Caravanning couple's sudden 'mid-life clarity' ends in bold 24-month move
Bernie and Katrina have no plans to settle anytime soon, despite spending over two years on the road travelling around the country.
An Australian caravanning couple say they've never looked back since packing up their lives into a caravan two years ago after a sudden moment of "mid-life clarity".
Queenslanders Bernie Sainsbury and Katrina Foxall-Sainsbury both worked full time in Hervey Bay, on the Fraser Coast, before they decided to totally upend everything. Bernie, 57, worked as a building supervisor while his wife Katrina, 54, worked as a disability support worker before an "eye-opening" journey in their caravan.
Speaking to Yahoo News Australia, Bernie said "we're not young nor are we grey nomads", instead the couple "just had enough of work" and decided to make the ultimate change.
"We had a few personal events happen in our life and we just thought — stuff it, we're not getting any younger," he told Yahoo. "We could drop off the perch tomorrow, so let's go do it now and worry about it in 10 years."
The pair have toured all over the country in last 24 months, starting in Queensland, heading all the way north to Darwin, back down throughout NSW and in the new year, they even plan on travelling west for the first time. Stopping only for their daughter's wedding and a "couple of medical procedures", the couple have no plans to settle anytime soon.
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The most striking part of the experience, Bernie said, is simply "that feeling of freedom". "I realised there's more to life than working 10 to 12 hours per day and stressing about everything," he said.
"Going to smaller towns and seeing how people live, they're happy and they haven't got a lot. It just makes you see that there's more than the 9 to 5 and worrying about financial pressures."
Living off their savings and picking up odd jobs along the way on farms and stations as they go, in exchange for accommodation and supplies, the couple said it's been "just amazing" to simplify their lives so drastically.
Couple have no plans to settle anytime soon
Bernie said he believes he could travel around and "work the rest of my life on farms" and "live reasonably comfortably". "Both of us grew up in the country, but neither of us really got involved in chasing cows — real farm work," he said. "But now I just love it."
He said between the "farms, sunsets and seeing the outback country" it "just doesn't really feel like work". "Talking to people, all different types of people, from the Indigenous to foreigners, that's been amazing," he said.
The pair "love our home on wheels" — a Titanium van — and "our big girl", a Toyota Landcruiser, and especially "love the country's back roads". "We have no time limit and that's exactly how we want to run it," Bernie said. "From April 25 next year, there's no plan other than heading west."
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