Back home again. This time we are home indefinitely and there are no future caravanning plans; after four years it does feel a little weird. Especially when you leave 33 degrees of sun and balmy weather and come home to this (see pic below). It does make you question your judgement.

Which places do we like the most? Well, there’s lots of places, but we both agree the south coast of Western Australia is hard to beat. To quote me, all the beaches along this stretch of coast SE Western Australia sparkle with pristine sands, and mercifully the only things missing are cafes, shops, houses, and assholes. There are also stunning natural landforms, towering forests of ancient trees, interesting history, and nice people. You can remind yourself about why we like the area so much here, here and here. We would travel back there again, no question.

And I can’t go past Coral Bay, so good we go there twice. Swimming with humpback whales, whale sharks, manta rays, and turtles is indescribably joyful and, in every sense of the word, amazing. Different every time, and every time a delightful wonder.

The trip across the Nullarbor is also a treat – read out it here and here. In fact, I love all the long outback drives. Each Roadhouse is an opportunity to experience another slice of Aussie life – with all its shades of good and bad.

What would we do differently? Not much, though we have a list of things we should’ve (would’ve, could’ve, didn’t) bought/buy. These include a blow-up paddle board/kayak – there were waterways we would have been able to explore further, and just general mooching around on the water; an electric chainsaw – for firewood when free camping in out of the way places, and fending off potential serial killers – this is Australia after all; a coffee machine – for obvious reasons; a roof rack, a battery drill with an adjustable torque setting, and some easy attach anti-flap clamps for the awning.

What were the unexpected delights? Random art projects, be it on grain silos, dams, water towers or city walls. Give an Aussie a blank space and they’ll slap a mural on it – and they are fantastic. The images generally portray some aspect of the history or people of the area. Sometimes you stumble on a stunning image in the middle of nowhere, other times you can spend some time meandering along a mapped out trail which leads you to places you’d otherwise miss.

Meeting some wonderful people at campsites and freedom camping along the way. There are a lot of the aforementioned assholes as well, but most people are generous with their time and tips about places to visit, camping information, and campsites – sometimes too generous, and it’s hard to get away.

Hot Springs – we never had a clue about the Great Artesian Basin that sits under a huge chunk of the mid to north east, and the many hot springs that are available.

Did you go everywhere? No, but we covered a lot. Colour coding on the map shows where we did go, and when. The blue line is 2018 is a precursor to caravanning – we flew to Darwin, hired a car and drove to Broome. We met so many campers and caravaners on the road we see no reason not to join in. So 2019 is the yellow trail; 2020 we all stay in our bubbles at home; 2021 is the pink trip across the Nullarbor and up and down WA; 2022 the purple took us from Perth almost the whole way round, ending in Mellbourne for a return a couple of months later in December /January 2023 to visit Tasmania. The murky orange, 2023, is our last trip along the Queensland coast.

All in all six, trips trips between April 2019 and October 2023 – no travel on 2020; 103 weeks of Aussie adventures. The Landcruiser had 18,000km on it when we bought it for $A91,000, and 95,000kms when we sold it for $A80,500. It was a machine – absolutely no problems, took us anywhere and everywhere, hauled us out of sand, rolled over some ugly terrain and didn’t miss a beat.

The caravan has new Kiwi owners who are going to live, work and travel around Australia for the next few years. They got a bargain.

How much did we spend on diesel? Don’t ask, don’t know, don’t care

Will you go back? No immediate plans

Do you recommend it? Hell, yes.