Decision 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 — exciting — but where? Spoilt for choice, we started watching travel vlogs, reading blogs, and came to the conclusion: time for a road trip! Which then… sorry, nope, I won’t bore you with all that—fast-forward to us deciding that spending time in a van was the way to go. Considering we’d just sold ours, this made total sense… right? I’m not entirely sure what logic we were using, but once the idea took hold, we ran with it! (Or rather, 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, and we had always said we’d love to go back. The timing seemed right so we set the wheels in motion! See what I did there? 😏

We started considering routes. For something completely different, we looked at a loop starting in Perth and heading north to Darwin, down through the Red Center to South Australia before following the coast back to Perth. We’d top that off with a month in Tasmania. Ideas were flowing, but we quickly realized our first action item was finding our chariot. Not surprisingly, we ended up back 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 major selling features. Unfortunately, our plans were kiboshed right out of the gate: no vans available in Perth, and the Fitzroy Crossing bridge (the main route between Darwin and Broome) was washed out and wouldn’t be repaired until December at the earliest. Not prepared to be daunted, we pestered the reservation team at Let’s Go Motorhomes until they found us a van in Darwin. Starting there opened up a whole new set of options: head all the way south then west, or south then east, or east then south… so many ideas!

Flights to Australia were next on the list. Luckily, there were lots of connections from Chiang Mai. Paul found flights from CNX to SIN with Scoot, arriving mid-afternoon. The following morning, there was a nice SIN to DRW flight with Singapore Airlines that was a reasonable 5 hours. Using this route meant we could connect on the same ticket, which is always a good thing. The downside was an 18-hour layover. We spent some time looking for anything better, but in the end, this ended up being the best option. We knew we’d be tired, so we opted to get accommodation right at the airport instead of heading into the city and managed to find a decent place.

We had a few days of “OMG, what were we thinking?”, second-guessing if this was the right choice. We knew we’d also have to settle on a route since that would have a major impact. After a lot of research and many discussions, we decided to start in Darwin, head south towards the Tennant Creek area for the Barkly Highway. Then we’d head east over to Wongaling Beach and south along the coast to Melbourne. We could stay in different spots between Wongaling Beach 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 could also change it up and go inland if we felt like it. 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 took us to mid-December. Flight - Checked! Chariot - Checked!

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? We 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. Booked!

We applied for the Australian and New Zealand visas, quickly receiving approval for both. When we looked at the approved Australian visa, it was multiple-entry for 90-day periods valid until May 2024. We still hadn’t given up on seeing South and Western Australia, so we took this as a sign. We had heard about some really nice spots along the coast, and crossing the Nullarbor would be cool. It seemed we’d miss out on a beautiful part of the country if we didn’t make it work. 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 to 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, as usual, a few new things cropped up. The added bonus of seeing family and friends meant this quickly got added to the plan. 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, TPE-YVR-YYC. The flights would have us returning on May 4.

We had about six weeks to fill between the end of our van rentals and our flights to Canada. We discussed various options: heading to Kampot, traveling around Taiwan, or visiting different areas of Malaysia. We weren’t in a rush to book anything solid, but we did start checking for the best flights out of Perth. Not surprisingly, the best value was to Kuala Lumpur. We put a watch on the flights since it would work and we’d be due to see the dentist for a cleaning. We found a really great flight about a week later, so we 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 coming up with a general plan for 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… we even went so far as 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, and 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!