One
of the joys of living on the road is meeting new people and hearing their
stories. Part of the reason that Steven and I have moved into a campervan is to
trial another way of living even as the median house price in Sydney reaches a
million dollars. We run into Alan
Melville at the Dubbo campsite. He is in
the process of biking across Australia from Newcastle to Alice Springs and then
across to Perth, Western Australia. While
I love biking, the thought of riding such long distances, carrying all my gear
has no appeal to me. However, I am in awe of someone who is about my age and is
still able to live such an active lifestyle.
Alan
is a father of twins and a sparky (electrician). In between biking across
Australia, he flies back home to Perth if a job comes up—he says it helps pay
the bills! We meet Alan as he is
unpacking his rental van. He has in fact
had a bit of a hiatus in WA working on a job and has just flown in to Dubbo to
pick up his gear and re-start his bike trip.
Our friends and family were amazed that we could consider living in a
van for a year. Alan is basically
carrying his tent, his food and water as well as his communication equipment on
his bike as he travels across this continent.
He
regales us with stories of his previous exploits in remote locations all over
Australia. He raised his twin girls
while pursuing his hobby and when they were younger he would often pull them
out of school for 4-5 months at a time to take them camping in the
outback. He says they settled down for
the last two years of their schooling and are now quite the city girls, living
in Sydney with full time careers. Alan
says their teachers said they had turned out to be amongst the most well balanced
and confidents kids of their class. We
are not surprised that, for now, they have chosen to live the city life. Kids often desire a life that is the complete
opposite of what their parents provided.
No comments:
Post a Comment