Moving On: The new journey

If you have been reading my blogs, you will know we have had the house on the market for a few months now, ready to downsize the property and up size the bank account - we had always said our home was our major contributor to our superannuation and over the years we have always thought of it not just as our home but as our super. After 2 weeks of being under contract we have today finally gone unconditional and the property is now SOLD!

We have loved our time here at our most beautiful home in a long list of homes and this home truly put life into perspective for us as well - with the kids being young adults it was our first home in over 20 years that wasn't about kids, but about adults and adult pursuits. This home taught us how to really live again and enjoy life past shopping, cleaning and raising kids, it gave us the ability to learn new and wonderful things like boating and going out (we had spent so long too far away from the mainstream on acreage or semi rural areas) we had forgotten how fantastic it is to live close to everything and where nothing is more than 20kms away, but more importantly most things are less than 5 minutes away including beaches etc.

In November we had signed up for a new community at Hope Island call Halcyon Vision which is a new over 50's community on the water http://www.lifebeginsathalcyon.com.au/halcyon-vision/ - it is perfect for us given we get to build yet another new home (yes I know another one but we love building our own home), it's still on the waterfront (although we have not chosen a waterfront property - but just behind waterfront), marina, boats we can use and everyone is an owner occupier and over 50. It was a no loose situation as we were able for a very small refundable deposit secure the block and home we wanted at the right price subject to sale of our property - so we could get in at a great price and great value and we had plenty of time up our sleeves to sell. Why is this important to us to be in a community like this you might well ask - well over the last 12-24 months we have been looking at heaps of wonderful waterfront units, villas etc but all of them seem to have a lot of renters and a lot of holiday rentals - we had decided we definitely didn't want to put our hard earned bucks into something rented by tattooed cashed up 21 year olds and putting up with the S&D they present. Also as I have put in other blogs sometimes we miss community, we miss having people to talk to - now don't get me wrong Derek and I can seem to talk all day every day to each other and still have something to say - but we love it when we are away to have others to share things with and this is probably one of the major things we have missed since being retired - camaraderie and being a part of something. We also get access to heaps of great facilities such as gyms, boats,pools, boat shed and marinas and its 5 mins from where we live now and area we absolutely love.

However there is a down side to this story - we sold our home lock stock and smoken barrel ie all furniture etc and our new home won't be ready until January/February next year - so what the hell do we do for the next 8 months - especially with nothing but some clothes, a few pieces of crockery and cooking utensils? Well you guessed it maybe -  we are off to be grey nomads for at least 5 months - we are buying a camper trailer and heading out west given the winter months are best for this - I have always wanted to go to Alice Springs and this provides us with the perfect opportunity to just head where the wind takes us. With no plans and no place to be at any particular time. I would like to be back by November and then we can do a short term furnished rental over the summer months until the new home is ready.

We started looking originally at Caravans, but like most things they get pretty expensive, and to be honest I want to be able from time to time stay in a motel or a resort when available so we went, lets just get a camper trailer and do half camping and half motelling ie: if the weather is great and the parks are great then we will stay in the camper, but if its raining or we want a bit of luxury etc then lets motel it - if we had a caravan you couldn't justify the cost of the van plus the cost of motels, but with a camper trailer you can - we will either love it or hate it - but remember this is what our retirement has been all about - trying new things and this is all a part of that journey.

So like all our adventures so far - we don't know what the future will hold, but we will have a beautiful new 25 sq home (our first home was 13 sq's) and we have done a full circle from 13sq's to 70sq's and back down to 50sq's and now 25sq's but it is  in a waterfront area, with heaps of facilities, good size block, lovely finishes, secure for when we go away and with people who are roughly in our age bracket (although most we have met are a little older but hey thats cool as most of our friends are older than we are), and heaps of good things for us to enjoy in an area we love.

Did we get want we wanted for our house? Well put it this way - we didn't loose $300,000 like most in the area who are doing fire sales, we held tight to what we believed and with the buyer also wanting all our furnishing, artworks etc well we were happy with what we sold for and we made a statement to the area - you don't have to give your property away if you believe in it, as we did.

So this weeks adventure was find the exact camper trailer we wanted and begin understanding a trip to who the hell knows where a bit better.

Here are some of images of our past 2 homes.  Cant wait for photos of our new home.  So keep watching this blog for some of our new camping outback adventures!