Hello fellow Nomads! My first post is inspired by Pauline & Joe's newbie post and by this wild weather as I contemplate how much longer I can stay in bed before getting up for that word beginning with 'w' and ending with 'k' - you can see that I'm trying not to incur the wrath of the Chief here! As Pauline and Joe are almost neighbours of ours (we're in Edgewater, WA) I thought it time to stop lurking enviously and get cracking. I joined this forum in January 2015 and haven't posted yet - largely due to said envy.
Hubby John and I (Kay) are still both full time doing that daily 'w' thing for money but planning on big trips in our rig. We have a Nissan Navara ute and a Wedgetail slide-on which we bought in Nov 2014 after we flew to Sydney for my job for a couple of days and picked up both and drove it back to WA - that 9 day trip is still the longest one we've done with the rig so far
In November I'll be 60 & am thinking whether to reduce my job hours at the end of the year or just, dare I say it, retire! John is a brickie and we've discussed renting the house out and heading off - probably in about May next year after the youngest daughter gets married in March. We're up for working as we travel and I believe a few of you out there in the playground do that if and when it suits.
I keep scanning the forum to see if anyone has had any regrets about retiring but if such people exist they must be in another forum! Or maybe on a different planet? Anyway looking forward to interacting more on the forum now as we've learnt a lot from lurking and already appreciate all the sage advice and funny stuff too
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"Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. (Tim Ferris)
Your lucky, Maz and I are looking at around another 5 years before we can start! Certainly is a great forum for picking up info, and very friendly. If your in WA (which it looks like) a great time can be had at Sufil's weekender near Seabird - check out the Get Together's thread. - Only time Maz and I have used our van
As you have (like a lot of), been a lurker before joining you will know that the following message is
Tongue in cheek
In regards to not seeing any posts about regretting our retirements We are all afraid that if we try to return to the employment playground, we will be missing out on all the fun
Thanks all for the warm welcome and already we've scored an invite to a Get Together - how good is that! Thanks to Cadpete for bringing the Get Together thread to our attention and to Sufil for the event. Looking forward to meeting up with some of the friendly forum folk on the upcoming WA long weekend.
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"Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. (Tim Ferris)
And it's welcome from us two 2 yaketty. With a username like that i expect to hear plenty from you into the future .
And Kay as you are a month older than me I can blame you for me not being retired as I have to respect my elders and as such I can't retire before you so please don't delay
Woody
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When the power of Love becomes greater than the love of power the World will see peace ! 24ft Trailblazer 5th wheeler n 05 Patrol ute and Black Series Dominator camper trailer ( for the rough stuff)
Just joined the forum and noticed your comment about buying your Navara over East and driving it over to Perth, I have been looking at doing the same thing and was wondering how you went about it with regards registration stamp duty etc or did you get some kind of permit to drive it home ?
Sorry for the delayed reply - I didn't realise you had asked questions on my original post. Now I know I should have ticked 'Email me whenever there is a new post to this topic' - done that now.
When we picked up the Navara ute and Wedgetail camper it was earlyNov 2014 and the car was licenced in NSW until August 2015. We took 9 days to drive it back to WA. Before we left NSW we went to the Vehicle licensing centre in Batemans Bay to transfer the signed papers from the previous owner - not allowed as we didn't have a NSW address. They told us to go to a WA Licencing centre when we got home.
About 3-4 days after we arrived home we took the ute to local Licencing centre - to be told we'd been driving it illegally and had been since crossing into WA! Blerdy ridiculous! Also the original owner had removed one of the rear cab seats to install a second fridge as he was a keen fisherman - luckily he'd put the seat in so we could refit it - if required. We had to then apply for and pay online for a 'Permit to move' which I think was $27 per day and had to have this to cover us until we could get the car booked in for a full inspection including being weighed - which we did (paid for 3 day permit) and could not book the inspection until about a week later - so had to get another 'permit to move' for another 4 days ($100+). We 'failed' the inspection (another $80 something plus) because although the removed seat was in the car it had to be fully refitted otherwise the whole seat belt and its mechanism had to be removed! We were not allowed to refit it there and then so had to book in for another inspection - and yes that was another week later!
So we contributed further to the bureaucratic, red tape rigmarole by having to pay for more 'permit to move' days and another inspection (nearly another $200 in total) - which took all of 30 seconds to check that the seat had been refitted. After all that we had to pay the transfer & rego fee which was about $2,200. This was late November 2014. I asked if the previous owner in NSW could get back any of the rego paid there until the following August - 'their bad luck' we were told.
It it really is about time there was a national licencing / rego system with less fees for transfers and a national database. So good luck if you're thinking of buying a car or RV from 'over east' to bring back to WA. We've since heard that the crazy 'permit to move' has been done away with in WA - hope our story doesn't put you off!
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"Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. (Tim Ferris)
on the upcoming WA long weekend.
