Our Big Australian Road Trip in Pictures

For the tightwad with a loose schedule, a relocation camper is the perfect way to travel Australia. This is the behemoth that brought us from Brisvegas to Sydney – not bad for a dollar a day, right?

I can’t speak highly enough of Byron Bay, the hippie-divey-weedy-yogaish surf town that feels like anywhere other than Australia. Here’s Zac on the beach with his dad.

And here’s one of those VW campers that are about as common down Byron way as yoga-lean muscles and seriously bearded surfers.

We crashed for the night in Port Macquarie. This was a rather splendiferous sunrise, I thought.

It’s impossible not to get excited driving over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, even if you have seen it before. Even the boy was impressed.

Yes, yes, I know – and Zac’s father knows – that there are many better beaches in Sydney than Bondi. On the other hand, we’re British, and we hadn’t been, so burgers on the Bondi beachfront were pretty much a must-do in between bar reviewing.

We traded down to a smaller relocation vehicle for the next leg, Sydney to Adelaide. These are the Three Sisters, in the Blue Mountains.

It’s not often you’ll hear me say this about an Australian tourist attraction but, even after Jeita in Lebanon, the caves of Diros in Greece and Deer Cave in Sarawak, the Jenolan Caves were worth every single penny.

These fields are most of what remains of Cowra POW camp, the scene of a horrific WWII prison break, when Japanese POWs stormed the wire – more than 200 would die, along with four Australians.

Gum trees and a swollen creek after free camping in the rain…

And into Adelaide, blissful, leafy, serene Adelaide that’s probably Australia’s most underrated city.

Just in time for some frantic Christmas shopping, then Christmas en famille, with my aunt, my parents, my cousin, Zac and his dad.

As a way to walk off Christmas lunch, spotting wild koalas takes some beating. This one was kind enough to look at the camera (not always a given with koalas).

Up to Lobethal for the Christmas lights. I’m a huge fan of crap towns, and Lobethal had a small town, village hall vibe that didn’t disappoint.

My cousin turned 21, becoming the last of my generation to unsettlingly turn from blobs you remember chewing on your arm into full-blown adults considerably taller, if not wider, than you.

I needed to check out some bars and do some travel research in Adelaide, so I took the family along for some of the bars.

And on New Year’s Eve, our last night of nomadism, and our last night in Oz, the adults went to The Collins, Adelaide’s fanciest cocktail joint for drinks, not all of which came on a spoon.

New Year’s Day seemed a good time for a new start. And so, on 1 January, with a backpack each, a big bag of crap that I’d started hoarding since I knew we were going to be settling down, and not NEARLY enough money in the bank, we headed to Bali to settle down.

Because, ya know, settling down is easy, right? It’s just like travelling, only a bit more permanent. Right? And… I have a job lined up to take me out of the country, so it’s not really settling down, right?

Interested in relocation campers? Here’s a few sites that offer them, typically for $1-$5 a day, sometimes including fuel and insurance: Imoova, TransferCar, Apollo and coseats.com. Check the insurance details before you sign up: if insurance isn’t included, buying annual car hire excess (liability) insurance will likely save you a fortune.