Almost ready to leave

Well we have finished work now and its only a few days till we head off. We have the weekend to get the van packed up and to say our good byes to friends and family. Its all getting very exciting now that work is over and we can relax and think about our plans.

Beautiful Shoal Bay  - this photo taken on our fist visit earlier in the year

We are heading off to beautiful Shoal Bay on Port Stephens for our first port of call. Its a lovely place and not too far to visit on our first day so we will head off and spend our first couple of nights there. Then we are off up the coast to be in Hervey Bay in Queensland by the following weekend to meet up with friends travelling down from Blackall in Western Queensland.

The beginning.....

Well I have finally done it and created a blog. This will be our record of our big adventure in our caravan. We are heading off in September to parts unseen before all around Australia.

Mike standing by the van as we set off on our first trip in January 2013

At the moment we are still at work and looking forward to our trip. We have made five short trips in the van to Bermagui, Shoal Bay (twice), Mollymook and Canowindra and we are having a lot of fun. We still have to acquire some gear for the big trip such as a generator, compressor and such but we are pretty well set up. In the meantime we are enjoying our weekends until we go.

Pink Pots and Polka Dots and Copper

My passion is patchwork and quilting and I intend to be stitching my way around the country. This is a picture of one of my recent creations and our beautiful old dog Copper standing beside it in our garden. Unfortunately he is no longer with us but he sneakily made it into this photo!

I am already planning my hand stitching projects ready for the trip and we have set aside some space in the caravan for my little retro Husqvarna 'Claire' sewing machine. I got it at a garage sale for $10! What a bargain.