It was great to finally manage to track down some Grey Nomads at Greens Lake who offered us great hospitality, and loads of good advice. Thanks to John, Heather, Rod, Norma, Michael, and Tess.
I must admit we are now thinking about things differently to when we left Melbourne. We left with a very theoretical view of what life would be like on the road, and we came home with the benefit of real experience, from people who are living the dream.
We now need to write down what is important to us, how we want to travel, the facility we want from our rig, etc. We thought we had it worked out, but that was from a position of not knowing very much and guessing a lot. Now we know a bit more.
Thanks again folks!
Dave & Carol
PS, it is true, they do come out of their burrows and congregate in response to appropriate bait.
Ahh Buffy, you ask an interesting question. I will attempt to summarize what I learned.
The people we met were very relaxed, laughed easily, and were not concerned by the things that those of us peddling the treadmill worry about. Later we discovered the age of some of the people we were talking to, and we were shocked, I can honestly say they are 15 to 20 years older than they appear, we put this down to the lifestyle.
We had planned to wait until we could get on the road with what we regard as the perfect rig, recognizing that this was going to take a few more years. The people we met encouraged us to get on the road as soon as we could, while we still can. Given that I am not the fittest person around, I realize that this advice makes good sense.
We also discovered that the budget we had worked out was high. We had budgeted on $1,000 per week, and we found people living and travelling on significantly less, most of our excess was in camp fees, where we had allowed $30+per day, and to some extent in food, we have now adjusted our budget, and that changes things as well.
We are now reassessing when we will travel, we still plan to spend part of next winter in the Philippines, after that we will start doing trips of ever increasing duration. We then expect to transition into a full time nomad late 2014 through early 2015.
The other thing I recognise I need to do, is a gradual withdrawal from work, as I am the kind of person who is always focused on something, and devoting myself to it, I need to gradually switch this away from work. The transition from full time work, to full time travel will be gradual so I can manage the switch.
Now on the topic of Grey Nomads, they appear to be social animals, who exist in clusters. They even have their burrows close together. The slightest excuse and they all pop out of their burrows and congregate together. Once together they feed each other, then they love to listen to each other (may be a strange mating ritual). They also draw significant amusement from watching other immature nomads, who are going through the process of learning (example how to launch a boat).
