March 25, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode of The Van Life Series Podcast, we catch up with adventurers Jimmy, Tara, Kyla, and Josh as they share their unforgettable journey of van life, island hopping, and off-grid travel. From a picture-perfect proposal on the Great Barrier Reef to navigating the wild roads of Cape York, this episode is packed with jaw-dropping stories, laughs, and travel tips.
- Discover hidden gems like Fitzroy, Heron, and Wilson Islands
- Hear about the challenges (and triumphs!) of full-time van life
- Witness the magic (and struggle) of baby turtles hatching in the wild
- Fishing, snorkeling, margaritas, and a few wild encounters along the way!
Plus, we get the five best tips for anyone dreaming of hitting the road full-time! Don’t miss this episode—hit play and get inspired to live the adventure!
🎧 Listen now & subscribe for more epic van life stories!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Appota production.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The Van Life Series podcast acknowledge the traditional owners and
ongoing custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded.
We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and tour As
Strait Islander people and to the elders, past, present and emerging.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You just need to take the step and get out
there and do it.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
We actually can turn what we love into our career.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
We wanted to travel to be a part of life
and not a perk of life.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
It's the best decision I've ever made.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
Every day is now different, different sunrise at a different beach.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
That's just a paradise. Yeah, it's a paradise.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
It's an insane I feel so alive and free.
Speaker 6 (00:46):
Hand in your notice, make a plan and just commit
to it.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
I would just say do it.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
The Van Life Series.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
We bought it with two hundred and fifty thousand k's
on it, and we sold it with nearly five hundred
and fifty thousands.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Ye ha'd some good going.
Speaker 6 (01:02):
We had everything planned, we had everywhere we wanted to go,
everything we wanted to do.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
It all pretty much didn't.
Speaker 6 (01:09):
Go to plan at all.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
We took it over the way bridge and we're a
ten point nine to eight tons, so we had twenty
kilos up our sleep.
Speaker 7 (01:17):
So we went back and we're like, we've.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Got too much stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Got a single piece of fishing gear left the side
of the truck.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
How were going guys? Right? O?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Good?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Well, Welcome to our episode of the Van Life series podcast.
I'm Jimmy Prime with my wife Tarra and we're here
with Kyler and Josh two talks. How are you guys?
Speaker 6 (01:38):
Hi?
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Firstly, just wanted to wish congratulations for that epic engagement
the other day.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Oh my god. Yeah, Josh, you're making all us blakes
look bad.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yeah, that was pretty It was pretty psycho.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
How did you pull that off?
Speaker 5 (01:57):
Definitely a lot of planning when that I was looking
at Sankas up the Great Barrier for hundreds of klime.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So it kind of worked out all perfectly.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
So we got one absolutely perfect day which was really
unheard of this time of.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Year as well, so absolute glass out which was perfect.
It was very good.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Then the next days afterwards windy and rainy. So yeah
that was the day.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Yeah right, and Carlie, you had no idea.
Speaker 6 (02:24):
No, I'm still confused.
Speaker 8 (02:26):
I don't know how he did it.
Speaker 6 (02:28):
I don't know where the ring was, I don't know
how he planned it.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I'm still confused.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
About even just setting the drone up and all up
to when he was setting the drone up, just putting
it like three or four meters away from you and
then just kneeling on the ground and stuff. Was Were
you still like what is happening here?
Speaker 6 (02:43):
No? Because he was like there was another boat.
Speaker 9 (02:45):
We pulled up and there was like another boat circling
fishing around the island, and he was.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Like, cool, Charlie happened at the moment.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I'm like, yeah, oh my.
Speaker 6 (02:55):
God, and you kept being so weird.
Speaker 9 (02:56):
He's like, we're not getting off until like the other
boat goes, and I was like, why who cares about
drawing the drone and stuff?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Like who cares?
Speaker 6 (03:01):
Like we'll get a cool video, it doesn't matter, like whatever.
I was like, I'm getting off.
Speaker 9 (03:05):
So I just got off the boat lighted just walking
around the sand cane. He was still on the boat,
like pacing around, driving around the island like.
Speaker 8 (03:12):
Waiting, and I'm like, what are you doing, Like, just
get off, it's fine. And then they finally left and
he's like, oh, thank god, they're gone, and then he
like anchored the boat and then got off and then.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
He was like goes down over there, looked really good
on the drone.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Like me being kept looking.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Back and I'm like trying to get the boxes like
this in my back and I had to jump in
the water with the ring in my back pocket and
so the box.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Was soaking, but it was like falling apart. It's like
soaking were then. Yeah, it all all worked out well
in the end.
Speaker 6 (03:44):
And I had no clue, no idea.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
It looked very good.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
Yes, a couple of.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Hundred thousand views online of.
Speaker 6 (03:50):
It as well already, yeah, popping off.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, congratulations, thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Whereas that's up in the Gladstone region. Oh sorry, no,
that's where we were. You're in the Cans region.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
I was in Cans Yeah, so very spontaneously.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
I was like, well, not spontaneous for you, because.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
You knew that you would do.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, no, not really.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
It's two days before and I'm like, well, why don't
we go up to Fitzroy Island. We've always wanted to
go and the weather hasn't been ideal, and you know
how it is like keep checking it and change for
two days and then we just ended up driving up
to Cannes and then yeah, shut out from cans from Yeah,
just a little boat around there and stay there for
(04:31):
three nights? Was it three nights?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, say Fitzroilan to three nights.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
And what's Fitzroy Island like? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
It was epic, epic location, really nice resorts.
Speaker 5 (04:41):
Actually a little bit run down, but it was definitely
worth visiting.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
I heard they get massive gts off that ledge right
there as well.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah, they probably were huge ones.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
Didn't really do too much fishing, unfortunately, but no I did.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Because we were when we were staying in cans when
we were with you guys up there. I had a mate,
local mate who goes over to Fitzroy Island and they
fish that ledge there and they do get huge fish.
It's to be pretty epical.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
Yeah, I went for a spearfish after I proposed.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Of course, I had to get something while I.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
Was out there, and I got a little tree out.
But I've seen a heap of like big Spanish and stuff.
I'd love to get one, but we didn't have We
had no ask you for anything.
Speaker 6 (05:25):
Josh is like coming up like there's a huge Spanish.
Should I get it? I'm like, no, where are we
going to put it? What are we going to do
with that?
Speaker 5 (05:31):
Like no, unfortunately, but got a tree out, coral tree
out for lunch the next day.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Oh too good, Yeah, very good.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
So did you stay in the resort there? Yeah, it
looked like yeah it was it nice?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, epic.
Speaker 6 (05:47):
Yeah, it's nice. It's run down, it needs some love.
Speaker 7 (05:50):
But there's location location heye with some of those places,
like it's so stunning.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Yeah. Well, when we were in cans we were actually
looking at Fitzroy Island for us to go stay at
Patara's birthday, but we ended up not staying there, but
on the way back down to Brizzy when we let
you guys, we stayed at Heron Island, which was awesome.
Turtle season so all the turtles were nesting in November
when we were there.
Speaker 7 (06:13):
Yeah, they just started the nesting season. We had five
nights with the kids. Yeah, absolutely loved it. It's been
like a bucket list thing for ages for us Heroin.
Speaker 6 (06:22):
Yeah, it looks stunny.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
It was even better than we thought.
Speaker 7 (06:25):
Like the snorkeling the reef was just off the hook,
Like meeting with marine.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Life, complete marine zone, so everything is just in abundance there.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, everything it's just working very nicely.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Yeah, it's how it should be.
Speaker 7 (06:38):
It's just it's completely untouched and it kind of just
restores your faith in the environment that they're still little
thriving patches.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
It's nice to see it like that, yeah, which was
really ippy.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Yeah, but then that's what led us to We just
got back two days ago from Wilson Island, which is
its little neighbor island, but it's only tiny, that's an
had old only island, and we just got back from
a night over there.
Speaker 7 (07:02):
Yeah, so we when we're at Heron, we caught wind
of the Wilson Island thing, so like Heron was awesome,
family friendly and everything. And then when we had no
idea about Wilson Island, but we saw the little transfer
boat at the jetty and like, I wonder what that's
all about. We google it and it's just like thirty
minute boat ride from Heron and it's adult only and
(07:24):
it's just looked absolutely off the hook. So then we
haven't I haven't stopped thinking about it since I've found
out about it, and I was like, oh god, we've
got to tick this one off the bucket list, so
we should go.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Yeah, it's very fancy, so it's quite Wilson Island's close
to her Hearn, Yeah.
Speaker 7 (07:42):
Yeah, so what you could do both islands, like if
you haven't done Heron, because you've got to catch the
Heron Islander to Heron Island, So you could definitely stay
there a couple of nights and just experience Heron, but
then they transferred you from there to Wilson just did
a smaller boat and it's thirty minute boat ride, so
it's adult's only eighteen maximum of eighteen guests on the
(08:03):
island at any one time, there's only three off, like
two caretakers and a chef.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
That's so cool.
Speaker 7 (08:08):
And it's like a really really exclusive experience, like it's
all inclusive, like cocktails, alcohol, all the food and it's
like fine dining, like freshly prepared by the chef in
front of you three miles a day, plus a nibble
platter in.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
The n is off its head.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
The food like we've had some good food, but the
food just blew our mind.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
So we had the isl onto ourselves for the first
six or eight hours or something until the afternoon bus
arride our boat and then so we had the two
caretakers that live on the island and the chef just
Katie for us the whole day until the other people arrived.
Who was cooking us duck for lunch and they make
(08:54):
you any cocktail you want help yourself.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
It was crazy. So like he cooked his breakfast.
Speaker 7 (08:59):
They transferred us at seven and they were like, we'll
get you there for breakfast because breakfast is at seven
point thirty. We didn't realize the only guests on the
island at that point. So we get greeted at the
beach and they take us in and he's like, I've
laid out a continental breakfast for you guys, and there's
all these like super fancy little things Musley's and little
handmade baniana bread things, and he goes, if you guys
(09:21):
want to start with the continental thing, will make you
a coffee, and then I can make you an omelet
to your liking, until like gourmet mushroom smoking salmon.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
It was crazy.
Speaker 6 (09:32):
So I'm looking this up straight after that, Look.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
You got it.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
You got to do it, You got to do it.
Speaker 7 (09:37):
But then we go out, we have the breakfast like
and it's off the hook and then we go out
with our snorkel gear snorkel the whole way around the island.
Have this epic few hours. There's a massive, like world
famous bomby there. It's the second biggest bomby in the
Southern Hemisphere, and it's like five meters by five meters.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
It's got just this.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Whole it's like a big brain.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
It's like one of those just just around. Yeah, they
look like the brain ones, but it's just like perfectly round.
But at the top is like caved and it's got
all a little ecosystem inside the top of it with all.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Out Yeah, turtles swimming around it.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
Like the turtles sit in there. It's all parrot fish,
a little bit little turtles. Yeah, assuming that was unreal,
I'd love to see them.
Speaker 9 (10:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (10:20):
And then the turtles were hatching too, so like because
it was a change of season, so we're rescuing baby
turtles and like they're hatching and we're like escorting them
down to the beach so the seagulls don't eat them.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
I was just like it was heaven. It was absolutely heaven.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
It's a bit of a roller coaster the baby turtles
because they're so cute, and you escort them down to
the water so the seagulls don't get them, but they
get absolutely perpet as soon as they get in the water.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
Yeah, they've just got predators waiting, like sharkling reef sharks
just circling their waiting.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
It's pretty brutal. It's the hardest start to life of
any animal on planet.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, the odds, the odds aren't very good.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
One in five thousand make it. We soon a few
get out to the outer reef, but yeah, not many.
There's too many sharks, too many spangos. Even the crabs
grab them. Yeah, but it's it's cool to see. It's
nature at its finest.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
But definitely the cutest little animal and they hatch.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Yeah, oh they're adorable.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I think they are like the cutest Yeah, in my books.
Speaker 7 (11:19):
Anyway, they're bloody gorgeous, and they're so tiny. They're like
smaller than the palm of your hand, like even just
the palm section.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
They're just tinier than that. Yeah, they're really cute.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
But when while we're snorkeling around the island, we've seen
one of the biggest turtles we've ever seen in our life,
we actually thought it was a huge bomby from made
to this bomby, But then it was a turtle. Would
it mean like two and a half meters long?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
It was, Yeah, it was huge, had all barnacles on it.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Followed it around for a bit to see the little turtles,
like get from fifty fifty millimeters to two and a
half meters. It's crazy how.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Big turtle is too.
Speaker 6 (11:55):
Yeah, been around. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
It was ancient looking, wasn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 7 (11:59):
Yeah, really cool anyway, Yeah, put it on the list. Guys, Wilson,
you got to do it.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
We will. Where did you Where did you ditch all
the boys to?
Speaker 4 (12:09):
We left them at my oldies for the day. For
three days, we're gone.
Speaker 7 (12:13):
They weren't really impressed that we were going back to
a great barrier reef for like an epic adventure without them.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
They were less than impressed.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
They'll understand when they're older.
Speaker 7 (12:23):
Yeah, because they loved heron. They loved heron the turtles.
The snorkeling.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
They're like right into their snorkeling, Like we did a
big on hero and got dropped out on the outer
reef and did a mad snorkel drift and they're just
finding all of it right, now.
Speaker 7 (12:36):
So when we said we're going back to Wilson, yeah,
they weren't really impressed.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
But yeah, so anyway, but it was only a couple
of days. But yeah, it was awesome more than it.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yeah, and it's good to leave. The boys were the
oldiest because next week we depart here and we'll be
gone a year or so. So that was good for
them to get some time with Nanny Poppy there because yeah,
next week when we leave, we might not be back
here until next year. I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
While are you heading over?
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Yes?
Speaker 7 (13:08):
Yeah, yeah, we're leaving a couple of weeks. Yeah, and
we're heading west.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Are you guys?
Speaker 4 (13:13):
At the moment, we're on the sunny coast. We just
got some final things to get done on the truck.
Let's go having the internal fit out done, the battery system,
the light system in the canopy. Yeah, boat let the
new boatloaders going on. As soon as that's all done,
where we'll be out of here probably next Saturday. What
(13:33):
are you? What's your guys movements? Now?
Speaker 1 (13:36):
We just got back to La after Chrissy came back up.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
What day do we believe after Christmas twenty seven or something?
We just shot back up here and been out under
the EAF in our boat a couple of times and
stuff where we've got some nice weather opportunities. But I've
just got some work at the moment, so I've been
working over at Hamilton Island, just doing some chippy work
over there, so we'll.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Be doing that. And Kyle has been doing our usual
working in the van. So that's good.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
You're nice.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
But we've spontaneously said yes to going to Europe.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
And yeah, I'll send your messages that the other day.
So yeah, how long.
Speaker 5 (14:16):
For So that's going to be for five weeks and
we'll be here before we know.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
It's in July.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
It's like July and August, so.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
You'll be in the whit Sundays until then.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
Yeah, at the moment, but we'll do a couple of
troops out of here and probably another cans trip or
something like that.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
I'm craving some of fred adventures.
Speaker 9 (14:42):
But the aircorn is also too good to turn down
right now, so yeah.
Speaker 7 (14:47):
It's hard to give that up, isn't It's hard to
give up the plug in site.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
So that's what we're tossing up. I don't think how
Aircon's stand off in three weeks.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
No, especially out there. Yeah, you'd be in the pretty
humid part of the country right now.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Yes, it is, Yeah, definitely. I've just had my parents
up here for the last couple of days, which has
been nice. So got them out on the boat for
we only got one day and then the next couple
of days been raining and windy.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
So pretty stoked that they got one good day.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah, that's good. Gets a bit wild, doesn't it this
time of year.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Yeah, So when we first bumped into you, that was
just stuff you'd gotten back from Cape York. We met
using cans for a little bit there. I'd just find
your first trip to Cape.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
York very red and very dusty, and.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
I'd go and do it again tomorrow. That's what we
want to go do.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
We'd go back up to the cap, Like, what would
you do differently this time?
Speaker 5 (15:42):
I don't know, if I dragged the van all the
way to the top again, like it's a very long,
treacherous drive all the way to the top, but not
saying anything happened to the van, and we've not had
one drama the whole way to the top up to
Hunts and Bay.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
But just I don't even know.
Speaker 6 (15:57):
I think just like the anxiety of it dragging it
all the way up there, and.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
If something did happen, but obviously there's so much help
and stuff around there.
Speaker 9 (16:05):
We'd probably take it halfway, I reckon and then do
a swag or something, or a rooftop ten or something
for like the rest.
Speaker 7 (16:12):
But yeah, you were lucky, really to get up and
back without any drama. Yeah, it's like almost everyone you
talked to had something happened.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
It was funny because we cried back and we got
onto the tar and then we were three hours at
the tar on back onto the tar road after we've
just gotten off the red dirt, and then all my
engine lights and everything came on and the land Cruiser
as that's right back.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Down to Keynes. I'm like, oh no, what's going on here?
But they ended up turning off.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
So we had friends up there at the same time
as you guys, and they blew a shocky and cracked
their chassy on their ram. Yeah. It can be very
brutal on the gear up there.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Yeah, we had some very harsh corrugations. We were down
to like five o'clong was an hour trying to get
through it on back onto the the drain well that's
everyone just drives, not even on the road. Everyone just
drives in the in the drains.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Yeah, in the Spurm drones. We did the Cape in
twenty sixteen, but we did. We left our van at
Mount Carbine at the base there and we took it.
We just took tents up.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
We still had dramas the car car driver. We had
a lot of car drumas with the Cruisy.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Tara was fairly pregnant at the time.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
No, I wasn't fairly pregnant.
Speaker 7 (17:30):
I was about ten eleven weeks pregnant, which is probably
the worst kind of pregnant to be because I was
it's the only kind of short period. I got hit
with morning sickness on all three of my kid like pregnancy.
So yeah, I just it was like relentless heat, no
air con except.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
For the car air con, no showers.
Speaker 7 (17:50):
We were just running an eskie with food in it,
like we had. Did we have the carthridge, Yeah, we
had the carfridge and then eski.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (17:59):
But anyway, by the end of it, we got to
the top and we were like down to like a
couple of wristoles, like defrosted floating around in milts of
ice water, and I was yeah, and I was like
so not well, Like I couldn't keep anything down.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
I was trying.
Speaker 7 (18:15):
Actually, I was living on like just right cereal with
no milk. I couldn't even stomach any moisture on it.
I was just eating it dry, and it was it
was bad. It was well, it was hard for me.
It was really hard, like sleeping in the tent and
just feeling nauseous the whole time.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
And yeah, I was just craving.
Speaker 7 (18:34):
I'm such a veggie lover, so I was just craving veggies,
like fresh veggies, and it's like the one thing you
just can't get. So we went into this grocery store.
Where was the grocery Sosha say shure, I think it was.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (18:48):
So I go in there and trying to find something
fresh or green, and like the closest thing I could
get was this.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Three kilo cry backed bag of coalslaw.
Speaker 7 (18:59):
And I was like, oh, oh gosh.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
The whole thing was just an experience.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Wasn't it a great experience?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yeah, look, I'd do it again.
Speaker 7 (19:08):
I was a little bit scarred from it after that
because I was like, whoa, that was rough, And if
you had to ask me, like the first maybe six
twelve months after getting back, I was like, you guys,
go you take the boys if you want to do
it again.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
But I think I've done the Cape.
Speaker 7 (19:21):
But now like time's past and obviously we've got a
much better setup.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
I definitely be came. I'd go again in a heartbeat.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Yeah. After we left you guys in Cans we went
up there for five days, but we only got as
far as Elon Beach, just that past Cooktown, so we
didn't go to the tip. But yeah, it's just an
awesome place all together. As soon as you get across
the Dane Tree.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
It is even Elon.
Speaker 7 (19:46):
We just got that, you know, like you get into
that territory, you've got stray dogs everywhere.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
And you're just like, yeah, now we're in the Cape
now yeah, like.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
And then it just it all comes back to you.
You remember what it's like.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Hey, Yeah everywhere, Yeah, just wild brumbies and stray dogs everywhere.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah, the horses.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Yeah, it's just snakes and lizards on the roads. Yes,
it's my cup of tea.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
It's called pretty wild up there.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
We went to Cate Weymouth was probably one of our favorites.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Camp ground near Chili Beach if you've been there.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
We've been to Chili, but we didn't go.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
To unreal campsite. We'd go back there and habeat. We
met these two this couple up there as well, and
they had a boat, so we just like as soon
as we pulled in, we're just like straight over there.
Made became best friends with them and ended I've taken
us out the next day. I've got we've got some
(20:42):
tree out and we've got what elseis hooked.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Out to a Spanish straight away like you just look
out and.
Speaker 5 (20:50):
There's just fish busting up everywhere, straight out in the front
of you. When we could put the drone up that
night and found that croc and then we went for
a swim. Probably shouldn't have, but had a little swim
straight we.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Put It doesn't feel that world at the time, though,
does it.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
It's like it's hot, it's water water.
Speaker 9 (21:12):
As far as you were swimming at the beach, you
were swimming at the beach.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
I wasn't jump at the draine up above us and
checked all the area that you jumped in for two seconds.
Speaker 7 (21:22):
Yeah, we did a few. We did a bit of swimming.
When we got up the top end last time, like
top end Dampier Peninsula and stuff like that, when the
water was clear, for sure, because you think, well, look
you can see ten meters out crystal clear, and the
temptations high because of the heat.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
So yeah, at the time, it's absolutely worth the risk.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Yeah, so how did the howd the Lotus handle the
run up there?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Unbelievably?
Speaker 5 (21:48):
Actually, we dropped all the tigh pressure down to twenty
eight round and just rode like a drain the whole
way up.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Wasn't beautiful. Not one thing moved inside. Yeah, it was
so good.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Every day.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
I was like, I'm so protty.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
I was talking to it every day.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
I was every day opened the door and I'm like,
oh my god, it's perfect.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Everything was so Yeah.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
A little bit of red dust underneath the fridge, but
from that.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
It was like a couple of little specks. So I
was pretty happy with that.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Oh that's good. Well that's actually that's how we met
with the Lotus fans. We pumped into each other down
there at Lawrence r V. Down there at Burbongary. We've
got a similar van. We've got the off grid, he's
got the trooper. You look like you had an infestation.
When I was talking to you at the time, you
didn't look like you were that impressed. We did when we.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Met, and it's gone everywhere, brand new van. I'm like,
what is doing here?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Yeah? Good stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
You look.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
They're still with you. They're just part of the deal.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
They have traveled Australia with us, all of your vans.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
So how do you guys settle on the Lotus?
Speaker 1 (22:59):
It was a bit of an easy one for us.
Speaker 6 (23:01):
Yeah, we didn't even look at another any other vans.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
My brother used to have like a camper trailer and
a little pop top camper trailer and it was just
so hard to just go out news so like he
got while we use the like three or four times.
But definitely having a full size van is a luxury,
but very really you a camp trailer, Yeah, but yeah,
(23:27):
just the name and reputation more so for the Lotus
and obviously resale value when you do go.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
I think that was a big thing as well.
Speaker 9 (23:34):
It was like three like we wanted to that was
going to keep its value no matter what we had done.
Speaker 6 (23:39):
Yeah, and color.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, the college.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Yeah, you you got a very nice thing going there
with the land Cruiser and the boat and.
Speaker 6 (23:46):
Even really like a thing.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
When we first kind of like watered the van.
Speaker 9 (23:51):
Yeah, like it was like kind of a new color
and like a sandy tal But now like.
Speaker 6 (23:56):
You can get it in so many different vans are
doing it now.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah, it's definitely become popular, hasn't it.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
That color?
Speaker 3 (24:02):
You see more and more of it.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Same with the boats.
Speaker 5 (24:05):
I didn't didn't ever see another boat do the same
color like the color boat.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
And now they're everywhere as well. So are they popping
up to are they everywhere?
Speaker 6 (24:16):
Yeah? That's all sell them the sandy tork now like
they sell.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
It, So we must have started today.
Speaker 6 (24:22):
Yeah we started a trend then, Yeah, trend setters.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, you were doing it before it was cool.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Seriously, I'd have to get rid of it now do something.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
I think the whole doing your whole package the same
color looks awesome if you can pull it off. Yeah,
we color matched our van, our truck to our van,
so yeah, I think it just makes the whole thing
go together, especially when you're traveling with them all the time.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
Oh yeah, because you guys had a majestic prior to
the lotus, Is that right?
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Yeah, we had a Majestic Navigator for two years. Longer
than that, but we've lived it for two years.
Speaker 7 (24:58):
Yeah, that was actually a great van for us at
the time. Like I look back on the ages of
the kids and where we were at as a family,
and like, I couldn't fault it. Actually, I think it
was the perfect van for us for that stage we
were at. But obviously the motivator with getting the Lotus
for us, yeah, we just wanted that was only semi
off road, even though we took it everywhere anywhere and
(25:22):
everywhere did we We dragged it through the.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Ringer and it handled like we never had any problems.
But yeah, we want.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Timber frame though the timber frame, well, we.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Wanted something fully off road.
Speaker 7 (25:35):
And then the rear bunks really were the drawer card,
like the layout for us obviously with the kids getting
that bit older boat. He's almost fifteen, Like he's fast
catching up to gim like he's grown heats even since
we saw you guys last he's just massive, he's getting
huge eights.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
So yeah, it was really like enough sleeping space for
the kids. Yeah, we liked the layout, didn't we.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
And then also brand reputation, resale value, Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
It looks awesome, and then I was actually build your van. Yeah,
so with the kids.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
As well, Yeah it was pretty cool.
Speaker 7 (26:07):
We like the colored choices and yeah, all that kind
of jazz.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yeah, and so you're told with a seventy nine series,
how did you land on that?
Speaker 5 (26:18):
So I actually got the car prior to getting the
vand but I've always loved the seventy nine series when
I was growing up as a kid. It was always
like a cool, old, old school looking truck. Never really
they've never really changed that much.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
They have now.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
Obviously in the last year and a half two years,
they're going not really selling them much anymore. But yeah,
it was just that dream as a young fellow growing
up looking at the old seventy nines and getting pro
touring concepts to build it to the way I wanted
it to for like touring, like looking up to people
like Sean Scott and stuff as we were getting into
(26:57):
the sort of traveling scene, and like watching his touring
reg like it's kind of like a spinning was his
old seventy nine series. So yeah, we got it built
pretty much exactly like that. If you've seen pro tourings work,
but they do they just build touring rigs and yeah,
and we wouldn't.
Speaker 6 (27:17):
Change a thing so good being perfect.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
They do some phenomenal work, that's for sure. And yours
is very nice. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
So it sounds meaty too, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Meat it does.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
He likes the sound of it. Josh likes the sound
of it.
Speaker 6 (27:36):
That's what I had a plane in the car.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
He just likes to listen to.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
He does, seriously.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Yeah. We started out with a land Cruiser one hundred series.
We had that for ten years. We lived in it
for or lived in and out of it for well
most of that time, at least five years on the road.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
So yeah, that was good to us, that car.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
It was good. Yeah, but we run it into the
absolute ground. By the end of it, it was we were.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Clinging onto it for dear life.
Speaker 7 (28:07):
Like we clung onto it till it got to the
point where the maintenance bills every month were just like, yeah,
five times more than the repayments on a new car,
and even our mechanics like, I think it's time to
let go. Come on, we can't, Yeah, we need to
let go. So it was getting just beyond, wasn't it.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Yeah, Like every time I'd rain, I'd get a very
wet shoulder, like my whole right side of me would
be saturated. Just drip through the roof and then the
floor be wet. You'd have to air it out for days.
It's just too much salt water, too much sand, not
enough clean water to clean it where we were for
long periods of time. They're just renowned for rust around
the windshields and the roof rack tracks.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Been in all honesty when you look at the life.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
It had deserved its purpose for.
Speaker 7 (28:51):
Sure, and like we bought it secondhand and the bloat
we bought it off. He had toured in it full
time and had been toe on a three and a
half ton band with it around. So it was fully
set up with radios and all the dual fueled tanks
and everything.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
It was ready to go.
Speaker 7 (29:07):
But it towed to its capacity its whole life like
it had it.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
It was just maxed out its whole life.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
We bought it with two hundred and fifty thousand k's
on it, and we sold it with nearly five hundred
and fifty thousand t's on.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
That's some good guys.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
And you get comfortable with the car you're in and
you think you're doing pretty good. But then in the
interroanm we ordered the truck, the Isuzu NPS, but in
the interim we bought this patrol Y six two patrol
and just the contrast, the difference once we got out
of that POxy old land Cruiser into that.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Nice POxy old but yeah, we loved the.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
End of that nice elegant V eight that was nice.
Speaker 7 (29:43):
Yeah, we paid it in contrast, and then we went
from the luxury floor drive, the V eight and all.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
That into the truck now.
Speaker 7 (29:50):
So it's like it's just been funny, hasn't it, Like, oh,
it's changed.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
They're all very different to each other. But yeah, we're
very happy with the truck. Yeah, a lot slower, it's
not a racist time.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Fifty two would be be nice, but the luxury of
the truck with the space and everything has.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Gotten Yeah, now the space is amazing.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
Hey, it would be good to have the patrols speed
and luxury in the truck.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
That would be nice.
Speaker 7 (30:15):
Yeah, But anyway, we're getting used to just traveling slower.
We just cruise and like the kids have got so
much space in the back, like they can just fully
extend their leads out to the front.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
They still punch on.
Speaker 7 (30:26):
But we've got like an extra seat so we can
spread them out a bit.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
They're at each other.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
The difference is just the payload. Yeah, yeah, when everyone
knows that. But actually the payload did creep up on
us pretty quick. We thought you sort of get it.
You're like, oh, I can throw everything in in our motorbikes,
boats on top and fill it with stock.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
And yeah, we've got a commercial truck now. We never
have to.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Think about our weight. When we left back in September,
we took it out of the way bridge when we
rolled out the our parents' property here, and we're ten
point nine to eight tons, so we had twenty kilos
about sleep. Well, that's not too close.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
So we lived back and.
Speaker 7 (31:03):
We just said the big goodbye to the family and
like bitteriarian, like we're off and big emotional farewell, and
then like twenty minutes later we're back back out the front.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
We're like, I got too much stuff, just downloading rubbish.
Speaker 7 (31:18):
Just we had to go every little every cupboard, everything,
like I had like multiple sets of linen probably twice
two times, too many towels and just random stuff. We
just did a massive cul and yeah, we would have
taken a few hundred kilos oh heat heaps out.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
We took heaps out.
Speaker 7 (31:38):
But yeah, it's just an example of like how it
adds up quick. And we laugh now thinking like we
moved to the commercial truck, just really thinking we never
have to even think.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
About our weight.
Speaker 7 (31:48):
Yeah, and we still managed to pretty much max it
out straight off the bat.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
So yeah, we do still have to think about the weight.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Do you miss the stuff that you got rid of?
Speaker 4 (31:58):
No, I would never couldn't even tell you what it was.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Now you never do. That's the thing you never do.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
Not a single piece of fishing gear left the side
of the truck.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
There wasn't a lot. There wasn't a lot coming out
of gym side, that's for sure.
Speaker 7 (32:11):
There was a lot of linen and towels and toys,
platters and like glassware and like nice the nice to
have things but not maybe necessary to have things.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Were coming out. It is in our yetti cups, don't
we Yeah that's right.
Speaker 7 (32:25):
So now, yeah, but there was limited fishing gear, like
you were looking at just all the tubs full of lures.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
That has been strategically brought over the last year for
massive sense in w I.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Know, how it feels. I'm sorry, everything is.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
Request I reckon. We get rid of stuff every time
we go to see family.
Speaker 6 (32:45):
Yeah, we're always off broading, so always.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Going under the bed. Oh yeah, we don't need that
pair of shoes anymore. All the time.
Speaker 5 (32:51):
We've got boxes in every single one of our families homes.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
At the moment, we couldn't even tell you it happens.
Speaker 7 (32:59):
Hey, and then you let go of the stuff and
then you just forget about it. Oh yeah, it's like
you'll get back there and be.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Like, what is this? Why did I leave this here?
Or yeah, you just forget it's just stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (33:09):
That adds up quick, doesn't it. You just naturally accumulate
things as you go.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Oh yeah, So we've got a little four meter tinny
on the roof of the truck and we can tato
with us at all times. But you have got yourself
in a unique position. You've got a six and a
half meter stescil. Yeah go yeahesel sorry. And so sometimes
you had to find yourselves leaving one item behind, going somewhere,
then having to come back and how do you find
(33:35):
navigating all that?
Speaker 5 (33:36):
Yeah? Well, the plan was to always have because the
boat originally came first, and then the van came like
a year or a year and a half after the boat,
So we always thought it'd be pretty easy to do,
like just drive back and get it.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
But I've had the boat up in Early.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
For over the probably the past nine to twelve months,
and when over the weather's really good, we just come
back to Early and then we stay for three weeks
to a month at a time, and then yeah, whenever
the long range forecast doesn't look that great, we head
off and go explore like we did Cape York and
(34:15):
then we went to the Northern Territory and stuff through
the middle of the year. But yeah, the boat lives
in early at the moment, and you don't.
Speaker 9 (34:23):
You wouldn't understand how many people come up to us
at the carrier and park and say, how do you
toe both?
Speaker 4 (34:29):
We don't tell you that get multi combination.
Speaker 6 (34:36):
So many people are like, so, how do you tell
it like one or the other?
Speaker 1 (34:41):
In theory, it went over in my head.
Speaker 5 (34:43):
In theory it was a good idea, but yeah, trying
to do it logistically and have been able to take
both everywhere, it's obviously not liabel and yeah, doable, but.
Speaker 7 (34:54):
I mean it's not like, I mean, it's primo boat
territory there anyway, isn't it. So so we tell ourself
like we're in the best endless islands to explore.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
So yeah, whenever the weather's good, we're full into the boat,
we go out to the reef. We've stayed out there
a couple of times, and yeah, we just go explore
the reefs and dive the reefs.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
And fish as much as possible out there.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
So we took the boat over to Hamilton Island actually
for a couple of nights too.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
So that was good.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Moored the boat at Hamilton and.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
Stayed stayed We're actually going to stay in the boat
as well.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
But we were pretty drunk by about.
Speaker 5 (35:31):
Three o'clock and then we said, nah, it's too we're
getting a room.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Got a room for a couple of nights.
Speaker 9 (35:38):
I had everything packed in the boat, like all the food,
all the cooking stuff, like everything, because we were like
fully going to stay on the boat.
Speaker 6 (35:45):
And then I was like, scrap this.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
It was about four five degrees on the boat.
Speaker 7 (35:50):
It's pretty hard too, when you know there's just like
resort rooms, just the whole place is just peppered with
resort rooms and you could be so much more comfortable.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Yeah, a little bit of time we spent with you
guys in the Sundays there out in your boat taking
us around up to Monty's Hideaway Bay.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Oh yeah, that was so good.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
I think that's well somewhere that we'd like to settle
down potentially at some stage because of those those times
that we had there. I mean, that is a good
life stile up there.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 6 (36:17):
We love it. Like everything we do up here is like.
Speaker 9 (36:20):
We couldn't do anything more, you know, Like that's like
just everything that we love doing.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
So just a shame about the er again she's this
time here, but yeah, just thingers suck.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
But yeah, did we hear on the with Sunday's Facebook
page that someone copped a pretty bad sting down there.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Page at the main Beachish.
Speaker 6 (36:44):
We've seen someone get stung the other day.
Speaker 9 (36:46):
We're having lunch at the pub and we've seen someone
across the road gets stung and seeing them like call
the ambulance and they ran over to get vinegar from
the pub.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
They gave them a sauce container with vinegar in it.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
I was like, like.
Speaker 7 (37:01):
One of those little dishes, a little dish better of
having a shot of it, and the person probably ran
back with it.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Whoever it was, had been none left by the time
get back there.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Oh my god, give this poor bloke the whole bottle.
Speaker 9 (37:15):
Yeah, and then your little fourteen year old girl got
stung around her legs just at like the beach as well.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
I think that might be the one I read about
on the page. It was, so that's so sad.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
We're definitely more vigilant now. Yeah, I think we were
a bit a bit not very cautious when we're out
on the reef and stuff. So you got starting out
in the reef, you'd be in a world of pain
for a two and a half hour trip back home.
So we're yeah vigilant now, yeah.
Speaker 9 (37:43):
We'll johnpin here and the air. But yeah, it's not really.
It's always on your mind.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
So our last night there when with you guys in
Baily Beach, do you remember that we didn't get much
sleep that night?
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Na, someone was letting a fireworks.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
I think it wasn't. It wasn't the fireworks. Tara and
I were sleeping at about one am. Those Irish backpackers
came home and just started shagging, like I meet it
next to our bedroom window.
Speaker 7 (38:10):
Oh yeah, oh god, and I was like just finish already.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Yeah. Three hours of just clapping cheeks and we just
could not sleep. And we had a massive drive the
next day Towns. No, that was good times.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
It was hilarious.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, funny little spot.
Speaker 6 (38:31):
Yeah, we don't hear anything in this.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
We could not get to sleep.
Speaker 7 (38:36):
No, we were definitely over our site was we had
kind of backpackery kind of area.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yeah, that corner where they.
Speaker 9 (38:44):
Had us over there, it's like tents and rooftop tent
kind of area.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Yeah, that's what we kept getting pulled up next to us.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
Yeah, and we had that those two having that big
domestic fight in front of us there on the little ten.
We run over their mattress.
Speaker 6 (38:59):
Yeah, you ran over there.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
Yeah, we know. We're all the team here.
Speaker 7 (39:04):
I asked you if you wanted me to move it,
and you said no, no, all good.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
And I assumed you were going to go around it
just mode straight over the top. So don't say we,
It was all you.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
It was all you.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
That was you, all you.
Speaker 4 (39:21):
I gave him a couple of traveler beers. Yeah, smoothed
it over.
Speaker 7 (39:25):
Probably contributed to the punch on you just anyway, So.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
What have you's got planned coming up now for the
next couple of months.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
Yeah, so we're gonna just do some work and then
yeah if obviously, if the weather's good, we'll keep Ireland
exploring and yeah, we'll probably I got a.
Speaker 6 (39:45):
Hair in Island and Wilson Island.
Speaker 7 (39:47):
I was going to say, maybe you need to try
and squeeze that in before you go to Europe.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Put it in, you can do it. Yeah, Oh gosh,
it was just so lush.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
I wonder you can just boost your own boat over there.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Yeah, yeah, we were talking about that only when we
were there.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
We moored our boat Fitzroy.
Speaker 7 (40:02):
So like it's a fair trip from Gladston to Heroin,
Like they go on like a high you go on
a high speed ferry and it's a two hour trip if.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
You get a smooth conditions.
Speaker 7 (40:12):
But two of the trips we've done were just like
pretty rough. And the one going over this time was
so rough, like, out of how many people do you
reckon we're on the ferry, I'm.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
Not sure how many people, but I reckon sixty percent of.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Them were had the face in a bag, like just.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
Were massive amounts of.
Speaker 7 (40:30):
Like it was so bad, and like, I don't get
motion sickness. I'm normally sweet, but my one weakness is
other people's vomit. So by the end of it, I
was like, this is two much Like I had the
air cone blowing on me and the airs just like
thick with vomit, and everywhere you look someone's vomiting, and
I'm like, there's nowhere even to look anymore.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
I'm like looking this way, and then so I'm go
and I'm like look that way. Jean's got his.
Speaker 7 (40:55):
Headphones on and just like zoning out, and they were
going around the stuff, go around with like a candle
Glenn twenty, and they're like all down the eye try
and try like kill.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
The vomit smell.
Speaker 7 (41:10):
But they just had bad like gloves on and they're
just walking past with like bags.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Of vomit and they would have just filled a massive.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
It's a good two and a half hour too, so
it's a long time to be a.
Speaker 7 (41:23):
Short trip, you know, like if you you're a thirty
minute fairy and it gets a bit hectic and then
you think, oh, it's not that long. I can make it.
I can make it. Oh, it was hectic, but it
was so hectic. We came out of Glads and Marina
and we hit the first set of swell and we
were pretty much airborne and it was like you're on
a roller coaster and everyone's like your stomach just came
up in his throat and people were screaming.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Like there was just like this ah, like on a
roller coaster.
Speaker 7 (41:49):
And the bottom we were sitting downstairs, shottom windows are
just completely underwater. When we hit the hit the waves
again and I was just like this is FINALI like
this is going to be hectic, and heaps of people
just were not prepared, like.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
They didn't take any ceced tablets.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
They didn't.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
I don't think they realized the potential.
Speaker 7 (42:09):
And there are a lot of people there that just
probably would never get on a boat again.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Like it was that traumatic.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Did any of the No, this was when it was
just Jim and I.
Speaker 7 (42:19):
This was just this weekend going wrong and we were sweet,
like you did really well, didn't you like.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
Those two escape see tablets. They're the best. They are
the best.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
I don't take never never ever felt or even.
Speaker 6 (42:36):
Sick tablet every time we go on the boat.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
Both when it's lucky when its seas like that. Yeah,
I could definitely go down. But those escape tablets they're
the best. Don't one of them?
Speaker 7 (42:48):
Yeah, like you would take qulls previously and still quills
are rubbish.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Yeah, he could.
Speaker 7 (42:52):
Still get sick even if it was fully dosed out
with wells. But these new tablets are really good. Hey,
you've not been sick since you've had them.
Speaker 6 (42:59):
So are they like prescribed?
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Yeah, you get them online. It's like an online prescription
and then get them delivered. But they're good.
Speaker 7 (43:07):
There's no side effects. I took one that day too,
just because they did. We looked at the forecast and
seen the swell was pretty hectic and I don't normally
get sick, but I was like, look, I just do
not want to risk starting this romantic weekend.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
Like I didn't.
Speaker 7 (43:23):
I don't know, I just know sometimes it doesn't discriminate,
like anyone can go down. And I'm so glad I
took it, just as it was an insurance policy, basically
because I didn't want to start the weekend why not
being sick. But I'm really glad I took it. But like,
they don't make you drowsy or anything. Either whereas like
the Quells, you kin'd feel a bit out of it.
I think, especially if you have a few beers and that, yeah,
these are really good.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
Well, we might wrap it up soon, but we just
wanted to ask, what are your five best tips for
someone who was thinking about getting a van or traveling
full time?
Speaker 3 (43:54):
Five's a lot of tips.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Yeah, I would recommend any tips not.
Speaker 9 (43:59):
Having in your head what you think it's going to
be like, or like just learning to go with the flow.
Like when we first started and like left, we had
everything planned.
Speaker 6 (44:09):
We like had everywhere we wanted to go, everything we
wanted to do.
Speaker 9 (44:13):
Planned things so much, and it all just pretty much
didn't go to plan at all.
Speaker 5 (44:18):
So like I just think, like if we met someone,
we would just leave that campsite that we're paid three months,
or we'd just leave that and then go off with
someone else just because we've met some cool people, or
like we're just waste money by doing that.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
So like I think I'm not planning too.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
Far and being okay.
Speaker 9 (44:36):
Like you have to be okay with that too, Like
you have to just know that things are always going
to change, and your plans are always going to change.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
It's a definite thing. We have the same kind of mindset.
Speaker 7 (44:46):
And I know we've spoken about this before with you guys,
that we're not big planners. We never were really from
the beginning, but we've become even more floppy as as
the years have gone on and we realized everything's always
going to be okay. Yeah, we've spent a few nights
in gravel pits, like on the side of the road.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Yeah, because we've been not prepared. But like when you've
got a well equipped van, you know, you're sweet.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
We've only come unstuck like two or three times.
Speaker 9 (45:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (45:13):
Ever, ever, we didn't book anything for Cape York. We
didn't plan anything. We had no idea where we're going, and.
Speaker 9 (45:19):
I feel like even doing that, we ended up in
better spots than we even ever planned, like ever could
have imagined, Like places.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
If we've never heard of.
Speaker 6 (45:27):
We were like ended up you know, in places.
Speaker 4 (45:31):
Yeah. Well, yeah, I think that that definitely comes with
the confidence and experience of travel. We leave in two
weeks to go to wa and we don't have a
single thing booked for the whole year. It's we leave
and we'll we sometimes just planned where we stay that night.
Speaker 7 (45:45):
We haven't even booked Cape Range, which we had every
intention of like doing that because we wanted to camp
with our mates. But like now we've realized we've missed
the window because you've got to do it six months
in advance. I'm like, we are hopeless, a like I
should have said it reminder or something.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
So we'll just wing it.
Speaker 7 (46:00):
We're just going to stay in Exy and hope we
can snag like last minute bookings when we get over there,
and like it always has worked out for us previously,
hasn't it like winging it?
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Oh for sure, So we're not going to change since
twenty sixties.
Speaker 9 (46:13):
Yeah, yeah, that's like, yeah, yeah, that's the way we
like to travel, and we like to do things as well,
is just go with the floor and not book things
and plan things and just kind of end up where
we end.
Speaker 6 (46:24):
Up, and it is what it is, really.
Speaker 9 (46:26):
And like yeah, like you said, you always know you've
got your van, Like we've pulled over before and literally
crawled into bed and gone to sleep and broken up
and kept driving or woken up and you know, done whatever,
Like when you know you've got your van on the back,
like you're fine, Yeah, that's right, you've.
Speaker 6 (46:43):
Got your whole kitchen.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
You're fine, Well, you've got your whole life in there,
you like. It really is sweet, It doesn't matter, it doesn't. Yes,
And are there any non negotiable items that you would
leave without next time? Not just your standard first aid
kids or two a radio? If you got anything that
you would not leave without.
Speaker 5 (47:00):
Coffee machine is a bit of a as well, use
that every day.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
We bought a generator at the start, but never used it.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Yeah, we thought we'd use.
Speaker 6 (47:09):
That a lot more.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
I love the stand up fridge in the canopy like that.
I think that's a vibe the power.
Speaker 9 (47:16):
The like the battery system in the car as well, Like,
we use that a lot when we're lack off grid
and stuff like, we.
Speaker 6 (47:22):
Rely on that.
Speaker 5 (47:23):
A good one is the cryvac machine. Yeah, when we
catch fish, we just cry back it into just like
meal meals for us, and then we go buy a
whole roll of I fill it and cry back up
separate meals and freeze it all nicely stacked in the freezer.
Speaker 7 (47:44):
So yeah, you can fit a lot more, can't you
when it's all flood flood stacked?
Speaker 4 (47:50):
Kylie, you just mentioned power something that we've had to
do with the van and the truck is add additional charges.
This is for people that might be putting together a
truck or a van or a U. If you've got
solar and you've got your DC or you've got a
plug in for a blanket, or you've got your two
forty inlet, multiple charges is massively essential that we found.
(48:15):
So we couldn't get enough solar power into our lotus.
We've set the truck up so we've got multiple charges,
so we can have multiple amps going into the truck
and the battery system at one time. You see a
lot of people out there on the road or even
on YouTube channels that say that they can only either
charge their battery system with the DC DC charger or
the solar, and at bottlenecks you can't do both. So
(48:38):
you really want to be able to charge your system, yeah,
with the DC DC charger and the solar separately, separate charges,
and you want to be able to plug a blanket
in on the side as well. So that's one thing
that we yeah, we've actually acutely aware of now with
all our vehicles.
Speaker 7 (48:55):
But it's just not common knowledge, I don't think, and
unless neither of us have got a sparky background.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Or like a real handy in that area.
Speaker 7 (49:03):
So it's something that I guess unless you had that
yeah kind of base knowledge, you just kind of get
what you get and go, Yeah, it's going to be awesome.
But we're finding even after a day of driving, like
we pull up and our batteries weren't fully charged. But
now we've got a second charger, we pull up and
way back to one hundred percent every time.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
So it's made a world of difference.
Speaker 4 (49:22):
And Josh, you mentioned the generator if your battery system's
running at full capacity and able to charge yourself. We've
had a generator in our toolbox as well for five
or six months and it hasn't come out because the
battery systems are all doing what they're supposed to do now.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
Exact same with us. We've only ever used it when
we've had three or four days of like no sun,
no sign. Yeah, that's the only.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
Time, relentless rain.
Speaker 7 (49:45):
Yeah, there's such a big item to carry around, hey,
and it's so heavy, you know, you look at it there.
In ninety nine percent of time it's just collecting dust.
But it's like that odd occasion where you do need it,
like it's bloody.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Good to have it. If you do, just need to
zap your batteries are.
Speaker 9 (50:02):
Leaving it for so long, Like should we just leave
it with someone like just because we haven't been using it.
But I'm like no, because we'll go off grid and
then I'll be like, oh my god, I need the generator.
Speaker 4 (50:11):
So I imagine you have another thirty kilos of lures
in there. You could replace it with Lewis eat it.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
It's not possible. Not possible.
Speaker 4 (50:22):
Well we might wrap it up, guys, but have you
got some socials you want to shout out for yourselves?
Speaker 9 (50:28):
Two Underscore talks on absolutely everything. You'll find us two
it's the number two Underscore t A U P E S.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
That is where you'll find us.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
Yeah, awesome, all right, Well yeah, mine's Jimmy Primal JI
double M Why Underscore p y M A L Jimmy
Primal on all the same socials as these guys.
Speaker 7 (50:50):
So yeah, And I just want to say, anyone that's listening,
if you see us out on the road, like you
guys would be the same, come say hi, have a beer.
I think the best thing about travel so people you meet,
isn't it like we really hit it off with you.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
Guys.
Speaker 7 (51:03):
We've both got a love of Margarine is island hopping, fishing, diving,
all the good stuff.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Definitely, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 7 (51:11):
I think that's what makes this lifestyle so awesome as
the people you meet.
Speaker 5 (51:15):
It's the people you meet for sure and stick to
it and yeah, take off.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
We haven't looked back since. Set a date and take
just full send.
Speaker 4 (51:26):
Whether you've got kids, are without kids, as a couple,
or if you're a family, you'll never regret it.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
You aren't unreal. Well, thanks for the chat, guys.
Speaker 6 (51:37):
Thank you, thank you for having us travel, thank you.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
Thanks for listening to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
We would love if you could leave us a review,
and don't forget to hit subscribe or follow to stay
up to date with new episodes. Get out there and
try something new and we'll see for the next episode.
Appota production.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The Van Life Series podcast acknowledge the traditional owners and
ongoing custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded.
We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and tour As
Strait Islander people and to the elders, past, present and emerging.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You just need to take the step and get out
there and do it.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
We actually can turn what we love into our career.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
We wanted to travel to be a part of life
and not a perk of life.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
It's the best decision I've ever made.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
Every day is now different, different sunrise at a different beach.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
That's just a paradise. Yeah, it's a paradise.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
It's an insane I feel so alive and free.
Speaker 6 (00:46):
Hand in your notice, make a plan and just commit
to it.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
I would just say do it.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
The Van Life Series.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
We bought it with two hundred and fifty thousand k's
on it, and we sold it with nearly five hundred
and fifty thousands.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Ye ha'd some good going.
Speaker 6 (01:02):
We had everything planned, we had everywhere we wanted to go,
everything we wanted to do.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
It all pretty much didn't.
Speaker 6 (01:09):
Go to plan at all.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
We took it over the way bridge and we're a
ten point nine to eight tons, so we had twenty
kilos up our sleep.
Speaker 7 (01:17):
So we went back and we're like, we've.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Got too much stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Got a single piece of fishing gear left the side
of the truck.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
How were going guys? Right? O?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Good?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Well, Welcome to our episode of the Van Life series podcast.
I'm Jimmy Prime with my wife Tarra and we're here
with Kyler and Josh two talks. How are you guys?
Speaker 6 (01:38):
Hi?
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Firstly, just wanted to wish congratulations for that epic engagement
the other day.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Oh my god. Yeah, Josh, you're making all us blakes
look bad.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yeah, that was pretty It was pretty psycho.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
How did you pull that off?
Speaker 5 (01:57):
Definitely a lot of planning when that I was looking
at Sankas up the Great Barrier for hundreds of klime.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So it kind of worked out all perfectly.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
So we got one absolutely perfect day which was really
unheard of this time of.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Year as well, so absolute glass out which was perfect.
It was very good.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Then the next days afterwards windy and rainy. So yeah
that was the day.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Yeah right, and Carlie, you had no idea.
Speaker 6 (02:24):
No, I'm still confused.
Speaker 8 (02:26):
I don't know how he did it.
Speaker 6 (02:28):
I don't know where the ring was, I don't know
how he planned it.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I'm still confused.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
About even just setting the drone up and all up
to when he was setting the drone up, just putting
it like three or four meters away from you and
then just kneeling on the ground and stuff. Was Were
you still like what is happening here?
Speaker 6 (02:43):
No? Because he was like there was another boat.
Speaker 9 (02:45):
We pulled up and there was like another boat circling
fishing around the island, and he was.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Like, cool, Charlie happened at the moment.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I'm like, yeah, oh my.
Speaker 6 (02:55):
God, and you kept being so weird.
Speaker 9 (02:56):
He's like, we're not getting off until like the other
boat goes, and I was like, why who cares about
drawing the drone and stuff?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Like who cares?
Speaker 6 (03:01):
Like we'll get a cool video, it doesn't matter, like whatever.
I was like, I'm getting off.
Speaker 9 (03:05):
So I just got off the boat lighted just walking
around the sand cane. He was still on the boat,
like pacing around, driving around the island like.
Speaker 8 (03:12):
Waiting, and I'm like, what are you doing, Like, just
get off, it's fine. And then they finally left and
he's like, oh, thank god, they're gone, and then he
like anchored the boat and then got off and then.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
He was like goes down over there, looked really good
on the drone.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Like me being kept looking.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Back and I'm like trying to get the boxes like
this in my back and I had to jump in
the water with the ring in my back pocket and
so the box.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Was soaking, but it was like falling apart. It's like
soaking were then. Yeah, it all all worked out well
in the end.
Speaker 6 (03:44):
And I had no clue, no idea.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
It looked very good.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
Yes, a couple of.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Hundred thousand views online of.
Speaker 6 (03:50):
It as well already, yeah, popping off.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, congratulations, thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Whereas that's up in the Gladstone region. Oh sorry, no,
that's where we were. You're in the Cans region.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
I was in Cans Yeah, so very spontaneously.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
I was like, well, not spontaneous for you, because.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
You knew that you would do.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, no, not really.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
It's two days before and I'm like, well, why don't
we go up to Fitzroy Island. We've always wanted to
go and the weather hasn't been ideal, and you know
how it is like keep checking it and change for
two days and then we just ended up driving up
to Cannes and then yeah, shut out from cans from Yeah,
just a little boat around there and stay there for
(04:31):
three nights? Was it three nights?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, say Fitzroilan to three nights.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
And what's Fitzroy Island like? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
It was epic, epic location, really nice resorts.
Speaker 5 (04:41):
Actually a little bit run down, but it was definitely
worth visiting.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
I heard they get massive gts off that ledge right
there as well.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah, they probably were huge ones.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
Didn't really do too much fishing, unfortunately, but no I did.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Because we were when we were staying in cans when
we were with you guys up there. I had a mate,
local mate who goes over to Fitzroy Island and they
fish that ledge there and they do get huge fish.
It's to be pretty epical.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
Yeah, I went for a spearfish after I proposed.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Of course, I had to get something while I.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
Was out there, and I got a little tree out.
But I've seen a heap of like big Spanish and stuff.
I'd love to get one, but we didn't have We
had no ask you for anything.
Speaker 6 (05:25):
Josh is like coming up like there's a huge Spanish.
Should I get it? I'm like, no, where are we
going to put it? What are we going to do
with that?
Speaker 5 (05:31):
Like no, unfortunately, but got a tree out, coral tree
out for lunch the next day.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Oh too good, Yeah, very good.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
So did you stay in the resort there? Yeah, it
looked like yeah it was it nice?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, epic.
Speaker 6 (05:47):
Yeah, it's nice. It's run down, it needs some love.
Speaker 7 (05:50):
But there's location location heye with some of those places,
like it's so stunning.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Yeah. Well, when we were in cans we were actually
looking at Fitzroy Island for us to go stay at
Patara's birthday, but we ended up not staying there, but
on the way back down to Brizzy when we let
you guys, we stayed at Heron Island, which was awesome.
Turtle season so all the turtles were nesting in November
when we were there.
Speaker 7 (06:13):
Yeah, they just started the nesting season. We had five
nights with the kids. Yeah, absolutely loved it. It's been
like a bucket list thing for ages for us Heroin.
Speaker 6 (06:22):
Yeah, it looks stunny.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
It was even better than we thought.
Speaker 7 (06:25):
Like the snorkeling the reef was just off the hook,
Like meeting with marine.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Life, complete marine zone, so everything is just in abundance there.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, everything it's just working very nicely.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Yeah, it's how it should be.
Speaker 7 (06:38):
It's just it's completely untouched and it kind of just
restores your faith in the environment that they're still little
thriving patches.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
It's nice to see it like that, yeah, which was
really ippy.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Yeah, but then that's what led us to We just
got back two days ago from Wilson Island, which is
its little neighbor island, but it's only tiny, that's an
had old only island, and we just got back from
a night over there.
Speaker 7 (07:02):
Yeah, so we when we're at Heron, we caught wind
of the Wilson Island thing, so like Heron was awesome,
family friendly and everything. And then when we had no
idea about Wilson Island, but we saw the little transfer
boat at the jetty and like, I wonder what that's
all about. We google it and it's just like thirty
minute boat ride from Heron and it's adult only and
(07:24):
it's just looked absolutely off the hook. So then we
haven't I haven't stopped thinking about it since I've found
out about it, and I was like, oh god, we've
got to tick this one off the bucket list, so
we should go.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Yeah, it's very fancy, so it's quite Wilson Island's close
to her Hearn, Yeah.
Speaker 7 (07:42):
Yeah, so what you could do both islands, like if
you haven't done Heron, because you've got to catch the
Heron Islander to Heron Island, So you could definitely stay
there a couple of nights and just experience Heron, but
then they transferred you from there to Wilson just did
a smaller boat and it's thirty minute boat ride, so
it's adult's only eighteen maximum of eighteen guests on the
(08:03):
island at any one time, there's only three off, like
two caretakers and a chef.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
That's so cool.
Speaker 7 (08:08):
And it's like a really really exclusive experience, like it's
all inclusive, like cocktails, alcohol, all the food and it's
like fine dining, like freshly prepared by the chef in
front of you three miles a day, plus a nibble
platter in.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
The n is off its head.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
The food like we've had some good food, but the
food just blew our mind.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
So we had the isl onto ourselves for the first
six or eight hours or something until the afternoon bus
arride our boat and then so we had the two
caretakers that live on the island and the chef just
Katie for us the whole day until the other people arrived.
Who was cooking us duck for lunch and they make
(08:54):
you any cocktail you want help yourself.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
It was crazy. So like he cooked his breakfast.
Speaker 7 (08:59):
They transferred us at seven and they were like, we'll
get you there for breakfast because breakfast is at seven
point thirty. We didn't realize the only guests on the
island at that point. So we get greeted at the
beach and they take us in and he's like, I've
laid out a continental breakfast for you guys, and there's
all these like super fancy little things Musley's and little
handmade baniana bread things, and he goes, if you guys
(09:21):
want to start with the continental thing, will make you
a coffee, and then I can make you an omelet
to your liking, until like gourmet mushroom smoking salmon.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
It was crazy.
Speaker 6 (09:32):
So I'm looking this up straight after that, Look.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
You got it.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
You got to do it, You got to do it.
Speaker 7 (09:37):
But then we go out, we have the breakfast like
and it's off the hook and then we go out
with our snorkel gear snorkel the whole way around the island.
Have this epic few hours. There's a massive, like world
famous bomby there. It's the second biggest bomby in the
Southern Hemisphere, and it's like five meters by five meters.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
It's got just this.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Whole it's like a big brain.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
It's like one of those just just around. Yeah, they
look like the brain ones, but it's just like perfectly round.
But at the top is like caved and it's got
all a little ecosystem inside the top of it with all.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Out Yeah, turtles swimming around it.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
Like the turtles sit in there. It's all parrot fish,
a little bit little turtles. Yeah, assuming that was unreal,
I'd love to see them.
Speaker 9 (10:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (10:20):
And then the turtles were hatching too, so like because
it was a change of season, so we're rescuing baby
turtles and like they're hatching and we're like escorting them
down to the beach so the seagulls don't eat them.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
I was just like it was heaven. It was absolutely heaven.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
It's a bit of a roller coaster the baby turtles
because they're so cute, and you escort them down to
the water so the seagulls don't get them, but they
get absolutely perpet as soon as they get in the water.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
Yeah, they've just got predators waiting, like sharkling reef sharks
just circling their waiting.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
It's pretty brutal. It's the hardest start to life of
any animal on planet.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, the odds, the odds aren't very good.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
One in five thousand make it. We soon a few
get out to the outer reef, but yeah, not many.
There's too many sharks, too many spangos. Even the crabs
grab them. Yeah, but it's it's cool to see. It's
nature at its finest.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
But definitely the cutest little animal and they hatch.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Yeah, oh they're adorable.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I think they are like the cutest Yeah, in my books.
Speaker 7 (11:19):
Anyway, they're bloody gorgeous, and they're so tiny. They're like
smaller than the palm of your hand, like even just
the palm section.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
They're just tinier than that. Yeah, they're really cute.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
But when while we're snorkeling around the island, we've seen
one of the biggest turtles we've ever seen in our life,
we actually thought it was a huge bomby from made
to this bomby, But then it was a turtle. Would
it mean like two and a half meters long?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
It was, Yeah, it was huge, had all barnacles on it.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Followed it around for a bit to see the little turtles,
like get from fifty fifty millimeters to two and a
half meters. It's crazy how.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Big turtle is too.
Speaker 6 (11:55):
Yeah, been around. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
It was ancient looking, wasn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 7 (11:59):
Yeah, really cool anyway, Yeah, put it on the list. Guys, Wilson,
you got to do it.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
We will. Where did you Where did you ditch all
the boys to?
Speaker 4 (12:09):
We left them at my oldies for the day. For
three days, we're gone.
Speaker 7 (12:13):
They weren't really impressed that we were going back to
a great barrier reef for like an epic adventure without them.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
They were less than impressed.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
They'll understand when they're older.
Speaker 7 (12:23):
Yeah, because they loved heron. They loved heron the turtles.
The snorkeling.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
They're like right into their snorkeling, Like we did a
big on hero and got dropped out on the outer
reef and did a mad snorkel drift and they're just
finding all of it right, now.
Speaker 7 (12:36):
So when we said we're going back to Wilson, yeah,
they weren't really impressed.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
But yeah, so anyway, but it was only a couple
of days. But yeah, it was awesome more than it.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yeah, and it's good to leave. The boys were the
oldiest because next week we depart here and we'll be
gone a year or so. So that was good for
them to get some time with Nanny Poppy there because yeah,
next week when we leave, we might not be back
here until next year. I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
While are you heading over?
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Yes?
Speaker 7 (13:08):
Yeah, yeah, we're leaving a couple of weeks. Yeah, and
we're heading west.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Are you guys?
Speaker 4 (13:13):
At the moment, we're on the sunny coast. We just
got some final things to get done on the truck.
Let's go having the internal fit out done, the battery system,
the light system in the canopy. Yeah, boat let the
new boatloaders going on. As soon as that's all done,
where we'll be out of here probably next Saturday. What
(13:33):
are you? What's your guys movements? Now?
Speaker 1 (13:36):
We just got back to La after Chrissy came back up.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
What day do we believe after Christmas twenty seven or something?
We just shot back up here and been out under
the EAF in our boat a couple of times and
stuff where we've got some nice weather opportunities. But I've
just got some work at the moment, so I've been
working over at Hamilton Island, just doing some chippy work
over there, so we'll.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Be doing that. And Kyle has been doing our usual
working in the van. So that's good.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
You're nice.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
But we've spontaneously said yes to going to Europe.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
And yeah, I'll send your messages that the other day.
So yeah, how long.
Speaker 5 (14:16):
For So that's going to be for five weeks and
we'll be here before we know.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
It's in July.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
It's like July and August, so.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
You'll be in the whit Sundays until then.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
Yeah, at the moment, but we'll do a couple of
troops out of here and probably another cans trip or
something like that.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
I'm craving some of fred adventures.
Speaker 9 (14:42):
But the aircorn is also too good to turn down
right now, so yeah.
Speaker 7 (14:47):
It's hard to give that up, isn't It's hard to
give up the plug in site.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
So that's what we're tossing up. I don't think how
Aircon's stand off in three weeks.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
No, especially out there. Yeah, you'd be in the pretty
humid part of the country right now.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Yes, it is, Yeah, definitely. I've just had my parents
up here for the last couple of days, which has
been nice. So got them out on the boat for
we only got one day and then the next couple
of days been raining and windy.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
So pretty stoked that they got one good day.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah, that's good. Gets a bit wild, doesn't it this
time of year.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Yeah, So when we first bumped into you, that was
just stuff you'd gotten back from Cape York. We met
using cans for a little bit there. I'd just find
your first trip to Cape.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
York very red and very dusty, and.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
I'd go and do it again tomorrow. That's what we
want to go do.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
We'd go back up to the cap, Like, what would
you do differently this time?
Speaker 5 (15:42):
I don't know, if I dragged the van all the
way to the top again, like it's a very long,
treacherous drive all the way to the top, but not
saying anything happened to the van, and we've not had
one drama the whole way to the top up to
Hunts and Bay.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
But just I don't even know.
Speaker 6 (15:57):
I think just like the anxiety of it dragging it
all the way up there, and.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
If something did happen, but obviously there's so much help
and stuff around there.
Speaker 9 (16:05):
We'd probably take it halfway, I reckon and then do
a swag or something, or a rooftop ten or something
for like the rest.
Speaker 7 (16:12):
But yeah, you were lucky, really to get up and
back without any drama. Yeah, it's like almost everyone you
talked to had something happened.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
It was funny because we cried back and we got
onto the tar and then we were three hours at
the tar on back onto the tar road after we've
just gotten off the red dirt, and then all my
engine lights and everything came on and the land Cruiser
as that's right back.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Down to Keynes. I'm like, oh no, what's going on here?
But they ended up turning off.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
So we had friends up there at the same time
as you guys, and they blew a shocky and cracked
their chassy on their ram. Yeah. It can be very
brutal on the gear up there.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Yeah, we had some very harsh corrugations. We were down
to like five o'clong was an hour trying to get
through it on back onto the the drain well that's
everyone just drives, not even on the road. Everyone just
drives in the in the drains.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Yeah, in the Spurm drones. We did the Cape in
twenty sixteen, but we did. We left our van at
Mount Carbine at the base there and we took it.
We just took tents up.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
We still had dramas the car car driver. We had
a lot of car drumas with the Cruisy.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Tara was fairly pregnant at the time.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
No, I wasn't fairly pregnant.
Speaker 7 (17:30):
I was about ten eleven weeks pregnant, which is probably
the worst kind of pregnant to be because I was
it's the only kind of short period. I got hit
with morning sickness on all three of my kid like pregnancy.
So yeah, I just it was like relentless heat, no
air con except.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
For the car air con, no showers.
Speaker 7 (17:50):
We were just running an eskie with food in it,
like we had. Did we have the carthridge, Yeah, we
had the carfridge and then eski.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (17:59):
But anyway, by the end of it, we got to
the top and we were like down to like a
couple of wristoles, like defrosted floating around in milts of
ice water, and I was yeah, and I was like
so not well, Like I couldn't keep anything down.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
I was trying.
Speaker 7 (18:15):
Actually, I was living on like just right cereal with
no milk. I couldn't even stomach any moisture on it.
I was just eating it dry, and it was it
was bad. It was well, it was hard for me.
It was really hard, like sleeping in the tent and
just feeling nauseous the whole time.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
And yeah, I was just craving.
Speaker 7 (18:34):
I'm such a veggie lover, so I was just craving veggies,
like fresh veggies, and it's like the one thing you
just can't get. So we went into this grocery store.
Where was the grocery Sosha say shure, I think it was.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (18:48):
So I go in there and trying to find something
fresh or green, and like the closest thing I could
get was this.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Three kilo cry backed bag of coalslaw.
Speaker 7 (18:59):
And I was like, oh, oh gosh.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
The whole thing was just an experience.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Wasn't it a great experience?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yeah, look, I'd do it again.
Speaker 7 (19:08):
I was a little bit scarred from it after that
because I was like, whoa, that was rough, And if
you had to ask me, like the first maybe six
twelve months after getting back, I was like, you guys,
go you take the boys if you want to do
it again.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
But I think I've done the Cape.
Speaker 7 (19:21):
But now like time's past and obviously we've got a
much better setup.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
I definitely be came. I'd go again in a heartbeat.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Yeah. After we left you guys in Cans we went
up there for five days, but we only got as
far as Elon Beach, just that past Cooktown, so we
didn't go to the tip. But yeah, it's just an
awesome place all together. As soon as you get across
the Dane Tree.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
It is even Elon.
Speaker 7 (19:46):
We just got that, you know, like you get into
that territory, you've got stray dogs everywhere.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
And you're just like, yeah, now we're in the Cape
now yeah, like.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
And then it just it all comes back to you.
You remember what it's like.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Hey, Yeah everywhere, Yeah, just wild brumbies and stray dogs everywhere.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah, the horses.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Yeah, it's just snakes and lizards on the roads. Yes,
it's my cup of tea.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
It's called pretty wild up there.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
We went to Cate Weymouth was probably one of our favorites.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Camp ground near Chili Beach if you've been there.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
We've been to Chili, but we didn't go.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
To unreal campsite. We'd go back there and habeat. We
met these two this couple up there as well, and
they had a boat, so we just like as soon
as we pulled in, we're just like straight over there.
Made became best friends with them and ended I've taken
us out the next day. I've got we've got some
(20:42):
tree out and we've got what elseis hooked.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Out to a Spanish straight away like you just look
out and.
Speaker 5 (20:50):
There's just fish busting up everywhere, straight out in the front
of you. When we could put the drone up that
night and found that croc and then we went for
a swim. Probably shouldn't have, but had a little swim
straight we.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Put It doesn't feel that world at the time, though,
does it.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
It's like it's hot, it's water water.
Speaker 9 (21:12):
As far as you were swimming at the beach, you
were swimming at the beach.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
I wasn't jump at the draine up above us and
checked all the area that you jumped in for two seconds.
Speaker 7 (21:22):
Yeah, we did a few. We did a bit of swimming.
When we got up the top end last time, like
top end Dampier Peninsula and stuff like that, when the
water was clear, for sure, because you think, well, look
you can see ten meters out crystal clear, and the
temptations high because of the heat.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
So yeah, at the time, it's absolutely worth the risk.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Yeah, so how did the howd the Lotus handle the
run up there?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Unbelievably?
Speaker 5 (21:48):
Actually, we dropped all the tigh pressure down to twenty
eight round and just rode like a drain the whole
way up.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Wasn't beautiful. Not one thing moved inside. Yeah, it was
so good.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Every day.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
I was like, I'm so protty.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
I was talking to it every day.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
I was every day opened the door and I'm like,
oh my god, it's perfect.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Everything was so Yeah.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
A little bit of red dust underneath the fridge, but
from that.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
It was like a couple of little specks. So I
was pretty happy with that.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Oh that's good. Well that's actually that's how we met
with the Lotus fans. We pumped into each other down
there at Lawrence r V. Down there at Burbongary. We've
got a similar van. We've got the off grid, he's
got the trooper. You look like you had an infestation.
When I was talking to you at the time, you
didn't look like you were that impressed. We did when we.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Met, and it's gone everywhere, brand new van. I'm like,
what is doing here?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Yeah? Good stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
You look.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
They're still with you. They're just part of the deal.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
They have traveled Australia with us, all of your vans.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
So how do you guys settle on the Lotus?
Speaker 1 (22:59):
It was a bit of an easy one for us.
Speaker 6 (23:01):
Yeah, we didn't even look at another any other vans.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
My brother used to have like a camper trailer and
a little pop top camper trailer and it was just
so hard to just go out news so like he
got while we use the like three or four times.
But definitely having a full size van is a luxury,
but very really you a camp trailer, Yeah, but yeah,
(23:27):
just the name and reputation more so for the Lotus
and obviously resale value when you do go.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
I think that was a big thing as well.
Speaker 9 (23:34):
It was like three like we wanted to that was
going to keep its value no matter what we had done.
Speaker 6 (23:39):
Yeah, and color.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, the college.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Yeah, you you got a very nice thing going there
with the land Cruiser and the boat and.
Speaker 6 (23:46):
Even really like a thing.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
When we first kind of like watered the van.
Speaker 9 (23:51):
Yeah, like it was like kind of a new color
and like a sandy tal But now like.
Speaker 6 (23:56):
You can get it in so many different vans are
doing it now.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah, it's definitely become popular, hasn't it.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
That color?
Speaker 3 (24:02):
You see more and more of it.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Same with the boats.
Speaker 5 (24:05):
I didn't didn't ever see another boat do the same
color like the color boat.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
And now they're everywhere as well. So are they popping
up to are they everywhere?
Speaker 6 (24:16):
Yeah? That's all sell them the sandy tork now like
they sell.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
It, So we must have started today.
Speaker 6 (24:22):
Yeah we started a trend then, Yeah, trend setters.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, you were doing it before it was cool.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Seriously, I'd have to get rid of it now do something.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
I think the whole doing your whole package the same
color looks awesome if you can pull it off. Yeah,
we color matched our van, our truck to our van,
so yeah, I think it just makes the whole thing
go together, especially when you're traveling with them all the time.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
Oh yeah, because you guys had a majestic prior to
the lotus, Is that right?
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Yeah, we had a Majestic Navigator for two years. Longer
than that, but we've lived it for two years.
Speaker 7 (24:58):
Yeah, that was actually a great van for us at
the time. Like I look back on the ages of
the kids and where we were at as a family,
and like, I couldn't fault it. Actually, I think it
was the perfect van for us for that stage we
were at. But obviously the motivator with getting the Lotus
for us, yeah, we just wanted that was only semi
off road, even though we took it everywhere anywhere and
(25:22):
everywhere did we We dragged it through the.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Ringer and it handled like we never had any problems.
But yeah, we want.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Timber frame though the timber frame, well, we.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Wanted something fully off road.
Speaker 7 (25:35):
And then the rear bunks really were the drawer card,
like the layout for us obviously with the kids getting
that bit older boat. He's almost fifteen, Like he's fast
catching up to gim like he's grown heats even since
we saw you guys last he's just massive, he's getting
huge eights.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
So yeah, it was really like enough sleeping space for
the kids. Yeah, we liked the layout, didn't we.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
And then also brand reputation, resale value, Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
It looks awesome, and then I was actually build your van. Yeah,
so with the kids.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
As well, Yeah it was pretty cool.
Speaker 7 (26:07):
We like the colored choices and yeah, all that kind
of jazz.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yeah, and so you're told with a seventy nine series,
how did you land on that?
Speaker 5 (26:18):
So I actually got the car prior to getting the
vand but I've always loved the seventy nine series when
I was growing up as a kid. It was always
like a cool, old, old school looking truck. Never really
they've never really changed that much.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
They have now.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
Obviously in the last year and a half two years,
they're going not really selling them much anymore. But yeah,
it was just that dream as a young fellow growing
up looking at the old seventy nines and getting pro
touring concepts to build it to the way I wanted
it to for like touring, like looking up to people
like Sean Scott and stuff as we were getting into
(26:57):
the sort of traveling scene, and like watching his touring
reg like it's kind of like a spinning was his
old seventy nine series. So yeah, we got it built
pretty much exactly like that. If you've seen pro tourings work,
but they do they just build touring rigs and yeah,
and we wouldn't.
Speaker 6 (27:17):
Change a thing so good being perfect.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
They do some phenomenal work, that's for sure. And yours
is very nice. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
So it sounds meaty too, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Meat it does.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
He likes the sound of it. Josh likes the sound
of it.
Speaker 6 (27:36):
That's what I had a plane in the car.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
He just likes to listen to.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
He does, seriously.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Yeah. We started out with a land Cruiser one hundred series.
We had that for ten years. We lived in it
for or lived in and out of it for well
most of that time, at least five years on the road.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
So yeah, that was good to us, that car.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
It was good. Yeah, but we run it into the
absolute ground. By the end of it, it was we were.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Clinging onto it for dear life.
Speaker 7 (28:07):
Like we clung onto it till it got to the
point where the maintenance bills every month were just like, yeah,
five times more than the repayments on a new car,
and even our mechanics like, I think it's time to
let go. Come on, we can't, Yeah, we need to
let go. So it was getting just beyond, wasn't it.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Yeah, Like every time I'd rain, I'd get a very
wet shoulder, like my whole right side of me would
be saturated. Just drip through the roof and then the
floor be wet. You'd have to air it out for days.
It's just too much salt water, too much sand, not
enough clean water to clean it where we were for
long periods of time. They're just renowned for rust around
the windshields and the roof rack tracks.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Been in all honesty when you look at the life.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
It had deserved its purpose for.
Speaker 7 (28:51):
Sure, and like we bought it secondhand and the bloat
we bought it off. He had toured in it full
time and had been toe on a three and a
half ton band with it around. So it was fully
set up with radios and all the dual fueled tanks
and everything.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
It was ready to go.
Speaker 7 (29:07):
But it towed to its capacity its whole life like
it had it.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
It was just maxed out its whole life.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
We bought it with two hundred and fifty thousand k's
on it, and we sold it with nearly five hundred
and fifty thousand t's on.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
That's some good guys.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
And you get comfortable with the car you're in and
you think you're doing pretty good. But then in the
interroanm we ordered the truck, the Isuzu NPS, but in
the interim we bought this patrol Y six two patrol
and just the contrast, the difference once we got out
of that POxy old land Cruiser into that.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Nice POxy old but yeah, we loved the.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
End of that nice elegant V eight that was nice.
Speaker 7 (29:43):
Yeah, we paid it in contrast, and then we went
from the luxury floor drive, the V eight and all.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
That into the truck now.
Speaker 7 (29:50):
So it's like it's just been funny, hasn't it, Like, oh,
it's changed.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
They're all very different to each other. But yeah, we're
very happy with the truck. Yeah, a lot slower, it's
not a racist time.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Fifty two would be be nice, but the luxury of
the truck with the space and everything has.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Gotten Yeah, now the space is amazing.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
Hey, it would be good to have the patrols speed
and luxury in the truck.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
That would be nice.
Speaker 7 (30:15):
Yeah, But anyway, we're getting used to just traveling slower.
We just cruise and like the kids have got so
much space in the back, like they can just fully
extend their leads out to the front.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
They still punch on.
Speaker 7 (30:26):
But we've got like an extra seat so we can
spread them out a bit.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
They're at each other.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
The difference is just the payload. Yeah, yeah, when everyone
knows that. But actually the payload did creep up on
us pretty quick. We thought you sort of get it.
You're like, oh, I can throw everything in in our motorbikes,
boats on top and fill it with stock.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
And yeah, we've got a commercial truck now. We never
have to.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Think about our weight. When we left back in September,
we took it out of the way bridge when we
rolled out the our parents' property here, and we're ten
point nine to eight tons, so we had twenty kilos
about sleep. Well, that's not too close.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
So we lived back and.
Speaker 7 (31:03):
We just said the big goodbye to the family and
like bitteriarian, like we're off and big emotional farewell, and
then like twenty minutes later we're back back out the front.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
We're like, I got too much stuff, just downloading rubbish.
Speaker 7 (31:18):
Just we had to go every little every cupboard, everything,
like I had like multiple sets of linen probably twice
two times, too many towels and just random stuff. We
just did a massive cul and yeah, we would have
taken a few hundred kilos oh heat heaps out.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
We took heaps out.
Speaker 7 (31:38):
But yeah, it's just an example of like how it
adds up quick. And we laugh now thinking like we
moved to the commercial truck, just really thinking we never
have to even think.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
About our weight.
Speaker 7 (31:48):
Yeah, and we still managed to pretty much max it
out straight off the bat.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
So yeah, we do still have to think about the weight.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Do you miss the stuff that you got rid of?
Speaker 4 (31:58):
No, I would never couldn't even tell you what it was.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Now you never do. That's the thing you never do.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
Not a single piece of fishing gear left the side
of the truck.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
There wasn't a lot. There wasn't a lot coming out
of gym side, that's for sure.
Speaker 7 (32:11):
There was a lot of linen and towels and toys,
platters and like glassware and like nice the nice to
have things but not maybe necessary to have things.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Were coming out. It is in our yetti cups, don't
we Yeah that's right.
Speaker 7 (32:25):
So now, yeah, but there was limited fishing gear, like
you were looking at just all the tubs full of lures.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
That has been strategically brought over the last year for
massive sense in w I.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Know, how it feels. I'm sorry, everything is.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
Request I reckon. We get rid of stuff every time
we go to see family.
Speaker 6 (32:45):
Yeah, we're always off broading, so always.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Going under the bed. Oh yeah, we don't need that
pair of shoes anymore. All the time.
Speaker 5 (32:51):
We've got boxes in every single one of our families homes.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
At the moment, we couldn't even tell you it happens.
Speaker 7 (32:59):
Hey, and then you let go of the stuff and
then you just forget about it. Oh yeah, it's like
you'll get back there and be.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Like, what is this? Why did I leave this here?
Or yeah, you just forget it's just stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (33:09):
That adds up quick, doesn't it. You just naturally accumulate
things as you go.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Oh yeah, So we've got a little four meter tinny
on the roof of the truck and we can tato
with us at all times. But you have got yourself
in a unique position. You've got a six and a
half meter stescil. Yeah go yeahesel sorry. And so sometimes
you had to find yourselves leaving one item behind, going somewhere,
then having to come back and how do you find
(33:35):
navigating all that?
Speaker 5 (33:36):
Yeah? Well, the plan was to always have because the
boat originally came first, and then the van came like
a year or a year and a half after the boat,
So we always thought it'd be pretty easy to do,
like just drive back and get it.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
But I've had the boat up in Early.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
For over the probably the past nine to twelve months,
and when over the weather's really good, we just come
back to Early and then we stay for three weeks
to a month at a time, and then yeah, whenever
the long range forecast doesn't look that great, we head
off and go explore like we did Cape York and
(34:15):
then we went to the Northern Territory and stuff through
the middle of the year. But yeah, the boat lives
in early at the moment, and you don't.
Speaker 9 (34:23):
You wouldn't understand how many people come up to us
at the carrier and park and say, how do you
toe both?
Speaker 4 (34:29):
We don't tell you that get multi combination.
Speaker 6 (34:36):
So many people are like, so, how do you tell
it like one or the other?
Speaker 1 (34:41):
In theory, it went over in my head.
Speaker 5 (34:43):
In theory it was a good idea, but yeah, trying
to do it logistically and have been able to take
both everywhere, it's obviously not liabel and yeah, doable, but.
Speaker 7 (34:54):
I mean it's not like, I mean, it's primo boat
territory there anyway, isn't it. So so we tell ourself
like we're in the best endless islands to explore.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
So yeah, whenever the weather's good, we're full into the boat,
we go out to the reef. We've stayed out there
a couple of times, and yeah, we just go explore
the reefs and dive the reefs.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
And fish as much as possible out there.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
So we took the boat over to Hamilton Island actually
for a couple of nights too.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
So that was good.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Moored the boat at Hamilton and.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
Stayed stayed We're actually going to stay in the boat
as well.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
But we were pretty drunk by about.
Speaker 5 (35:31):
Three o'clock and then we said, nah, it's too we're
getting a room.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Got a room for a couple of nights.
Speaker 9 (35:38):
I had everything packed in the boat, like all the food,
all the cooking stuff, like everything, because we were like
fully going to stay on the boat.
Speaker 6 (35:45):
And then I was like, scrap this.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
It was about four five degrees on the boat.
Speaker 7 (35:50):
It's pretty hard too, when you know there's just like
resort rooms, just the whole place is just peppered with
resort rooms and you could be so much more comfortable.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Yeah, a little bit of time we spent with you
guys in the Sundays there out in your boat taking
us around up to Monty's Hideaway Bay.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Oh yeah, that was so good.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
I think that's well somewhere that we'd like to settle
down potentially at some stage because of those those times
that we had there. I mean, that is a good
life stile up there.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 6 (36:17):
We love it. Like everything we do up here is like.
Speaker 9 (36:20):
We couldn't do anything more, you know, Like that's like
just everything that we love doing.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
So just a shame about the er again she's this
time here, but yeah, just thingers suck.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
But yeah, did we hear on the with Sunday's Facebook
page that someone copped a pretty bad sting down there.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Page at the main Beachish.
Speaker 6 (36:44):
We've seen someone get stung the other day.
Speaker 9 (36:46):
We're having lunch at the pub and we've seen someone
across the road gets stung and seeing them like call
the ambulance and they ran over to get vinegar from
the pub.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
They gave them a sauce container with vinegar in it.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
I was like, like.
Speaker 7 (37:01):
One of those little dishes, a little dish better of
having a shot of it, and the person probably ran
back with it.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Whoever it was, had been none left by the time
get back there.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Oh my god, give this poor bloke the whole bottle.
Speaker 9 (37:15):
Yeah, and then your little fourteen year old girl got
stung around her legs just at like the beach as well.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
I think that might be the one I read about
on the page. It was, so that's so sad.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
We're definitely more vigilant now. Yeah, I think we were
a bit a bit not very cautious when we're out
on the reef and stuff. So you got starting out
in the reef, you'd be in a world of pain
for a two and a half hour trip back home.
So we're yeah vigilant now, yeah.
Speaker 9 (37:43):
We'll johnpin here and the air. But yeah, it's not really.
It's always on your mind.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
So our last night there when with you guys in
Baily Beach, do you remember that we didn't get much
sleep that night?
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Na, someone was letting a fireworks.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
I think it wasn't. It wasn't the fireworks. Tara and
I were sleeping at about one am. Those Irish backpackers
came home and just started shagging, like I meet it
next to our bedroom window.
Speaker 7 (38:10):
Oh yeah, oh god, and I was like just finish already.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Yeah. Three hours of just clapping cheeks and we just
could not sleep. And we had a massive drive the
next day Towns. No, that was good times.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
It was hilarious.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, funny little spot.
Speaker 6 (38:31):
Yeah, we don't hear anything in this.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
We could not get to sleep.
Speaker 7 (38:36):
No, we were definitely over our site was we had
kind of backpackery kind of area.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yeah, that corner where they.
Speaker 9 (38:44):
Had us over there, it's like tents and rooftop tent
kind of area.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Yeah, that's what we kept getting pulled up next to us.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
Yeah, and we had that those two having that big
domestic fight in front of us there on the little ten.
We run over their mattress.
Speaker 6 (38:59):
Yeah, you ran over there.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
Yeah, we know. We're all the team here.
Speaker 7 (39:04):
I asked you if you wanted me to move it,
and you said no, no, all good.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
And I assumed you were going to go around it
just mode straight over the top. So don't say we,
It was all you.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
It was all you.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
That was you, all you.
Speaker 4 (39:21):
I gave him a couple of traveler beers. Yeah, smoothed
it over.
Speaker 7 (39:25):
Probably contributed to the punch on you just anyway, So.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
What have you's got planned coming up now for the
next couple of months.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
Yeah, so we're gonna just do some work and then
yeah if obviously, if the weather's good, we'll keep Ireland
exploring and yeah, we'll probably I got a.
Speaker 6 (39:45):
Hair in Island and Wilson Island.
Speaker 7 (39:47):
I was going to say, maybe you need to try
and squeeze that in before you go to Europe.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Put it in, you can do it. Yeah, Oh gosh,
it was just so lush.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
I wonder you can just boost your own boat over there.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Yeah, yeah, we were talking about that only when we
were there.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
We moored our boat Fitzroy.
Speaker 7 (40:02):
So like it's a fair trip from Gladston to Heroin,
Like they go on like a high you go on
a high speed ferry and it's a two hour trip if.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
You get a smooth conditions.
Speaker 7 (40:12):
But two of the trips we've done were just like
pretty rough. And the one going over this time was
so rough, like, out of how many people do you
reckon we're on the ferry, I'm.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
Not sure how many people, but I reckon sixty percent of.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Them were had the face in a bag, like just.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
Were massive amounts of.
Speaker 7 (40:30):
Like it was so bad, and like, I don't get
motion sickness. I'm normally sweet, but my one weakness is
other people's vomit. So by the end of it, I
was like, this is two much Like I had the
air cone blowing on me and the airs just like
thick with vomit, and everywhere you look someone's vomiting, and
I'm like, there's nowhere even to look anymore.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
I'm like looking this way, and then so I'm go
and I'm like look that way. Jean's got his.
Speaker 7 (40:55):
Headphones on and just like zoning out, and they were
going around the stuff, go around with like a candle
Glenn twenty, and they're like all down the eye try
and try like kill.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
The vomit smell.
Speaker 7 (41:10):
But they just had bad like gloves on and they're
just walking past with like bags.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Of vomit and they would have just filled a massive.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
It's a good two and a half hour too, so
it's a long time to be a.
Speaker 7 (41:23):
Short trip, you know, like if you you're a thirty
minute fairy and it gets a bit hectic and then
you think, oh, it's not that long. I can make it.
I can make it. Oh, it was hectic, but it
was so hectic. We came out of Glads and Marina
and we hit the first set of swell and we
were pretty much airborne and it was like you're on
a roller coaster and everyone's like your stomach just came
up in his throat and people were screaming.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Like there was just like this ah, like on a
roller coaster.
Speaker 7 (41:49):
And the bottom we were sitting downstairs, shottom windows are
just completely underwater. When we hit the hit the waves
again and I was just like this is FINALI like
this is going to be hectic, and heaps of people
just were not prepared, like.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
They didn't take any ceced tablets.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
They didn't.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
I don't think they realized the potential.
Speaker 7 (42:09):
And there are a lot of people there that just
probably would never get on a boat again.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Like it was that traumatic.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Did any of the No, this was when it was
just Jim and I.
Speaker 7 (42:19):
This was just this weekend going wrong and we were sweet,
like you did really well, didn't you like.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
Those two escape see tablets. They're the best. They are
the best.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
I don't take never never ever felt or even.
Speaker 6 (42:36):
Sick tablet every time we go on the boat.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
Both when it's lucky when its seas like that. Yeah,
I could definitely go down. But those escape tablets they're
the best. Don't one of them?
Speaker 7 (42:48):
Yeah, like you would take qulls previously and still quills
are rubbish.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Yeah, he could.
Speaker 7 (42:52):
Still get sick even if it was fully dosed out
with wells. But these new tablets are really good. Hey,
you've not been sick since you've had them.
Speaker 6 (42:59):
So are they like prescribed?
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Yeah, you get them online. It's like an online prescription
and then get them delivered. But they're good.
Speaker 7 (43:07):
There's no side effects. I took one that day too,
just because they did. We looked at the forecast and
seen the swell was pretty hectic and I don't normally
get sick, but I was like, look, I just do
not want to risk starting this romantic weekend.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
Like I didn't.
Speaker 7 (43:23):
I don't know, I just know sometimes it doesn't discriminate,
like anyone can go down. And I'm so glad I
took it, just as it was an insurance policy, basically
because I didn't want to start the weekend why not
being sick. But I'm really glad I took it. But like,
they don't make you drowsy or anything. Either whereas like
the Quells, you kin'd feel a bit out of it.
I think, especially if you have a few beers and that, yeah,
these are really good.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
Well, we might wrap it up soon, but we just
wanted to ask, what are your five best tips for
someone who was thinking about getting a van or traveling
full time?
Speaker 3 (43:54):
Five's a lot of tips.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Yeah, I would recommend any tips not.
Speaker 9 (43:59):
Having in your head what you think it's going to
be like, or like just learning to go with the flow.
Like when we first started and like left, we had
everything planned.
Speaker 6 (44:09):
We like had everywhere we wanted to go, everything we
wanted to do.
Speaker 9 (44:13):
Planned things so much, and it all just pretty much
didn't go to plan at all.
Speaker 5 (44:18):
So like I just think, like if we met someone,
we would just leave that campsite that we're paid three months,
or we'd just leave that and then go off with
someone else just because we've met some cool people, or
like we're just waste money by doing that.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
So like I think I'm not planning too.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
Far and being okay.
Speaker 9 (44:36):
Like you have to be okay with that too, Like
you have to just know that things are always going
to change, and your plans are always going to change.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
It's a definite thing. We have the same kind of mindset.
Speaker 7 (44:46):
And I know we've spoken about this before with you guys,
that we're not big planners. We never were really from
the beginning, but we've become even more floppy as as
the years have gone on and we realized everything's always
going to be okay. Yeah, we've spent a few nights
in gravel pits, like on the side of the road.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Yeah, because we've been not prepared. But like when you've
got a well equipped van, you know, you're sweet.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
We've only come unstuck like two or three times.
Speaker 9 (45:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (45:13):
Ever, ever, we didn't book anything for Cape York. We
didn't plan anything. We had no idea where we're going, and.
Speaker 9 (45:19):
I feel like even doing that, we ended up in
better spots than we even ever planned, like ever could
have imagined, Like places.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
If we've never heard of.
Speaker 6 (45:27):
We were like ended up you know, in places.
Speaker 4 (45:31):
Yeah. Well, yeah, I think that that definitely comes with
the confidence and experience of travel. We leave in two
weeks to go to wa and we don't have a
single thing booked for the whole year. It's we leave
and we'll we sometimes just planned where we stay that night.
Speaker 7 (45:45):
We haven't even booked Cape Range, which we had every
intention of like doing that because we wanted to camp
with our mates. But like now we've realized we've missed
the window because you've got to do it six months
in advance. I'm like, we are hopeless, a like I
should have said it reminder or something.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
So we'll just wing it.
Speaker 7 (46:00):
We're just going to stay in Exy and hope we
can snag like last minute bookings when we get over there,
and like it always has worked out for us previously,
hasn't it like winging it?
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Oh for sure, So we're not going to change since
twenty sixties.
Speaker 9 (46:13):
Yeah, yeah, that's like, yeah, yeah, that's the way we
like to travel, and we like to do things as well,
is just go with the floor and not book things
and plan things and just kind of end up where
we end.
Speaker 6 (46:24):
Up, and it is what it is, really.
Speaker 9 (46:26):
And like yeah, like you said, you always know you've
got your van, Like we've pulled over before and literally
crawled into bed and gone to sleep and broken up
and kept driving or woken up and you know, done whatever,
Like when you know you've got your van on the back,
like you're fine, Yeah, that's right, you've.
Speaker 6 (46:43):
Got your whole kitchen.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
You're fine, Well, you've got your whole life in there,
you like. It really is sweet, It doesn't matter, it doesn't. Yes,
And are there any non negotiable items that you would
leave without next time? Not just your standard first aid
kids or two a radio? If you got anything that
you would not leave without.
Speaker 5 (47:00):
Coffee machine is a bit of a as well, use
that every day.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
We bought a generator at the start, but never used it.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Yeah, we thought we'd use.
Speaker 6 (47:09):
That a lot more.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
I love the stand up fridge in the canopy like that.
I think that's a vibe the power.
Speaker 9 (47:16):
The like the battery system in the car as well, Like,
we use that a lot when we're lack off grid
and stuff like, we.
Speaker 6 (47:22):
Rely on that.
Speaker 5 (47:23):
A good one is the cryvac machine. Yeah, when we
catch fish, we just cry back it into just like
meal meals for us, and then we go buy a
whole roll of I fill it and cry back up
separate meals and freeze it all nicely stacked in the freezer.
Speaker 7 (47:44):
So yeah, you can fit a lot more, can't you
when it's all flood flood stacked?
Speaker 4 (47:50):
Kylie, you just mentioned power something that we've had to
do with the van and the truck is add additional charges.
This is for people that might be putting together a
truck or a van or a U. If you've got
solar and you've got your DC or you've got a
plug in for a blanket, or you've got your two
forty inlet, multiple charges is massively essential that we found.
(48:15):
So we couldn't get enough solar power into our lotus.
We've set the truck up so we've got multiple charges,
so we can have multiple amps going into the truck
and the battery system at one time. You see a
lot of people out there on the road or even
on YouTube channels that say that they can only either
charge their battery system with the DC DC charger or
the solar, and at bottlenecks you can't do both. So
(48:38):
you really want to be able to charge your system, yeah,
with the DC DC charger and the solar separately, separate charges,
and you want to be able to plug a blanket
in on the side as well. So that's one thing
that we yeah, we've actually acutely aware of now with
all our vehicles.
Speaker 7 (48:55):
But it's just not common knowledge, I don't think, and
unless neither of us have got a sparky background.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Or like a real handy in that area.
Speaker 7 (49:03):
So it's something that I guess unless you had that
yeah kind of base knowledge, you just kind of get
what you get and go, Yeah, it's going to be awesome.
But we're finding even after a day of driving, like
we pull up and our batteries weren't fully charged. But
now we've got a second charger, we pull up and
way back to one hundred percent every time.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
So it's made a world of difference.
Speaker 4 (49:22):
And Josh, you mentioned the generator if your battery system's
running at full capacity and able to charge yourself. We've
had a generator in our toolbox as well for five
or six months and it hasn't come out because the
battery systems are all doing what they're supposed to do now.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
Exact same with us. We've only ever used it when
we've had three or four days of like no sun,
no sign. Yeah, that's the only.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
Time, relentless rain.
Speaker 7 (49:45):
Yeah, there's such a big item to carry around, hey,
and it's so heavy, you know, you look at it there.
In ninety nine percent of time it's just collecting dust.
But it's like that odd occasion where you do need it,
like it's bloody.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Good to have it. If you do, just need to
zap your batteries are.
Speaker 9 (50:02):
Leaving it for so long, Like should we just leave
it with someone like just because we haven't been using it.
But I'm like no, because we'll go off grid and
then I'll be like, oh my god, I need the generator.
Speaker 4 (50:11):
So I imagine you have another thirty kilos of lures
in there. You could replace it with Lewis eat it.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
It's not possible. Not possible.
Speaker 4 (50:22):
Well we might wrap it up, guys, but have you
got some socials you want to shout out for yourselves?
Speaker 9 (50:28):
Two Underscore talks on absolutely everything. You'll find us two
it's the number two Underscore t A U P E S.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
That is where you'll find us.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
Yeah, awesome, all right, Well yeah, mine's Jimmy Primal JI
double M Why Underscore p y M A L Jimmy
Primal on all the same socials as these guys.
Speaker 7 (50:50):
So yeah, And I just want to say, anyone that's listening,
if you see us out on the road, like you
guys would be the same, come say hi, have a beer.
I think the best thing about travel so people you meet,
isn't it like we really hit it off with you.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
Guys.
Speaker 7 (51:03):
We've both got a love of Margarine is island hopping, fishing, diving,
all the good stuff.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Definitely, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 7 (51:11):
I think that's what makes this lifestyle so awesome as
the people you meet.
Speaker 5 (51:15):
It's the people you meet for sure and stick to
it and yeah, take off.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
We haven't looked back since. Set a date and take
just full send.
Speaker 4 (51:26):
Whether you've got kids, are without kids, as a couple,
or if you're a family, you'll never regret it.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
You aren't unreal. Well, thanks for the chat, guys.
Speaker 6 (51:37):
Thank you, thank you for having us travel, thank you.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
Thanks for listening to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
We would love if you could leave us a review,
and don't forget to hit subscribe or follow to stay
up to date with new episodes. Get out there and
try something new and we'll see for the next episode.
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