28 feet + 3 Kids Under 3

Tag Archives: Australia


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Cabin Fever

We’ve just had our first weekend escapade in Wallabee.

We stayed at a camp ground in Sorento, where we were rained in.

My better half went fishing with friends at the crack of dawn. That left me to entertain two hyperactive one-year old’s and their fiesty big sister – in 17 square meters of space.

Two words to describe it. Cabin Fever.

We were joined by three of our friend’s children who were camping nearby. Luckily I brought along an iPad.

We survived the weekend. Just.

So we’re planning to do this for a whole year? With three kids?

What are we thinking?


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How flashing your boobs can get you places.

We finally registered Wallabee, our 1968 Airstream.

Though it nearly didn’t happen.

We were ten minutes late for our inspection with VicRoads.

Ten minutes! 

I apologised (while juggling two hungry, wriggling babies) and explained that it took longer than expected to hitch up, have Wallabee weighed at the Public Weighbridge and find somewhere outside the registration office big enough to pull up.

However the most surly woman you can imagine dismissed us with a grunt, insisting we had missed our appointment.

I thrust our now screaming twins in her face and told her “we and our 28 foot caravan (parked illegally outside) are not going anywhere.”

She called the Supervisor. By that stage I’d pulled out my boobs and I was breastfeeding the boys. In tandem, to the fascination of the crowded office.

Her Supervisor took one look at the spectacle and within no time Wallabee was inspected and granted her new Australian number plates.

Mission accomplished.

(For those of you interested in the technical aspects of importing a vintage trailer into Australia, her right hand door wasn’t an issue. The only thing we were required to do was have her VIN Number engraved onto the trailer A-frame as the original VIN is on the front door).


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A right-sized life

Our blog has inspired a blog piece.

I initially blushed when I saw our family photos alongside those of our trailer renovation up on the HofArc website.

For those of you who can’t be bothered scrolling through lots of old posts, Wally Hofmann has done a great job outlining our motivations in buying and renovating a vintage Airstream.

You can click on the photo below to read his piece. You’ll also be able to scroll through some photos of Wallabee (our Airstream).

We still need to repair the cracks and dings from her arduous journey to Australia. We have 5 months until our year-long road trip, but hope to have her registered and on the road for some shorter trips in March.


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8/52

“A portrait of our children, once a week, every week, in 2013.”

Juju: “Mmmm, I like it. I’m really happy, Mum.”
Mowgli: He has a sweet tooth and inhaled his icecream in no time flat.
Coco: He HAD to climb with his. Up onto the Ikea kids kitchen for a view out of the window.
He was followed quickly by his partner in crime.

Icecreams on a crazily hot day.

We’ve been melting in our uninsulated 1920′s weatherboard home.

It’s currently 35 degrees (95F) at 10pm inside the house! (And about the same inside our Airstream).

It’s our sixth day in a row of plus 30 temperatures and crazy humidity here in Melbourne. Most of Australia has had the hottest summer on record.

It’s too hot to sleep so I’m posting Week 8 of Jodi’s 52 Project a few days early.


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6/52

Water babyHouseworkTeething“A portrait of our children, once a week, every week, in 2013.”

Juju: At the pool – “Whoops I did a burp Mum. It’s not spicy… Look I’m a mermaid. Look Mum, I’m making footprints out of water.”
Mowgli: Teething pains.
Coco: Vacuum cleaner obsessed.

Did I mention the twins are STILL teething?

It’s been two months of hell. They don’t sleep, they don’t eat and they won’t wean. (Or stop biting). Hence the lack of written blog posts.

Sometimes I fantasise about hitching up our Airstream and skipping town. Just for one night of unbroken sleep…


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The Barechested Architect

airstream3911

No one believes that I chose Matthew Hofmann, based entirely on his talent, for our Airstream project.

When I initially showed a friend Hofmann’s Airstream portfolio, “giddyup”were the first words to escape her mouth as she caught a glimpse of the Architect. Immediately followed by: “Does he come with the trailer?”

I assured her it was his designs that had caught my eye – I hadn’t even noticed his rippling pectoral muscles – but it was largely his story that sucked me in.

indexNice solar panels

Just two years ago, the sustainably-minded Architect from Santa Barbara purchased his first vintage Airstream on Craigslist.

Despite designing million dollar villas by day, Hofmann was looking for a way to downsize his life, so he remodelled and lived in the 25 foot trailer for one year with his girlfriend.

His incredible renovation inevitably caught the attention of Airstream enthusiasts around the world (such as us) and inspired his company Hofmann  Architecture, run by Hofmann and his media savvy father Wally, to specialise in small space design and Airstream customizations.

airst_1_intmain

The 1978 Airstream Tradewind that started it all.

We took a leap of faith when we enlisted HofArc to buy and renovate a 1968 Airstream I found on ebay.

The decision was based, crazily, on a handful of online photographs I stumbled across of Hofmann’s Airstream and the serendipity of spotting the very same year and model of trailer at a mechanic’s workshop down the street. (They are still quite rare here in Australia).

Suddenly we found ourselves sending money we couldn’t afford to lose, over to a complete stranger in a faraway land.

But thankfully my gut instinct didn’t let us down.  And now our newly renovated Airstream has arrived in time for Christmas (she’s currently waiting to clear customs). Best Christmas present ever.

Here is my video interview with the vintage Airstream designer-extraordinaire. You can also check out what Wallabee looked-like before Hofmann worked his magic.


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Renovating Wallabee: 24 hours to go

This time tomorrow, Wallabee will be delivered to the port in L.A, ready to be shipped to her new home in Australia.

It’s been a crazy two weeks of renovating , with five men on the job to finish her by our deadline.

I can’t wait to see and post the final pictures.


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Weekly Photo Challenge: Foreign in their own Country.

A few years ago, I was in an elevator with an Aboriginal friend who was visiting Sydney, when a little boy innocently asked his mother “where is he from Mummy?”

Instead of asking, she took one look at the colour of his skin and proclaimed “Africa.”

My friend looked away, clearly embarassed. “He is from Australia,” I corrected her.

In fact he is an indigenous Australian of the Yolngu people, one of the oldest living cultures on earth.

Yolngu have lived in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory for at least 50 thousand years. However the majority of Australians had never even heard of Yolngu until the film Ten Canoes took out the Cannes Festival Special Jury Prize and was nominated for an Academy Award – it was the first feature film shot in an indigenous Australian language.

Many moons ago, I had the privilege of being invited to Ramingining, a small, remote town in the heart of the Arafura (crocodile infested) Swamp where Ten Canoes was filmed. I am ashamed to admit before that visit, I had no idea English is the fifth or sixth language spoken by many of the 800 Yolngu who live there. Some don’t even speak it.

The theme of this week’s Photo Challenge has inspired me to share some of the images I took of that trip.

For a world traveller, Ramingining is one of the most foreign places I’ve visited.


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Renovating Wallabee: junk space

And we were worried about where we’d put all our stuff? I think there are more than enough nooks and crannies by the looks of things.

Our Airstream renovation is really moving along now, though with a shipping deadline in two weeks time there is still a lot to finish.

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