Ditching the corporate 9-5 Katie and Paul Guerin bought a caravan and hit the road. 2 years later they’re still on the go!
How did you come to purchase your first van?
We actually end up staying overnight at the 2019 Caravaning Queensland Supershow because there’s just so much to see. And took lots of notes, took lots of photos. And then we narrowed it down to three and then we settled on Queensland Company and Apollo I think because you know, we’re Queenslanders at the Queensland show, they do great products, loved our van and we’re off and running.
It must have been an exciting time with a new van!
The first night in the van. My hands felt like they’d cracked because I was towing this three tonne van behind us. I was petrified actually for about the first three months it was like that, you know, worried about all sorts of things, you know, safety had we hitched right, had we missed something off our checklist. And that, of course, soon dissipates. And now, I mean, if there was one thing we would change, it would be to not be worried, you know, to let go sooner, let go of the steering wheel, let go of the decision to travel soon.
You’ve been to some incredible places, as we’ve seen on your Youtube channel – what are some highlights?
A favourite of ours and I think it was our first real we’re doing this you know we’ve got this and we would have been easily a year and a half in, is a little property it’s a Hipcamp property just outside of Barcaldine. And it was this sheep property working, sheep farm, millionaire hectares. I think it was massive. We asked David, the owner, how close is our next camper? And he said, Oh, yeah, four kays down the road. We were literally in the middle of nowhere. He had this massive windmill and one of those big yellow feed tubs and he drew water up from the Artesian Basin. He said to us, when you get there, turn the tap on at 3:00pm, fill the tub. It’s so hot. You need to leave it for a few hours and then get in and watch the sunset. We had the campfire on there was nobody else except a couple of random sheep in the paddock. It was one of the most memorable experiences for us as a family to be there, in this wide expanse of outback Queensland, watching that sunset, sitting in a hot tub for $15 a night.
We’ve got a lot of favourites. I think for us that something that holds really special in our hearts was our first escape outside of our comfort zone, which was the two hour drive radius of our families on the Gold Coast and Sunny coast. And we headed out to Carnarvon Gorge in central Queensland. Wow. You know, straight away met with this community that was about adding value, wanting to say, hey, have you tried this mate, you know, help you back in. Everyone wants to help you back in when you start out.
