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STAY AWAY FROM THE EDGE – SURVIVAL OF THE WISEST

My name is Scott Watkins-Sully. Myself, my wife Michelle and our daughter Jessica, are modern day gypsies. We're not in the least bit "new age," we're not hippies nor grey nomads. We're survivors, who did what we had to, just to keep going. It wasn't even a gamble that paid off; we were thrust into our situation with no choice but to make the absolute most of it. We don't have two pennies with which to scratch our arses, as my mum would say, but we enjoy significant freedom and a most enjoyable lifestyle, all by means of developing our survival skills.

Our home and our wheels

I came into this world whilst London was in full "swing," at the tail end of Britain's post war rebuild. There wasn't a great deal of swinging going on in the smoky South Wales steel town, the portal through which I arrived. I've reluctantly passed the half way mark, but I hope I’ve got a fair bit left in me. I intend to achieve that by keeping active, not eating and drinking the bad stuff, eating and drinking the good stuff, but also occasionally eating and drinking the good bad stuff, because we all need a will to live.

Some years back, I found myself in the position of being a writer, with a publisher, an advance and a deadline. Following some moderate success, my short lived career ended as abruptly as it started, when my life began to spiral out of control.

After some very tempestuous years, I once again find myself comfortable in my skin as a writer. However, the skill that I'm most proud of is survival, so I've turned my hand to writing stories about survivors. Simultaneously I'm keeping this blog running in an attempt to encourage others to survive. I'm not a "blogger." I'm not even sure that "blogger" is justified in being an actual thing. In my experience, "bloggers" are self obsessed arsebadgers, focused on being noticed by others whilst simultaneously recouping a pittance from annoying pop-up ads on their pages. I'm far too rigid and curmudgeonly for all that bollocks. My survival has manifested under extreme financial constraints. It's therefore my intention wherever possible, to inspire low income earners, pensioners and welfare recipients to fight for their own survival. I want to empower them by teaching survival skills. This "blog" isn't so much a case of "look at me," as it's a case of "look what you can do."

My life isn’t perfect and I don’t have any magic or the secrets to unbridled success tucked up my sleeve. I endure the trials, tribulations and daily challenges that everyone reading this, also endures. My challenges are far greater than those faced by some and far gentler than others. My mission is to proffer a free survival guide from which anyone can take what they want, or for that matter, ignore. I don’t wish to sell products or philosophies nor to amass followers from whom I might garner empowerment. I do have some e books available for a few dollars each, through which I simply hope to provide a worthwhile literary experience in return for reasonable remuneration. That's my way of surviving, if you like.

Hunter S Thompson once wrote The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”

I’ve been over the edge. How I got there and what I faced whilst there are fairly irrelevant. Over the edge provides disparate experiences for those who have either stumbled or free-fallen in. Those who have made the fall, do so by disparate means. What’s important is how I clawed back over it and what I continue to do in order to maintain a safe distance from it. In doing so I hope to assist others to stay away from the edge and those who like me have clawed back from it, to also maintain a safe distance. I hope to achieve this by means of sharing my own positive experiences and remedies to my own set of challenges.

In undertaking this task, I have absolutely no intention of even suggesting that people live what is my life. Neither do I intend telling people how to live their own. I’m simply sharing aspects of my own survival strategies, skills and practices, in hope that others might benefit from them being shared.

Salade Nicoise with bluefin tuna

Food has played a vital role in my life as it has in everyone’s. Food is fuel for our very existence. Having travelled the world extensively from my birth in Wales, to my upbringing in Africa, to my work in Asia and the Pacific Islands, to the remainder of my adult life in Australia, I have embraced a vast diversity of simple fare, based on good readily available produce.


This isn’t a food and recipe blog, although I have a large arsenal of recipes, resulting from 15 years as a food and drink broadcaster and writer. Stay Away From The Edge is a little porthole through which to view my life, which will hopefully provide a little insight into how my family and I keep away from the edge, despite some fairly robust challenges.

Rogan Josh - Cooked outdoors

I’ll show how we catch, select, purchase and prepare beautiful fresh produce on a budget of what I term three fifths of fuck all! This insight isn’t limited to just food and drink, although admittedly they will indeed feature quite prominently. Survival is about a whole set of skills. Often as life gets harder, particularly from a financial perspective, the more necessary it is to develop one’s skills.

It’s very easy to give in to a system that doesn’t care and unless you’re a government corporate crony, the system simply doesn't care. But giving up isn’t really a good option! I’ve done it and I’ve done it to the extreme. That’s how I went over the edge. However, if survival is on your agenda, the way to fight back is all about empowering oneself to an extent that one relies less upon what the system throws at us. More importantly to rely less on what the system causes us to believe that we need in order to be valued.

This porthole through which to peek at my particular brand of survival, also looks at low cost housing, maintenance and repairs, financial management, home education, your legal rights, recycling, IT and communications, small scale off-grid renewable energy systems and general sustainability. But yeah! There’s a lot of food action.

Freshly caught steamed coral trout

Green pawpaw salad with ikan bilis

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of food blogs, food based reality TV, or celebrity chefs. In fact, I can’t bear that rubbish. I’m very jaded when it comes to one invariably despicable, self-obsessed cockwomble after the other, attempting to out wank the next with the latest unpronounceable fad that either has no validity whatsoever as a food, or has existed for centuries with a more pronounceable name and significantly lower price tag.

Good food and living seem difficult with limited resources. Bloody near impossible for some, but it's vital to our survival. Good food doesn't need to be expensive food and expensive food is frequently not so good. Good food is flavoursome and above all nutritious and contrary to what's espoused by the popular food media, it doesn't need to be difficult to make.

As it stands, food in it's simplest form, such as genuinely organic produce, has become the privilege of the middle class. The poor have been reduced to eating the least nutritious food, because the more complex, and more processed products are invariably cheaper. This by no means has to be the case. However our most basic skills have been overshadowed by our quest to play a role in the capitalist system and earn a living. I discovered that falling out of that system combined with a will to survive, led me to use skills that I luckily possessed. I now source the best produce at prices far lower than processed rubbish or inflated premium produce that's marketed way beyond it's quality. I use finely tuned skills to turn it into delicious and nutritious meals.

If I’m proud of any success, it’s in the years since clawing back over the edge, how myself, my partner Michelle and our daughter Jessica, have turned so little into so very much, with the most limited resources. People frequently tell me that we’re “living the dream.” I don’t take offence to those statements, but it brings home our reality, which has been a case of having turned a nightmare into a decent life that allows for significant freedom.

Freshly caught garfish

I figure that friends’ reactions to our life viewed via social media, is largely a reaction to seeing images of what we eat. Seafood figures significantly in our diet. We fish at every opportunity and have learned to make the very most of every catch. We have also learned to target what’s abundant as opposed to trophy catches. There’s a lot of adrenaline released by means of an action-packed fight with a large barramundi or similar sportfish, but there are regular dinners to be gained from a daily bucket of garfish or the occasional small reef shark. During the time that most people spend chasing a single prize catch, I can bag a week’s worth of smaller, more sustainable fish for the table.

Filleting a spotted guitar shark

What looks superficially like a life of travel, fishing and seafood dinners, is actually a means of survival for us. I’m not complaining about our life, I’m simply bringing to light that it’s the net result of making a number of huge sacrifices that most people would never entertain, not in their wildest dreams. Many of those sacrifices no longer seem as such. Some sacrifices I’m reminded of every day, when the limitations of our existence piss me off.

At the end of the day, the sacrifices that we initially made, were out of our hands. When we tumbled over the edge, we had little choice but to let go of most everything we valued in a materialistic sense. Interestingly as we clawed back, we came to realise that making further sacrifices made our new life easier, until eventually stripping back became almost cathartic. Letting go of possessions became akin to shedding a heavy weight. Living as we do in a 20ft caravan, weight shedding was quite literal and indeed necessary.

WHERE WE ARE AND HOW WE GOT HERE

First Boy Jack

I was once a high achiever. I worked in the field of audio for the music and television industries I also worked as a part time broadcaster on national radio, dealing with my favourite subjects of food, drink and travel. I absolutely loved my work, but I was utterly inept as a self-promoter. That had little effect on my career in Sydney where I worked largely for big TV networks, but it became a huge stumbling block later on. As I began to get a sense of the bullshit that was required to stay at the top of my field,  our first child arrived. This made it easy for me to be cajoled into a career in teaching sound for film and TV. I was far too young to take on full time teaching and felt it essential that I keep up my work in the industry, in order to remain current and valid. I ended up working a minimum of 60 hours a week. For years I worked the early morning Today Show for TCN 9 (4am start), then went to my full time job at TAFE, on a daily basis. I was burning out and my mental health suffering, especially given the constant battle with educational bureaucracy in a naive attempt to implement change. This evoked a desperate but drastically premature desire to escape the rat race and make the classic tree change; a catastrophic mistake.

Bridge Inn Braidwood

Isolation combined with failed businesses, rapidly took their toll. Whilst my lifelong dream of a small brewery and pub was realised, it was quickly destroyed by an acrimonious relationship with a completely fucking inept business partner. If that wasn’t enough, friction between me, my parents and my siblings erupted. A strong family bond of four decades all but destroyed. My life was crumbling around me.

The Brewery

The Range

After the first business disaster, I crawled back based on my work as a broadcaster and writer. This led to a major travel publication assignment centred around an ongoing national radio spot. Unfortunately my utter ineptitude as a self-promoter, stood in the way of the success I was capable of achieving. I always hated self promoters. My career experience had always been based on being qualified, I think likable, competent and experienced. I just couldn't bring myself to chutney ferret around people's arses in hope of a break. 

I subsequently returned to the recording / broadcast industry in sales and consultancy. I enjoyed my work, but it led to immense stress due to working as a sole proprietor as opposed to just turning up at work and doing a job for someone else and getting paid each week.

Michelle’s background was in fashion publishing. She was the former syndication manager for Australian Vogue. Her establishment of an unlikely success in the field of fashion retail, created the illusion that we had cracked the impossible country town market. People in fact travelled from far and wide to shop with her, but the pressure of not knowing from whence the next dollar would come and when, was immense. We literally had no life outside of the business.

Michelle and her shop

Mental health issues had haunted me for years. They reached a critical point and my participation in work rapidly ceased. Then suddenly without warning, as the result of a superficial ankle injury, Michelle collapsed with a massive bilateral pulmonary embolism, which caused a critical heart trauma. Her chances weren't good.

With 2 children under ten, I was confronted by the likely death of my wife, as if staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. Incredibly she survived against all odds and was given a clean bill of health within six months, but by that time, I had fallen apart.

My ongoing fight with bipolar disorder and years of representing my country at a high level in substance abuse were by that stage, accompanied by post-traumatic stress disorder. My behaviour became erratic and my sleep patterns sent into total disarray. I began hallucinating constantly and passing out mid conversation. I was convinced that I’d finally lost it. My mental health had failed. It wasn’t until I ended up in hospital with a suspected brain tumour, that it was discovered that my oxygen saturations were bellow 65% and I had an acquired brain injury as a result of hypoxia. My vital organs were failing and my life expectancy was around 4 days. I weighed 210kg. I was only 44 years old.

The Milk Bar

I’m a determined bastard and like Michelle, I survived against the odds. At first we failed to take the important message that such critical health events, by right, should have screamed at us. We continued to build the fashion retail business and even expanded into a classic mid century style milk bar that complemented it. That even began to succeed and it actually felt like fun. Despite signs of success, the stress of surviving in small business was immense and whilst I had made a slight comeback on the physical health front, my mental health was still falling apart and my body was being increasingly invaded by chronic osteoarthritis.

Front Window

Milkshake Flavours

Milk Bar Seating

Milk Bar Sun Lounge

The decision to quit was finally made for us and it was made somewhat precipitously. The gambling and meth addicted, henchman husband of our business landlord began attempting to embezzle funds from us. The landlord’s brother was a lawyer linked to then NSW Labor power broker, now prison inmate, Eddie Obeid. Subsequent inaction by the NSW police spoke volumes about a NSW that had evolved very little since the days of the Rum Corps. Our position was utterly untenable. We lost two businesses, which we had just invested everything into. We lost our income, our home, our future financial security and our reputation in a small town, after being dragged through the mud by the landlord, by means of the local newspaper editor. The situation spiraled out of control so rapidly, I didn’t have so much as a moment to plan my next move.

I was consumed by hate and obsessed with revenge, which literally overtook my existence. My sanity rapidly dwindled. Initially I was confined to the house by Michelle who lived in mortal fear of what I might do. It didn’t take long for our former landlord to get a sense of impending danger and wisely move out of town, but by that stage I had descended so far into a place so dark that I couldn’t see any light above me for which to set a course in an attempt to ascend.

I eventually confined myself to my bed, where I lay in a state that cycled between catatonia and fury. I had sunk to my lowest ebb and as far as I was concerned, no fate could be worse than my situation. There were no bounds to what I was capable of. I saw what was over the edge for the first time. I had no real plan to claw my way out, but I had every intention of dragging in anyone who had pushed me over. Once over the edge, where I intended destroy them. Revenge was my only focus and it was destroying me.

The Viscount

Holding on to our house was no longer an option. Amazingly, despite being at the bottom of a very dark chasm, I somehow garnered the strength to drag myself away from a year in my bed, to purchase a barely roadworthy 1968 15ft Viscount Royal caravan. I saw a very slight opportunity to pull myself together and let go of my rage. The caravan was nearly as much of a mess as me, but thankfully much of the original interior was in good condition. Slowly, I developed a focus and the potential to escape a town, which by that stage I had been trapped in for 12 years of what felt like a life sentence.

Viscount interior

Our first attempt at caravan renovation was somewhat of a baptism by fire. Our work by the standard of which we’re now very capable, was bloody embarrassing. Despite the steep learning curve, I had developed a focus and could actually start to define a goal.

I poured myself into the renovation, until we could finally experience the freedom of travelling once again and allow our 11 year old daughter to experience her first family holiday. The feeling of escape had a profound effect upon me and life began to have at least some point to it again.

My mental health began to improve and my focus shifted from revenge. Depression is a constant and permanent disability that I’ll battle for the rest of my life, but I was learning to weather the frequent tempests and cruise the calm waters when I found myself upon them. Luckily my spirits were somewhat buoyed by the fact that the federal government was able to see my disability for what it is. I was granted the disability support pension and allowed to claim my very small amount of superannuation, based on having a permanent disability.

Oddly I felt somewhat emancipated by my new status of “disabled.” It’s indeed a very difficult position to be thrust into. One is suddenly deemed to be permanently incapable of making their contribution to society that as an “able bodied / minded” person, one did by default. Despite that rather blunt adjustment, it also allayed a dreadful fear. The terror of not knowing what the fuck I was going to do next to survive and how the hell I could possibly do it. Despite improvements in my health I was still psychologically wounded. There was no way that I could face so much as a day at work and that was becoming rapidly exacerbated by increasing pain and mobility issues as a result of worsening osteoarthritis. The pension however, despite being so very meager, took a large amount of that pressure away.

Despite a new found financial security, which was indeed very meager, it soon became obvious that the caravan would need to become home. The Viscount just big enough, so after some very serious decision making, we managed to sell the Viscount and a number of our remaining personal items and scrape together $7,000 for a caravan that we could live in. We hit the track.
  

Our first trips took in the South Australian Peninsulas. We very quickly took to life on the road, despite a caravan that by that stage was barely set up to provide the very comfortable living space that it now does. As life on the road began to make far more sense to us, the few remaining possessions that we clung to (in storage), suddenly didn’t seem as valuable. The funds that they could afford us for the purpose of improving the caravan and in turn our life, seemed infinitely more important.

Michelle Crabbing, Port Germain

Jess Beach Fishing

Our fishing skills were improving more each month and we were building up a good arsenal of rods and tackle. Feeding ourselves from the sea became a reality and we soon gave up purchasing meat as part of our regular diet. On top of that we learned to depend on roadside stalls and real regional                                            growers market’s for fruit and vegetables.

Blue Swimmer Crabs

Jess with a haul of squid

The “farmer’s markets” that the majority of Australians are familiar with, are somewhat of a middle-class construct. Australia is after all, the world’s most urbanised nation and its urban populations are invariably out of touch with the realities of market gardening. The middle class are so very influenced by ridiculous notions, perpetuated by the food media. The bulk of people who shop at urban farmer’s markets are paying largely exorbitant prices for produce that’s marketed with claims of both quality and health benefits that are way beyond the realms of reality. One of the luxuries of our transient lifestyle, is an ability to source the absolute freshest, quality produce for real farm gate prices. Prices that are lower than even the inferior rubbish that masquerades as fresh produce on the shelves of the major supermarkets.

With the caravan finally set up with 12v / 240v hybrid system by means of solar power, air conditioning a generator, fridge, freezer and decent cooking facilities, we were ready to set a course for the Tropic of Capricorn. In 2005, I wrote a book for ABC Books, called The Australian Crawl – The Pubs Of Regional Australia. During the course off that assignment, we stumbled by chance upon Mission Beach in Far North Queensland. One evening at Mission, followed by a morning walk on the beach itself and a stunning coastal drive, sold me on the place like I’ve never been sold before.

All through my darkest years, I used to suggest to Michelle that one day we just “run away to Mission Beach.” It became my metaphor for happiness. By way of the most turbulent journey and still really clawing over the edge, Mission Beach suddenly was no longer a metaphor or a pipe-dream. We drove north until we saw cane fields. We drove further north

Cane Fields

until we saw coconut palms and we kept driving until we indeed reached Mission Beach. For once in our lives, we seemed to have made the right decision. The idyllic image that I’d all but created in my mind, actually turned out not to be just a fantasy. Mission Beach was better than we had built it up to be. For the first time in 14 years, I felt capable of happiness. That’s when I knew I’d clawed back over the edge.

Coconut palms

So here we are in our own tropical paradise. Surviving. Living well in fact, on three fifths of fuck all. Our lifestyle might not be what most people might choose. It probably wouldn’t have been what we would have chosen, had we not been pushed over the edge, but in many ways, I’m glad that we were. There are many things that we once took for granted that we have learned to manage without. So much so that we have absolutely no idea why we had them in the first place. More importantly we have gained a wealth that I never knew existed. Frugality plays a massive role in our survival, but rather than resent it, we take pride in it, turning it into an art form.

Mission Beach FNQ

We still journey back to that dreadful, soulless town in NSW on an annual basis. Our son and the rest of the family live there and I’m mending bridges that were swept violently away during the tempestuously dark years. I don’t particularly enjoy being back in that place for a protracted period each summer, but it serves as a stark reminder of how easy going over the edge can be. It prompts me to maintain a safe distance and to never go over again. It also means we’re safe from the odd cyclone up north.

OUR HOME ON WHEELS

The Franklin and the Defender (Landy)

So, at first scraped together enough dough to buy a barely roadworthy 1969 Viscount Caravan. The interior was in reasonably good condition and armed with few skills, but plenty of determination, we made it very presentable.

With me still in dreadful shape, we decided to set off on a few short trips. The morning we were due to leave on the first one, my very fit and somewhat youthful 75 year old father, collapsed with an extremely rare case of HSV Encephalitis. For the next six months, dad was on life support, and in prolonged comas in Canberra Hospital and eventually in  rehab in both Sydney and Goulburn. He had a very limited chance of pulling through, but a family vigil remained at his bedside for that entire time. The little Viscount became home by default. We parked in friends’ driveways in Canberra and at a van park in Sydney. It was the absolute worse culmination of some truly dreadful years and sent me back even deeper into a very dark place.

The upside was not only did Dad survive and recover with unsubstantial brain damage, but we also learned that we could live in a small space, even under the most trying circumstances. Over the following 18 months we struggled desperately to keep up rental payments on a home owned by my parents, that as a result of their own crisis, they desperately needed to sell for their own financial well-being.

We finally got to make a few trips in our little Viscount. We managed to take the first family holiday we’d had since Jessica, who by that stage was 11, was born. It was a beautiful time spent together as a family, but a stark reminder of what a disastrous toll our attempt at a “tree change” had taken on us. The second family holiday didn't go so smoothly. Jack was finding travel challenging and absolutely adamant that he never wanted to leave the place where unfortunately, we had made the dreadful mistake of bringing him up. A town that he decided was the centre of his world, but one that had all but destroyed ours. At 13Jack chose to live with my parents, hedging his bets on it being enough pressure to prevent us breaking away. We threw everything we had at attempting to keep our family together. Jack was immovable, but that wasn't enough cement us in that place where we'd suffered so much hurt. Our decision leave was literally based on survival. I wouldn't have survived another year in that place. If it meant living there any longer, I quite simply didn't want to live.

Life in a caravan with a hostile teenager, was not a desirable prospect either. I had virtually lost 12 years of my life to the horrors of depression, exacerbated by that dreadful and dysfunctional environment. My health and my youth were drained away stealthily, during those years. I wasn’t prepared to let it take another year of my life. It was a heartbreaking decision that I still deal with on a daily basis, but we had to break free and bring back the happiness that we once had, into our lives.

Even with the family unit whittled down to three, it was soon apparent that the little Viscount wasn’t going to cut it as a family home. We had a very small sum of money available as a result of being able to claim my very modest superannuation, on the basis of my disability. We wanted something bigger for around $4,000. Michelle scoured ebay and saw something that sparked her attention. She’s not one to push her agenda and she’s incredibly frugal, but despite the van having a starting bid of $7,000, she had a vision. I wasn’t exactly convinced, but I trusted her judgment, especially since she’s not one to get over excited about any potential purchase.

We drove to Sheppartion Victoria where we parted with $7,000. The 20ft, 1975 Franklin Arrow was in excellent roadworthy condition. The interior was mostly original and despite also being in very good condition, as ugly as a hat full of arseholes. Michelle’s vision must have been very distinct to be able to see through the hideous lino and a forest of fake wood laminate on chipboard. We slept in the caravan on that first night, although I never imagined that sleep would be possible whilst exposed to such horrendous curtains.

The ugly interior!

The Franklin had two separate sleeping cabins and a combined living / dining / kitchen area. Despite the dire brownness and general hideousness of the interior, it was luxurious compared to the Viscount. We got to sleep on a real queen size mattress and Jess on a double. It was a whole different experience to top and tailing on a folded down dinette and Jess on a vinyl covered foam bunk. 

We had a full size gas oven with four gas burners on top. In fact somebody had installed a brand spanking new, US made oven of the highest quality and yet had never actually lit it. We were a little mystified by that. Eventually we discovered that some of the more “senior” caravan owners are in the habit of installing very flash kitchens and never cooking on the stove or in the oven. All cooking must be undertaken outside, to prevent cooking odours. Why we wondered, didn’t they just utilise that space for something they might use. The answer is resale value. A van with a flash “never cooked in” kitchen allegedly affords a higher resale price. It’s an attractive prospect for the buyer, that they too might have a flash, pristine kitchen to not cook in.

There was a good quality range hood and extractor, a microwave that we barely use, and the piece de resistance, the original Electrolux gas / 240v fridge; 40 years old and still in working order. After a few days on the road, I too started to share Michelle’s vision and couldn’t wait to get around to making it a reality.

The evolution of our home renovation has been very much a live and learn experience. We live in the caravan and constantly learn that we need to improve one aspect or another. I wouldn’t say the vision has been totally realised, but it’s certainly a comfortable and stylish space. I honestly believe that if our budget had allowed us to undertake a full refurbishment straight away, we would have made a lot of decisions that we would have discovered needed to be subsequently changed. We took to living in a caravan right away. I initially worried that there might be a finite honeymoon period, leading to the novelty wearing thin. I suppose the honeymoon is over, but even after tribulations and tantrums, we still very much enjoy our lifestyle and the freedom that it affords us. Both Michelle and I put much of that down to the slow evolution of the project. There’s always something to improve when the budget allows. That gives us a purpose to work towards.

New Paint

So, what have we done? The first thing to go was the nasty fake wood laminated, chipboard cupboard doors and drawers. I remade them from quality plywood and painted them in a colour that contrasts the laminate. We left the laminate on the cupboards, but gradually painted the walls. At first we vowed to leave a couple of bulkheads in the original laminate, for the purpose of maintaining some originality. Michelle absolutely hated those surfaces and kept pushing her vision. Eventually we ended up with all walls and panels painted in a tri-colour scheme. Michelle was absolutely correct. The transformation was remarkable. The new scheme left the four remaining, original laminate cupboard surrounds looking drab and lifeless. We eventually mixed up a concoction of polyurethane varnish with mahogany tint and brushed it on. The result actually looks like real timber and we’re very happy indeed.

The new kitchen

The kitchen was in pretty good condition, but it needed a bit of an upgrade. That included: An electric tap, aluminium splash-back and tops, cabinets painted with tough wearing marine hull paint, a knife magnet, push to unlock pan drawer on rollers, a refurbished range hood and the addition of a pull out work top. Our favourite addition came out of a moment of destitution. We really needed a shelf over the kitchen top. We couldn’t afford materials to make one, when suddenly Michelle and Jess walked up from the beach, carrying a 20ft long bamboo pole. Jess had her sights on it for harvesting coconuts, but I promptly crafted it into a shelf, Which has since been known as “The Jetty.” 

The Jetty

Staying in caravan parks negates the need for a number of things, but staying in caravan parks is ridiculously expensive. Averaging $35 per night, it would be impossible for us to afford to do so. Given that our daughter lives with us and parks generally charge $10 per extra person / child on top of site fees, we’d be looking at an average weekly accommodation charge of $315 per week. That’s my entire pension.

We had no choice to set up for off grid living, which despite using up what little superannuation that I had, has left us able to “free camp” for as long as we like. I designed and installed a 12v / 240v hybrid system as good as (well actually better) than one finds in most modern caravans. The 12v supply switches into the existing 240v system via an invertor. I have changed all 240v lighting to LEDs that fit standard BA22 fittings and installed a  separate 12v LED system inside and out. I still can’t work out why I look into modrn caravans at night and see a blue glow as if they’re lit by insect repellent lights in a butcher shop. Every LED light that I have installed is as "warm white" and gives off the same light as conventional incandescent globes and draw as little current as any other LEDs.

Power arrives by means of 500w of solar panels. 300w flat mounted on the roof and 200 in

Battery Bank & Charger

the form of a folding portable panel, which can be moved towards the sun. The sun doesn’t always shine, so we have a small 1Kva Honda generator that can power a 25a / 240v battery charger when necessary. Our battery bank isn’t massive at 260ah, but it can keep us going for about 3 days without requiring charge. Not that we ever let it go that long without charging.

Our freezer is an old Japanese built 40L Engel, which I bought for a trip across The Simpson Desert, back in the 90s. It’s near impossible to kill. It lives in the Landy, so we have it with us whenever we go fishing or pick up anything that requires refrigeration. It has its own 130ah battery, which either charges from the alternator via a battery isolator or via the folding solar panel via an Anderson plug and separate solar regulator. The Landy will soon get its own roof mounted 100w panel.

The battery from the Landy can also be charged by the caravan battery charger via Anderson plugs. Likewise I can tie it into specific circuits in the caravan if necessary, to reduce the load on the house battery bank. All 12v wiring on the caravan is chased through heavy duty flexible conduit and all cables are oversized in terms of their gauge. A lot of modern caravans utilise very heavy duty switchable circuit breakers. I find that these are expensive and to a certain extent, overkill. All circuits in the caravan run back to an automotive fuse box which links to the battery via a pair of 10mm cables. I agree that blade

Fuse Box

fuses are a pain in the arse to change whenever they blow. That’s why each spot in the fuse box houses mini blade breakers that look like blade fuses, only with a reset switch. They are more expensive than blade fuses, but considerably cheaper and more compact than large switch type breakers. After some years, I can confirm that their performance is excellent.

Items that are sold specifically for caravans are sold with the preconception that caravan owners have a shitload of cash, an ambivalence towards quality and absolutely no fucking taste. Harsh but fair in many respects. We quickly learned that yachting supply outlets were far more suited to our needs. Despite the stereotypical image of yachties have squillions of dollars, they’re in fact very frugal. Yachties also need equipment that keeps working at

The Porthole

sea and doesn’t lend a modern plastic feel to the cabin. This has led to a caravan that’s now equipped with classic round cabin lights and a variety of maritime themed features. When we required a small rear window, $300 for a caravan specific product seemed a little exorbitant, so for fifty bucks we’ve ended up with a porthole. 

Heating is never an issue. We spend the bulk of the year in the tropics. Our summer sojourns to Braidwood can become protracted and Winter arrives when most people in Australia are still using air conditioning. We stay with family in Braidwood and have a small heater in storage there for periods during the Spring when it’s occasionally required.

As far as temperature control is concerned, keeping cool is our main objective. We opted to fit a very basic Kelvinator wall unit in what was the rear window of the caravan, which cost $300. The recommended retail was $600. We bought it as a factory second with full

Air Conditioned Comfort

warranty. Factory second meant it didn’t have a box. It was the best purchase we could have possibly made. It cost around $50 to install, it is incredibly efficient and very quiet. We have run it for long periods in outside temperatures exceeding 40°C and been comfortable inside the caravan, in full sun.

By the time we had purchased a decent roof top air conditioner and had it installed, we would have been up for over $2,500. They’re heavy, I find them noisy, I’ve heard about them struggling in temperatures over 38°C and they’re extremely inefficient. Most people who use roof top units off grid, buy 3Kva generators to power them. If you buy a Honda it would cost around $3,000. That’s $5,500 to keep a caravan cool off grid. Our Kelvinator cost $300 and we discovered to our great delight, it runs from our little Honda generator that I picked up for $400 from a bloke who parked next to out, way out in the desert!

Air conditioning is a funny thing in the world of caravaning. Older couples are kitted up with their huge roof top units and massive generators, but they don’t actually use them. It’s nothing to do with resale value. This particular bit of weirdness is based on generator protocol. Everyone has to have the biggest one possible, but it’s regarded as very rude to use it due to noise. This is largely why grey nomads leave the tropics in a mass exodus come September and head to the southern states where they can lock themselves in their house, which they don’t want you to know they own and crank up the air conditioner. Either that or move into caravan parks and plug into 240v.

Our air conditioner means that we can use it almost anywhere without fear of retribution. Our generator is so small that nobody can hear it, plus when we travel south, there’s nobody around to care anyway. Southerners flock south because it’s “too hot in the tropics.” In reality it rarely gets above 33°C, whereas Melbourne on the other hand suffers in temperatures exceeding 42°C for days at a time. We are indeed the land of the Furphy.

We’ve largely moved away from using our air conditioner in recent times, since installing marine grade cabin fans. There’s literally only one product range that can cut it  and that’s the Caframo range from Canada, that have been used by Yachties for years. I have no commercial arrangement with the company (I’m all ears Caframo), but I can’t sing the praises of this Canadian manufactured product enough.

My only fan

The compact Ultimate cabin fan moves a cyclone’s worth of air and is really quite quiet. I’ve never known a fan cool as efficiently, but the best selling point of these fans is that they only draw 0.5A when flat out. They can run for days without depleting the battery. Relying on fans as opposed to air conditioning has helped us to acclimatise to the tropics far more. Shutting oneself in a very cool caravan is very nice, but when a wall of heat and humidity hits you upon stepping outside, you’re barely able to move. Living with fans means a much gentler adjustment than that which is inherent when living between the disparate environments of air conditioning and the hot, humid conditions outside. However, fans or no fans, the harsh Australian summer often makes air conditioning a fact of life, so we’re very glad of it.

Music has been as much a part of my life blood as has food. I built up a collection of thousands of CDs over 30 years, which can’t exactly be stored in a caravan. With modern streaming services such as Spotify, there’s really no need to carry CDs at all. My collection does include many obscurities, but I’ve managed to copy those onto my laptop. Spotify is of course compressed, but the algorithms aren’t that bad. My CDs have been saved as WAV files. Whatever the file format, cabled connections aren’t suited to the caravan, so most of what we listen to is via Bluetooth, which has its own limitations in terms of quality.

When we first went on the road, I had a budget of around $400 to purchase a wireless

Sound and vision.

sound system. After visiting JB Hifi and discovering that everything available sounded like a bucket of sick, I gave up. Luckily that day I was on my way to a computer hardware store to buy a memory card for my phone. Whilst there, I noticed a special offer for a 2.1 Bluetooth compatible, computer system for $60. Having already given up, I purchased it, knowing that it couldn’t be any worse than what I heard in the $400 price range. I was a recording engineer and audio director for 20 odd years. I know good audio quality. Upon removing my cheap and cheerful system from the box and plugging it in, I was amazed. It was infinitely better than any of the products that I’d tested earlier that day. In fact it was bloody good.

We fixed a 24” TV to an arm on the bulkhead and fixed the speakers each side of it on a discreet flat bar. All cables connect back to the amplifier via a flexible conduit to the amplifier and subwoofer. I laboured to find the best possible position for the sub, on a shelf, up against a thin plywood bulkhead that keeps everything discreetly out of sight and more importantly works as a low frequency radiator. I added a little $15 routing switcher with gold RCA connections, with which to select between sources: TV and Bluetooth receiver. We have arguably the best audio visual setup that I’ve seen in any caravan or RV and it cost just $350, including the TV.

The last major upgrade that seemed insurmountable, was the bloody horrible lino floor. As

The New Floor

horrible as it was, it had been professionally laid and was very solid. I got a couple of quotes to get it replaced by a flooring specialist and they came back at around $500 to do about 9 square meters. I thought that was insane, so we looked destined to put up with it. Then I stumbled upon an article on painting lino. With a light sand, a couple of coats of a specialist primer called Griplock, a couple of coats of water based acrylic and finished with 4 coats of water based polyurethane (with a sprinkle of glitter – Michelle), we                                                    had a brand new, hard wearing floor. It cost us $75.

With the essentials taken care of, we started thinking about a little luxury and extra storage space. The bed was on a large box with storage underneath. It was a nightmare to push back the mattress and get under there, so the biggest storage area was not being utilised. A new bed frame made from some leftover timber, a couple of $30 gas struts and the locking clips from an old backpack, gave us a bed that lifted under its own steam and a huge amount of storage space.

That really just left luxury. Jessica’s cabin was very basic and teenagers like to have a

The Jess Mess (Desk)

decent space in which to exercise their right to be in petulant moods. Jess is educated at home, so we needed to design a space that would serve as both a bedroom and a study. We constructed a sturdy desk at the foot of her bed, allowing her to sit on the bottom of the bed itself and work on her computer at the desk. We constructed large open shelves with lipped edges, above each end of her bed. These allows her ample storage for clothes in baskets that are held in place by the edges when we move. Teenagers are worse at putting things away than I am, so we needed to design the space so that we could just hitch up and go without having to secure anything. We even keep a wireless printer on one of the shelves. It’s set up and ready to print whenever its needed. It was a continuation of a theme throughout the interior design. We never have to do much before setting off on a journey and everything is where we left it, when we arrive at our various destinations.

The Jess Mess (Shelves)

The last bit of luxury was one we had to save up for. The vinyl covered foam corner lounge that was an original feature, was absolutely fucking horrible and depressingly uncomfortable. Whilst in the process of ditching more of our worldly goods, I came to the stunning Italian leather corner suite that we had paid $3,500 for in 2001. It was worthless in terms of resale, but all the same a beautiful piece of furniture that had served us well. We made the decision that a quick trip to the tip and a farewell without ceremony was our only option. Then I had an idea. Out came the Stanley knife and of came the luxurious red leather. I also removed the high quality sprung seats.

After some consultation with the local saddler, we came up with a design and the job was

The recycled corner lounge

under way. He was a grumpy old bastard during the process, but we ended up with a stunning, comfortable, hard wearing and very stylish, Italian leather corner lounge, custom built for the caravan. It was done in stages to spread the cost, which probably accounts for the saddler’s grumpiness. Whilst it was the single most expensive item in the entire refurbishment, we think that the $1,100 spent on craftsmanship, was money well spent, although admittedly on a luxury.

More Loungey Stuff

This kind of job is never complete. We always find something new and there’s always maintenance to be done. We’re currently working on making the caravan solar passive. We realised that it was becoming a struggle to air condition the van in extreme conditions, due to heat generated by sun on the roof. Just the roof hatches alone, literally worked as radiators. The air conditioner might have been on, but it was fighting against two heaters in the roof that were actually too hot to touch.

We insulated the hatches so that they no longer caused heat to radiate in the caravan.

Redesigned extractor skylight

Another problem was that when the air conditioner was on, they had to be closed, because they let in warm air through the disgusting dust collecting fly screens. We removed the fly screens and put in seeled Perspex windows. Now the hatches remain open when the air conditioner is on and act as skylights. We have not only negated the loss of the open hatches, but improved their cooling capabilities by installing solar powered, whisper quiet extractors in the top of each hatch. Hot air rises and our caravan it rises and gets extracted. 

Original 1950's Boomerang Handles

As the project has progressed we've added little nuances to make it feel like home. Back in 2010, I bought a 1956 kitchen from a someone who was renovating their house. I drove to Sydney, paid the bloke $100 and uninstalled it. It sat in storage for years. As we were scaling down, we realised that despite being a thing of beauty, nobody was ever going to buy it. Even that was recycled for its classic boomerang handles and push button catches. It was a big effort to make in return for an item that was never installed. It was also a shame that it would never be recycled as a kitchen, but that beautiful hardware would have cost us up to $500 and they look absolutely stunning in the caravan.

We'll keep finding jobs and I'm sure that there's many I haven't mentioned. I haven't even started to mention the exterior, such as aluminium cladding and completely new running gear. But those are nuts and bolts renovations. Some exterior upgrades are aesthetic and superficial and others pertain to road worthiness. However, the heart of any home renovation is all about what's on the inside.