Thursday 3 January 2013

turning the idea of holiday on its head

Today we collected our caravan out of storage with a different plan. Over the last few years, living in our ‘yurt with wheels’ for a few months every year has pretty much been dream living. It has helped us integrate what typically gets called ‘holiday’ into our lifestyle. In 2013 we are experimenting with another approach. Why not?



Now don’t get us wrong, Melbourne is as good a city as there is to live in, and Brunswick in particular has been a rich and deep community in which to raise our family. But we are in the last days of a twenty year season as bobos in [the ] paradise of Brunswick.

Instead of living in urbania and travelling to the coast, we’re flipping it the other way around. We’ll be living in an amazing apartment on the Sunshine Coast, a place that as Melbourians we associate with holidays, and I’ll be travelling to work.

Apart from the appetising prospect of coming home to spectacular beaches, balmy weather and therapeutic views, there is some pragmatism in our decision to relocate. My work effort will be split between ongoing involvement with the PNG Sustainable Development Program and my Melbourne based work (4000 odd kms away) which is taking some interesting and exciting turns in 2013. More to come on that as it takes shape. So the Sunny Coast is about half way between, apart from it being one of our favourite stretches of Aussie coast.

I’m looking forward to blogging about the experience of living and working in three places. I’ll mostly be blogging here, but occasionally here as it relates to what we call our yurting lifestyle. We are stoked that we can do this and its not for everyone. But if there is a message underlying this that we want to ‘shout from the rooftops’, it is this:

"Life is a gift. Don’t wait until tomorrow to do the stuff you dream of. We are not stuck, there are choices we can make, as long as we embrace the consequences that come with them."