Ever wondered what it’s like to take the plunge, sell up, buy a caravan and travel our big lap of our beautiful country unrestricted at your pace?
Meet Trekking Downunder…
Let me introduce you to the Trekking Downunder crew, the Mad Murphy family; Ryan, Amy, Jake (8), Lucas (7) and Wade (16 months). We’ve partnered with the Murphy family to follow their adventures across Australia over the next 12 months. We are excited to follow their journey, hear the pros and cons of travelling. Travelling with kids and places that you must see, and even putting some of our gear to the test on location.
Here’s their story of how it all began…
Our adventure really began back in April 2016, when the idea to sell everything and live a life on the road was born. A three week family holiday to the breathtaking Fraser Island in Queensland, Ryan proposed the idea to a very hesitant me. You see travelling Oz was always something on Ryan’s bucket list, but not on mine. I had always more of an overseas traveller….. Well pre-kids anyways.
I decide to humour Ryan’s idea, mainly because he really was the most relaxed I had ever seen him, well since we had become ‘responsible adults’. He thought we should sell our dream home to do it, he lost me. With some clever convincing he started to get me back on board, but it wasn’t until he agreed to my condition that the dream became our new life plan. What was my condition you ask…… Something I had been asking Ryan for about 4 years, the leverage I needed had finally presented itself….. I wanted another baby.
So here we are on the trip of a lifetime. It wasn’t an easy road to get here, but 100% worth the effort. First, we needed to downsize for life on the road and not just by a little bit. We needed to go from a 300sq foot home to a 13sq foot van, this involved selling, donating and giving away 95% of all our possessions and selling our pride and joy, our dream home. It’s was a monumental task, especially with 2 kids and a baby on the way. But over the 2 years, we did it! 3 enormous garage sales, 45 carloads of donations plus a ‘giving away’ box at the front door for friends… By the day we left the property we had leased for those final months after we sold, we had completely downsized our lives. With only 16 boxes, 4 push bikes and Ryan’s huge tool chest left at my parents’ house, our little family of 5 were ready to leave our home of 10 years, the Majestic Blue Mountains in New South Wales behind.
The hardest thing for us to leave behind was not the material items or the memories of our home… Our gorgeous little ball of fur, Ollie. A 9-year-old West Highlands White Terrier (Westie). It took some time before we found him the perfect home, but when we did and we were stoked. He’s all shacked up with close family friends of ours, who just happened to be deciding whether to get a companion for their family dog at the time we were looking. We keep in touch and It makes our trip easier knowing how happy he is and how well he fits in.
Since leaving we have felt more relaxed and more alive than ever before. Saying goodbye to work, mortgage, rent, bills, daily stresses, excessive housework, gardening, social pressures, our ‘stuff’ and just the day to day life pressures have allowed us to disconnect and really get to enjoy our family time. Ryan, due to his demanding position at work, has missed seeing both our eldest 2 boys growing up. This adventure gives him back to our boys, and to me too. We get to have 100% uninterrupted time with our kids, to watch them grow and thrive together. We are now their teachers, full-time role models and full-time parents and we are so thankful for this incredibly precious gift.
So now we are living full-time on the road, exploring this amazing country of ours and it’s really become the dream life for all of us. We love moving to new places every few days and enjoy what each new location has to offer. We write reviews on the experiences we visit, the places stayed, the products we just love, plus we enjoy blogging about all things ‘life on the road’- keeping it real and raw, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
To follow their journey as we travel Oz at www.trekkingdownunder.com.au. Along with our social media channels, just search Trekking Downunder on; Facebook, Instagram and YouTube
Bushranger 4X4 Gear is proud to have partnered with the Murphy family and we look forward to keeping you up to date on their Trekking Downunder adventures.
Be a Bushranger.
Cheers, BR, Ryan & Amy Murphy.
