• Get a job as a cleaner on White Warrior, the Antarctic supply boat
• Flip burgers / clean rooms on a deep sea fishing boat and see the world for free
• Travel & work from roadhouse to roadhouse around Australia
• Clean / do handy person work at stations around Australia
• Be a seasonal caretaker on a station in the outback
• Do a short course and drive giant trucks at the mines
• Work as a fish feeder and tour guide at Ocean Park in Shark Bay
• Get paid to work with camels in Perth
• Be a charter boat diver & guide on Ningaloo Reef
Stepping out of the debt ridden "comfort zone" has opened my eyes to just how many possibilities there are out in the world, and it's not so hard to do when you don't have any "stuff" to drag around or worry about. I continue to throw things out from the bus as I strip my life down to simple essentials - I don't need all the clothes or shoes I thought I did, and it's incredibly liberating to know I can go anywhere with half an hour's notice in my little self-contained house on wheels.
Right now I'm blogging from my carport desk, looking out over the red soil and sage-green palette of the bush. There are some barn swallows nesting a few feet behind me in our roof cavity (we have double roofs for the heat) and each day I can hear half a dozen different songbirds plus cockatoos (when Duncan & the blokes aren't bashing on pieces of tin & swearing).
There are peculiar moments where I suddenly think, "God, I'm actually homeless!" - it's not a feeling of insecurity as such, just an odd feeling along the lines of "where do I belong". But I've learned that on the road you do keep running into people you know, and when you stop for even just a couple of days you often end up forming pleasant little neighbourhood interactions with others. Stopping to work at places like this helps create that sense of community & identity which seems to be a basic human need, so I know that if and when I or we decide to move on, that sense can be rediscovered.
Living as an itinerant vagrant with Duncan is weird but great - we don't have to "make time" for the relationship, it's just there. Because we're working near each other a lot, we get to see each other when we're not tired or stressed out, and there's no emotional hurly burly at the end of the day when each of us wants some "cave time". We've also got separate sleeping areas for when we just want a nap or a night alone (it's hard to get used to having another person in the bed, especially with pets weaseling in at night), and if you feel like a bit of idle company there's the kitchen and the barbecue area to sit & have an end of the day drink with the other workers.
Oh oh - grey nomads are starting to wander closer with that "what kind of inverter have you got" look in their eyes...
No comments:
Post a Comment