about 10 minutes to put up and about the same to take down.

Unfortunately we're still in Melbourne for work (hopefully only one more day of it!) and it's turned freezing here. Gale force winds, torrential rain, flash floods and freezing temperatures. It's meant to be summer!! This has meant that it's been very cozy in our bed as my sister has snuggled in next to us. I get very claustrophobic so having a person on either side of me isn't too fun.

Now, for our trip! We're heading west from Melbourne and doing a 12,000km journey through the centre of the desert to Darwin, then to Broome (through the Kimberley) then along the coast to Perth, then all the way back to Melbourne. We'll have Christmas somewhere along the way. So at the moment it's 3 peas, plus one. Yay!

"HI" from all of us in the pod...and especially from Pod dog :

Officially three and a pod

I am officially a van dweller...or in my case a pod dweller. I've been here since Saturday morning and for the first time I have completely unpacked my suitcase. It's now in storage and I'm getting used to properly living in the pod. There's not really much to get my head around, I've stayed here so often recently that it still feels kind of like a holiday. Pod boy and myself keep looking at each other now and then and saying things like "I don't have to go away" or "you get to stay here now". It's funny how neither of us has really accepted the reality of my being here yet.

I ended up coming over a week early as I had a job interview on Monday. It went well, but I'm not sure if it's exactly the hospital for me. I'm hoping to hear from a couple of other places I applied to later this week. One of them is an ideal hospital in terms of the contract they were offering and its location.

There's not really much to report. Pod boy bought a take down recurve bow a couple of weeks ago and we spent this weekend target shooting and he did a couple of walks through the forest looking for game. He got close to a number of animals, but unfortunately none of them were animals he was allowed to kill. I rung up the conservation department here and have them sending some information out about what and where we can hunt. They're also sending a game license application out so we can hunt deer.

I'm not 100% sure how I feel about hunting larger animals. I feel it's a huge waste of life to kill a deer and not be able to adequately store the meat from it. We have some friends we could give the meat to but I know there would end up being a lot of waste from each kill. Pod boy is not sharing my concern about this. I'm still trying to work out other ideas to help myself get more comfortable with the large game hunting side of things. Killing small animals like rabbits and birds sits ok with me as I know that in a couple of meals we would have used all the meat. But the larger animals make me feel a bit icky about it as part of van dwelling for me is about having a smaller carbon footprint and I just feel that the waste from a large kill doesn't fulfill that role.

Anyway, I'm suposed to be helping Pod boy at work. It's part of my role here for now, but it's so cold outside and the pod is so warm with Pod dog on my feet. There's also not much I can be doing outside right now...hmmm does it sound like I'm trying to convince myself that I'm not needed?

I better go and try to offer some sort of help.

Pod - the second

In a spur of the moment decision we decided to do the build on Sunday morning. We ended up with no plans for Sunday which was lovely because Sundays are usually a full on day. So we got up a bit late (0830) and went to Bunnings (timber and building supply shop). We bought supplies - and then headed for the local new subdivision where we intended to find a empty half constructed house and use the garage to shelter the pod in whilst we built.

We found the perfect house, and construction began at about 1030.




The first thing Pod Boy did was fit a piece of timber behind the two front seats, this is shaped to fit almost perfectly in the hole and makes the back of the pod feel like a separate bedroom. It has a door way in it (the door is yet to be hung) to let Pod Dog between the front and the back, and keep him out when the bed is made. His favourite new thing to do is to curl up in the bed as soon as he gets a chance.




The board also acts as the backing for some shelving that is going in behind the two seats. At the moment there are no shelves, but there's so much space there that we want to use it.

Next Pod Boy began constructing the base of our bed, which is also the storage area in the pod. He made a series of boxes, which coincidentally sit just higher than the wheel arches. Currently the boxes are hard to get into, but that's because we ran out of time and have a few more things to do to get the pod finished and ready for decorating. The boxes have single layer flat lids at the moment, but Pod Boy intends to put another layer of board onto the lids that overlaps the separations between each box. I'll try to show detail photos so you understand what I mean. Once the extra layer is on the lids we have flush pull thingys to put into the lids which will make life so much easier.



Once all the boxes were made and the lids were all done Pod Boy built a shelf at the back of the pod. It's just a small one, but it holds my suitcase (yes I'm still living out of one only 3 more weeks until I move over permanently!), the washing bag and the computer when we have it set up. Once my suitcase is gone we intend to get some small drawers to put everyday stuff in, especially socks as we seem to lose them all over the place.

Although the list of what Pod Boy did doesn't seem very long it took a surprisingly long time to do. All in all we were in the garage of the half built house for 11 hours. We had the owners arrive and they assumed we were carpenters doing something to the house, we let them think it and I think it's both funny and sad (I feel bad!!) that they were expecting the outside of their house to be finished on Monday and were probably very surprised to find that it wasn't. We also had numerous drivers out for their Sunday drive slow down as they went past, they probably couldn't work out what was going on.

I love the way the pod is now, it's so much easier to keep stuff in its proper spot and I'm thoroughly looking forward to organising it properly when I move over.

This was Pod Dog's contribution to the rebuilt, he kept us safe and made sure none could get us. He always sits with his legs crossed, he's just that special!

Hi all!

The pod has been rebuilt! It's totally different from the original plans I drew up...but it's done! It works and most importantly (according to Pod Boy's chiro) we have a proper bed! By a complete coincidence we have a bed that is exactly the same size as a queen size bed, we found this by fluke when we were searching for a mattress.

We finished the rebuild late on Sunday, and went looking for a mattress on Monday afternoon. I rung the rubber shop and found they closed at 1730, but they stopped cutting foam rubber at 1630. So Pod Boy and I packed up from work at about 1545 and headed for the nearest shop. We got to the joint at 1630 on the dot and had to wait for 15 minutes to be served, there was only one other customer in the place! Then we told the guy the measurements we wanted and he tried to convince us that they were wrong o.O he was such a douche (and I'm usually so polite about people!) Finally we got him to understand we knew exactly what we needed and that we did want it in three pieces. He agreed to cut it, but we had to pay first.

We went up to the counter and he worked out how much it would be. Now, we work in metric over here, but they still price foam in $/square foot. Guess how many square feet were in our mattress? 30! That was $300 for foam, just foam...no springs, no memory foam, just plain normal foam. We were both shocked, and we discussed it briefly with our eyes and then said thanks but no thanks.

We wouldn't have minded paying that much for a proper mattress, you can get chiropedic ones for just slightly more than that on sale here...so to pay $300 for foam seemed ridiculous especially because we were still going to be getting memory foam for on top of it. We left the shop and were driving down the road when we saw a mattress shop. They were advertising custom made mattresses so we went in. We had 5 minutes, and we asked if they would custom make a plain foam mattress...they couldn't as they only custom made chiropedic ones. But they had a pile of foam mattresses by the door, and by total fluke the queen size was exactly the right size for the pod. Best of all? It cost $99, fully covered and piped along the sides.

We bought it.

It's heaven.

I don't have any finished product photos, but I'll take some tonight when we make the bed, and then I'll take some in the morning when we fold the bed away. I'd take some now, but it's a horrible mess *housekeeper has been building with ber fiance*!

We're just working out what we will do the with mattress during the day. At the moment we're folding it into three and putting it against the shelf at the back of the pod with bungey ropes. Pod Boy thinks he can make some kind of foldable couch out of it by attaching it to thin boards...we'll see what happens!

We're looking for some memory foam stuff (the chiro is looking for it for us actually!) that we'll put over the mattress, but even without it the bed is so comfortable.

I'll write another post detailing our day on Sunday and will post some photos of the process :)