2 kids, 2 BIG kids, a caravan, a UTE and getting accustomed to the travelers life

The first few weeks with our lives packed in the back of our UTE (a large 4×4 looking vehicle with a covered flatbed on the back for transporting stuff) and our 4 berth caravan has been eventful to say the least!

We have visited some amazing places, done a lot of things for the first time and met some great people but those have been the easy bits! The hardest part for me at least has been the adjustment in what our “home life” has become.

Fairly early in our travels our eldest, Max, said to us either during a strop or when tired “I want to go home”, this was initially difficult to answer as while we are travelling we didn’t really have a home. So what do you say? Well, Brad came up with a great idea of explaining to Max that:

“Home is where the heart is”

Remarkably Max accepted this and was also telling us how much he likes the caravan and the car! Cute right? Well it definitely made things easier knowing he was no longer pining for his old toddler car bed and his big bedroom. He is also doing really well socially and will tell us when hes off to the play area to meet some new friends! And isn’t it incredible how kids get over a language barrier and can play happily regardless of not speaking cantonese or german? I really like us as a family to start learning a new language….but that’s another story for a different day!

Olivea at now 23 months is loving the freedom that caravan life gives – she gets to annoy (and play with) her brother not only during the day but also at bedtime as their single beds lie parallel to each other with no barriers! She still has remnants of the baby we once had (still likes a bottle of milk at bedtime for example) but is growing and developing at such a rate its hard to see my chubby cheeked baby through the giggling, chatty and bossy little drama queen she is becoming. She is however the first one to introduce us all to everyone and anyone that she meets – so funny when we realise everyone knows who her brother Max is (she normally screams this at people just in case they didn’t hear the 5th time she had mentioned) and of course mummy and daddy!

Brad seems to have adjusted much better than I thought to the caravan life but I think its more the responsibility that he enjoys – the setup and specification of the UTE and caravan, the towing of the caravan (which on some of the roads is an art form in itself!) and then the setting up of the caravan once at a site. If anyone is interested in the specifications of the UTE and caravan that we got then let us know and we can send you some information but I will create a page and link it detailing the UTE and the caravan specs. It hasn’t all been plain sailing with our new vehicles though and we have had a small case of one of the caravan wheels blowing on Waitangi day (bank holiday)! Someone must’ve been having a right laugh as we had stopped right outside a tire shop…that was of course…CLOSED for the bank holiday! Thankfully a fab kiwi guy, Keith, stopped to help us out – what a nice guy (see what I mean about everyone being so decent and helpful?!). Anyway it turned out to be a great excuse for Brad to buy more tools and get to tinker with the caravan so crisis avoided and everything sorted!

For me the caravan has been more difficult to adjust to than I had once thought and I realise I crave certain home comforts…like a hot bubble bath! There is also very little space to move around a caravan when you have Brad and 2 bouncy children wandering around the place and I won’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into an open cupboard (yes they are at perfect head height even if they are small)! We are lucky that we went for a caravan that has a fixed double bed in the back for Brad and I, so we are not on sofa beds and have a proper mattress however being previously spoilt with a super king bed…well…you get my gist!

Overall its been a great experience seeing how our lives have adjusted to living in a caravan and believe me if we can go from a large semi detached 4 bed house with garage, shed and loft rammed to the rafters to just 7 suitcases then you sure can! The even more irritating thing is that we have only used the contents of maybe just 2 suitcases!! We could’ve saved ourselves the hassle of dragging so much stuff across 5 continents but oh well! You live and learn – and we are definitely doing a lot more of both of those things since we left the UK on our travels.

Main points I have learnt whilst travelling with a caravan:

• You become very aware of your surroundings and have an enhanced respect for the environment – after-all the parks and the wonderful outdoors is now our back garden!
• I’m more mindful of our neighbours as on a camping/caravan site you can sometimes be very tightly packed and if you can hear them…well you guessed it!
• We got a caravan that has a bathroom and a shower which we thought were absolutely necessary but in reality we barely use them (never use the toilet as I don’t even want to think about dealing with the *ness*). Everywhere has toilets and all the holiday parks have hot showers so why would you not use those?! Oh hindsight is a wonderful thing!
• Packing the cupboards is an art form and we should’ve just bought a selection of mixed sized storage boxes to start with rather than weeks down the line where things had already had a good go at throwing themselves out of the cupboards!
• We didn’t need as much kitchen stuff as we initially thought (so that salad tosser really wasn’t required haha) and regularly just use a single frying pan and single saucepan both non-stick along with 1 decent cutting knife and chopping board. We also didn’t bother with plastic cutlery and plates and just got a cheap white starter crockery set which has been fine and much nicer to eat off!

I hope I haven’t completely put you off a caravan holiday as they are perfect for escaping the real world to get back to nature and there’s nothing like a camping chair to sink into to make you feel like your’e being adventurous!

Catch you next week – haere ra!