This story was told on the lands of the Joondaburri/Yarun people, you might know it as Bribie Island. I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge, to pay my respect to and to recognise the traditional custodians of this land, to elders past and present and Iâd also like to acknowledge all of those of you who are reading this who identify as a First Nations person.
Very soon my husband, dog and I are embarking on a journey. We are going to be living in a campervan, adopting a transient and location independent lifestyle, traveling around Australia. That’s me, my husband Mat and our dog Max. đŸ
We are days away from setting off. We will be heading off on the first weekend of March, 2024. But how did we get there? How did this happen?
Circa 2014/2015/2016 (somewhere around that time) we discovered tiny living TV shows. As my husband and I (but we weren’t married at the time) watched a little bit of the show, we realised that we were really quite fascinated and intrigued by the idea of tiny living. We kept looking for more and more of those shows and sunk our teeth into the idea and started to dream. We entertained the idea of maybe embarking on a tiny living journey of our own. Yet at that point, we had no idea how or when or if it was just a pipe dream.
Of course it’s February 2024 at the moment and we are very soon going to be fulfilling and realising that dream, which is kind of exciting. But I think it’s important that you know how we got there and understand a little bit of the story because van life was not part of our plan.
The first part of the storyâŠ
Whilst on holiday in Bali, sometime after discovering tiny living, we were at a cafe called Clear Cafe. You might be familiar with it. If you’re familiar with Bali, there are a few of them around. There we were, having lunch, when we saw a pamphlet on our table It was a flyer for a project that was created by the owner of Clear Cafe, Brett Black. It was for a project on an island in Indonesia (not Bali, a couple of islands over) for like-minded people i.e. those who want to minimise their impact on the earth, live in a sustainable way, enjoy nature and to not over-develop an area for our own personal use. Brett has gone on to create this development and expats from all over the world have agreed to be part of the project.
Securing land
And so we decided to get involved, and secured a block of land on a 99 year long -term lease. So we don’t own it, but in 99 years, neither of us will be alive. So it won’t matter. We might just, you know, pay it forward to a local family or something.
We have two 10m x 10m square block. 20m by 10m is totally tiny living, right? We secured that land years and years and years ago. And we had five years to build on the land. We didn’t know all of the specifics and all of the details and how we would get Max, our dog, over there to live out the rest of his days in Indonesia. But we were dedicated. We did the research, we looked at how we could do pet transport, the whole lot.
And then of course, a pandemic happened.
We has sold our house and moved into a rental to begin the process of downsizing. Yet our excitement was dampened by the fact that the world was going into to lockdown, and international travel was very quickly off the cards. So the vision of moving to this part of Indonesia and building on this land, sort of took a bit of a backseat.
When that freedom was essentially taken away and outside of our control, there was very little that we could do about that. It was quite disheartening. You might have hear about my podcast – the Chenae Show. Itâs all about entrepreneurial freedom. Freedom is very important to me. Definitely to my husband Mat, but I’m not here to speak on his behalf. And having that taken away was very, very challenging on top of having, you know, our Bali wedding completely disrupted and all of those plans thrown out the window as well.
The cash that we had set aside
We decided that we would take that cash that we had set aside to build a home in Indonesia, and invest in something that would allow us to still pursue that freedom domestically.
Quite a synchronistic moment
In December 2022 Mat had been researching vans. He’s very much a researcher, he loves researching online and getting information and is really, really quite good at it. And I spend more than enough time online doing my work. So I’m very happy to leave that in his capable hands. When he found the van that is now our van, it was based over in the Western suburbs of Brisbane. We were located in the Northern suburbs.
He contacted the seller and it wasn’t officially for sale yet. It was going to be available soon, but somehow he managed to find out that this thing was going on the market and managed to coordinate an inspection for us the day before it was officially going on the market.
So we get this private viewing and we knew that if we wanted to secure it, that we would have to make a decision that day because it was going to go onto the market (and it would be snapped up in a heartbeat) the following day. It was beautiful inside and the workmanship on the inside of the van is excellent.
What then proceeded to happen was a series of completely coincidental (but not coincidental at all because I really don’t believe in coincidences đ) events.
One of Mat’s old employers David (someone he calls a dear friend) is the former owner of a restaurant in Brisbane called Restaurant II. Now, Restaurant II has been closed for a number of years but when Mat started his chefing career, David kinda âdiscoveredâ Mat and his culinary skills. He was dining at the restaurant and someone hadn’t come in for their shift. And Mat, as the dishie, had to step up and help out with the food preparation. And long story short, David wanted to know who was making the food. He met Mat, he sent Mat off to go and get a little bit more extra experience because he wasn’t quite ready to be in a fine dining restaurant.
Mat would work at Restaurant II for a period of time and then he would go off, work somewhere else, gain some extra experience and then come back. And then he’d go and work somewhere else, gain some more experience, come back. And as he did, he worked his way up the kitchen ladder, starting as an apprentice and he eventually became head chef of Restaurant II, which was a pretty significant accomplishment in his 20s. All under the owner, David.
We were chatting to the people who were selling after the van, sharing stories as they all had caravans/campervans of their own. We asked lots of questions and we spent quite a bit of time there. And as the conversation continued to unfold, what we discovered was that the owner of Restaurant II was actually at that house the day before. Because it turns out that not only are these people all caravan and campervanning people, they were also in the restaurant industry.
One thing led to another and eventually we realised that they were very good friends of David, the very same person who had helped shape Mat’s career in his chefing career over the years.
We were one day out from actually bumping into him! The person selling the van was quite a spiritual person and we shared a lot of the same beliefs, she was a business owner and the list goes on
So we bought the van.
We really couldn’t say no.
It was our van, it was meant to be our van.
So that’s the backstory as to how we came to pursuing van life!
If youâve made it this far, thank you so much for reading.
And if you’ve got questions, or you want to hear more of my story, here are two things you can do:
Tune into my podcast – The Chenae Show
Read the next instalment of the story here.
See you byyyye!
