- Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Our simple quest for freedom, and why we ditched our road trip around Australia.
I remember reading 'Into The Wild' many years ago, and being so intrigued by the concept of just disappearing off into nature to live a 'spiritually meaningful life of freedom'.
I had been taught to understand the conventional definition of freedom as having the 'power or right to act, speak or think as one wants', but figuring out how to weave this into my life still eludes me.
Living in Australia we are granted this liberation on many levels, so please forgive me if I sound a little ungrateful or pessimistic at times. It's just that when you spend your entire life buying into this theoretical way of thinking, only to discover that in reality the path to true freedom is lined by a series of fences, gates and chains, you can feel a little cheated.
Even when we step beyond our own back garden to explore the world, the path may get wider, but if you look closely the fences are still there, even if they are just a little more exotic to look at.
Call them fences, call them boundaries or even laws, but to me they feel like chains...dark shadows lurking in the background somewhere!
Some may welcome them as sensible means of protection, to keep the baddies out. But how do we find that balance between following all the rules while also having the freedom to follow what's in our heart? There are so many good people on this planet who can be trusted to act responsibly and take care of it. We simply want to enjoy what is on offer without having to constantly look over our shoulders or put our hands in our pockets for the privilege. It may be free to go to the beach for example, but where do we park our cars, and for how long? If you have dogs like we do then you can only enjoy a small portion of this freedom, or else the long arm of the law will slap you with a fine. Don't get me started on all the plastic bags they make us carry their poo in!
Spending free time in nature should be our right, not a privilege we have to continually pay for.
My obsession with testing these boundaries is probably what feeds one of my other obsessions, travel. Over the years it has lead me on many adventures around the world. Observing other peoples' fences I guess you can call it. But somehow that didn't seem enough.
What I really longed for was the answer to my question. Is it possible to live a life of true freedom?
As ironic as that sounds, with the lifestyle that we were leading for many years, with a large house and an even larger mortgage, we actually couldn't afford it! The price of freedom was too high, literally. For years we stayed chained to our lifestyle. The more we earned the more we spent, the bigger the mortgage became, the more we worked, the less freedom we had....and so it continued. Sound familiar?
So earlier this year my partner Tony and I pared things right back to basics and set off on a road trip around Australia to prove this theory wrong. We sold practically everything that we felt was anchoring us to the one spot in order to travel freely, indefinitely. It was a really challenging process removing some of those rusty old chains, but eventually we got there. Our 4 bedroom home morphed into an old bus we named 'Sunny'.
Minimalism 1 - Consumerism 0.
Surely a low budget, stress-free adventure in a bus would provide us with the lifestyle of freedom that we so craved?
Our dream: to experience what it would be like to live without all the rules, regulations and restrictions that were fencing us in.
We figured we would be totally free to live the simple life we so desired, totally off the grid with the added bonus of getting to know our amazing country a little better. We had done the time and now we were free! Or so we thought...
We soon discovered the truth. Travelling in this way, at least on the East coast of Australia is a very expensive, overcrowded and largely frustrating experience on the whole. The good old days of the budget Aussie road trip and the concept of free camping no longer exist, unless you are willing to share this privilege with thousands of other like-minded adventure seekers crammed into roadside truck stops or campsites.
It stands to reason that in the huge expanse of Australia a road trip is the best way to experience the country. There are literally thousands of people moving around in their various modes of transport at any one time, ranging from budget backpacker vans to the uber luxurious caravans resembling spaceships. These are often the choice of the cashed-up retirees or 'grey nomads' as they are affectionately named. But along with that comes a plethora of rules, regulations, restrictions and fees in order to keep the masses under control. This wasn't exactly what we had signed up for.
In our naive planning stages we assumed we would have a lot more freedom of choice. Choice of where to stay, when and for how long.
After all, we are good people who live by a belief that we should leave a minimal footprint wherever we go. Being in harmony with nature is our main priority every day, not just when we are travelling.
In theory a road trip in Australia sounds amazingly liberating, but unfortunately our experience taught us that this privilege comes at a pretty hefty price.
When we added up all the expense from fuel , campground fees, tollways, surcharges, park fees, food and even the cost of a bag of timber to light a fire ( only when it was allowed ), our freedom journey was in reality quite restricted and disappointing on the whole. Those chains were still holding us back.
Wherever we went we had to pay or we risked being fined or ushered out of town. This actually happened once! The local security guard tail-gated us at 10 o'clock at night, forcing us towards a crammed free camp spot beside a service station. Insert angry face here!
It also didn't help that we were travelling with our 2 dogs. This presented us with even more expense and restrictions unfortunately.
It didn't take us long to come to the conclusion that if we were to find true freedom and the peace we so yearned for we would have to buy it.
So after twelve weeks of being continually herded with the crowds, we ditched the road trip and did just that. Our freedom odyssey had spontaneously evolved into a search for land. After driving over 9000kms we were drawn back to the beautiful Noosa Hinterland in Queensland, where we soon found our piece of freedom. Ten acres of freedom with no fences at that!
The truth is we are still not completely free because the property falls under council regulations and all that goes along with that, but at least we will be as close to living that dream as we can manage in Australia anyway. We may even get a peaceful night's sleep too, unless we allow the chorus of nature sounds to disturb our bliss. Not likely! The chains may not ever be released, and the fences still do exist even if they are invisible at this point, but we have definitely widened the borders between us and them.
It feels like by settling on this piece of pristine bushland to make our home camp we can finally loosen the belt a little, put our feet up in the hammock and breathe.
It's more than a little disappointing that something as free as freedom has to come at such a high cost.
So, is living a life of freedom our right or a privilege? Our Western lifestyle is so closely monitored from every angle, and we really have no choice but to weave ourselves through the complex web of boundaries (aka laws) if we want to avoid punishment in some way. Or maybe the truth is that the amount of freedom we have is proportionate to the size of the fence we can afford?
Here I must pause to apologise again for my pessimism.....
We did see some incredible sites, and stayed in some beautiful places along the way. It's just that in the 85 nights we were on the road we only managed to slip under the radar and free camp just twice! Is this really justified or is it overkill? I mean we are more than happy to contribute to the upkeep of our beautiful outdoor spaces in Australia, but all we wanted was to be left in peace occasionally to breathe the fresh air...foc.
Our dream is to simply take down some of those fences and freely enjoy this beautiful country in it's natural state.
For now we are content to have found our piece of peace. We cannot wait to embark on the next leg of our journey as we roll up our sleeves and bring our dream to life, creating Sundari Wellbeing Nature Retreat. A quiet place where we can live 'freely' in nature. As freely as we are allowed for now anyway. Watch this space...
“I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want.”
- Andy Warhol
Here here!
Let's hope for a future of a little more freedom to enjoy our beautiful outdoors, and a lot fewer chains.
May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free.
Danielle & Tony
( Frankie & Georgie )
ps. We would love for you to follow our progress and keep up to date by subscribing. Better still, get in touch if you are interested in being a part of this beautiful transformation. We always welcome a friendly hand in exchange for the true experience of living off the grid in freedom.
Couldn’t agree more!