Decision 2023
By Helen
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| A Year in Thailand | Darwin to Melbourne 2023 |
Part of being in Chiang Mai was having time to decide what was next. We had extended our lease until September but then what? We decided that we wanted to travel again, great but where? Spoilt for choice we started watching travel vlogs, reading blogs and came to the conclusion that spending some time in a van was a good idea. Considering we had just sold ours this makes total sense… right? Not entirely sure on the thought process that occurred with this decision but once it took hold, we ran with it! Okay, drove with it ;-) Where do you do that? G’day Mate… Australia of course!!! We had already been lucky enough to experience the East Coast portion back in 2017 1,2, with a short 10 days in Tasmania, but we had always said we’d love to go back and the timing seemed right so we started the process.
We considered starting in Perth and heading north to Darwin, maybe down through the center and then over to the west, ending with a month in Tasmania. Ideas were flowing but we quickly realized our first action was finding our chariot. Not surprisingly, we ended up with Let’s Go Motorhomes again, we had a great experience with them last time. They had upgraded the fleet and we quickly settled on the Jayco 2 Berth Escape, the bathroom, TV and air conditioning were a major selling feature. Unfortunately our plans were kiboshed right out of the gates… no vans available in Perth and the Fitzroy crossing, the main bridge between Darwin and Broome, was washed out and wouldn’t be repaired until December at the earliest. We looked into other rental companies but the reviews, vans and pricing just weren’t as appealing. Not prepared to be daunted, we pestered Let’s Go Motorhomes and found a van in Darwin. Starting there gave us a lot of different options, we could head all the way south then west or south then east, lots of ideas.
Flights were next on the list, luckily there were lots of connections from CNX. Paul found flights from CNX-SIN with Scoot but it was a 18 hour layover in Singapore, ugh. The following morning there was a nice SIN-DRW with Singapore Airlines that was a reasonable 5-6 hr flight. We could also connect on the same ticket which was nice and in the end, this ended up being the best option. We knew we’d be tired so opted to get accommodation at the airport and managed to find a decent place. Flights - check! Chariot - check!
We had a few days of “OMG, what were we thinking” and then got down to picking a route. In the end, after a lot of research and discussions, we decided to start in Darwin, head south towards the Tennant Creek area for the Barkly Highway, east over to Wongaling and then south to Melbourne. We could stay in different places between Wongaling and Melbourne because there were so many places we didn’t see last time. We also had our favorites that we wanted to go back to. We looked into taking the van on the ferry across to Tasmania but the prices were a major deterrent. Let’s Go Motorhomes to the rescue, we could pick up a van from the local agent at Tassie Motor Shacks! Perfect, we had a great experience with them last time. We booked a flight from MEL-HBA and booked the van for a month, pick up and drop off in Hobart. That covered mid September to mid December.
So then what… well if we are in the area and spending time in a van, wouldn’t New Zealand make sense? Yes, to us it did. When we went in 2017,1, 2 we had 6 weeks which didn’t seem long enough so how about 3 or 4 months? Started pricing it out and costs had increased a lot but we found the rental sweet spot was 2 months. We felt that was still a reasonable length to justify the cost of flights. Paul found an older van with a company called Wendekreisen Campervan and Motorhome Hire that was available in our time frame and started looking at flights. He found some great flights but it meant that we had 2 nights in Auckland before we could pick up the van. We wanted to start on the North Island this time and thought the 2 nights in a hotel would be a nice break from van life so it all worked out. That took us to mid February, which was good.
We applied for the Australian and New Zealand visas, quickly receiving approval for both. When we looked at the approved Australia visa, it was multiple entry for 90 day periods valid until May 2024. Interesting because we still hadn’t given up on seeing South and Western Australia. We had heard about some really nice spots along the coast, crossing the Nullarbor would be cool and it seemed we’d miss out on a beautiful part of the country. Cue the contact with Let’s Go Motorhomes, yep they had the Escape, the price was reasonable and we found a good flight from CHC-MEL. Great, Melbourne to Perth, here we come! That took us to mid March.
While organizing all this, we realized that we were due for a trip back to Canada. When we were back in 2022 we didn’t manage to get everything completed and we needed to take care of a few new things, so we added that to the plan. A bonus would be being able to see family and friends. Because of what we had to do, setting ourselves up in Calgary made the most sense so we could attend meetings and handle what we needed to. There is also more availability for rentals or Airbnbs. Paul found some great flights and we used some of our dwindling Aeroplan miles to book an EVA air flight from TPE-YVR-YYC. The flights would have us returning on May 4.
We had about 6 weeks that we needed to fill between the end of our van rentals and our flights to Canada. We discussed various options of heading to Kampot, maybe travel around Taiwan or go to different areas of Malaysia. We weren’t in a rush to book anything solid but did start checking the best flights from Perth. Not surprisingly, the best value was a flight to Kuala Lumpur. We put a watch on the flights since it would work and allow us to head to the dentist for a cleaning. We found a really great flight about a week later, so ended up booking a flight to KL for March 23, 2024. We didn’t feel we needed to rush to book anything else and started focusing on Australia.
So with that all squared away, we spent the next few months planning and organizing. We followed vlogs and blogs, talked to people we knew from Australia and New Zealand, bombarded the subreddits with oodles of questions and came up with a general idea. We looked into stops along the way, what campgrounds were available, what to do in the areas we wanted to stay… even went so far to set up maps that showed routes, places to stay, grocery stores and interesting stops. Peter and Luigi gave us a duffel they were no longer using so we could bring stuff to kit out the van, Ness and Ian allowed us to store some items at their place. We enjoyed our remaining time in Chiang Mai and were ready to head out on September 13!
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