For the last five years, Peter Cairns and Allison Thomson have been traveling Australia in a forty foot 1984 Austral Tourmaster motorhome that they affectionately refer to as the Gauntlet.
Why do they need such a big coach? Because 9 kids, 2 dogs and a cockatoo take up a lot of room.
The whole tribe - "it's hard to keep everyone still!" says Allison
I caught up with Peter and Allison by email, and we chatted about the challenges and triumphs of life on the road with a big family.
1. What initially inspired you to adopt a nomadic lifestyle, and will you continue traveling indefinitely?
After both growing up on the Gold Coast, one of Australia’s top tourist spots, we always saw lots of tourists come and go and always thought maybe one day it would be nice to travel. Then one day Peter was working and speaking to a customer about traveling Australia, she said there was a bus down the road decked out for traveling. He took us all for a look even though that one wasn’t suited we went home after being inspired with a plan to take off around Australia.
We see no end to our traveling, even after 5 years we are loving it and have no intentions of stopping.
2. How have you funded your travels so far?
On the road we have an air-conditioning business called Vast, working around the country helps fund our trip. After too many years in the air-conditioning business we are now looking at going down a different path and learning about photography/filming.
3. What’s been the biggest challenge of traveling with nine kids?
The biggest challenge of traveling with nine kids would have to be the caravan parks, we do a lot of free camping and running everything off our generator, but we like to find a park to stay in when we plan on stopping in a place for a little while. We have had places say they just don’t take that many kids as it upsets the grey nomads, nothing against grey nomads or some of the parks we have stayed in but we are usually stereotyped.
Beaudine and Tyrrheanna
4. How about the biggest highlight or success?
The one that stands out the most as being the biggest highlight of our trip so far would have to be the night we went looking for crocs with a few torches as when you shine it on their eyes they shine red. We didn’t find any in the water but had a two and a half metre salty walk up from behind us coming from a kids play ground. It’s the quickest all of us have ever moved trying to all squeeze into the car door. This happened at a place called Swim Beach where the day before we had been cooling off in the water there.
On that note our biggest success was finding accomodation in Darwin.
5. Out of all the places you’ve been, which were your favorites, and why?
Our favorite places would have to be Exmouth, Dampier, The Kimberlys and Darwin.We have so many, but these are the ones that stand out.
Exmouth we loved for its swimming, isolation, and the wild emus that roam the town. We also plan to go back to swim with the whale sharks one day soon.
Dampier is good for swimming also and boating around the archipelago.
The Kimberlys are just breathtaking.
Darwin is endless for the things that you can do, there is always something happening.
6. What technology do you use on a regular basis? What about internet access?
We have a couple of computers throughout the bus that are used quite a fair bit. We have only been on the internet for a year, before that if we wanted to use the internet we visited the local library in the town we were staying in. The internet we use is wireless and very expensive and slow and we have not lived in many isolated places since having ourselves connected so we are not sure yet how it will go, soon see.
7. How do you think your children’s learning and development have been affected by the trip? Are you doing any formal education while traveling?
With our children’s learning and development, well the older ones who have what we say lived in the regiment lifestyle of a house, schooling and just the everyday lifestyle of most people are very different now they have been stimulated and inspired from our travels, they strive for bigger and better things, have learnt to mix better than before with other kids and people from different backgrounds and nationalities. And I would have to say they have been places and seen things many kids may never experience.
Our oldest daughter Maddison made it on to the UK show Escape from Scorpion Island, she had the confidence to go through all the interviews, a weekend in Sydney’s recreation centre, and when filming began she spent nearly a month with the other cast and crew in a hidden location on the Gold Coast with absolute no contact from us. And in that time away she had to overcome mental and physical challenges she has never experienced. I think that her experiences with travelling helped her achieve that.
Brock at Brisbane Museum
The younger five haven’t really experienced the life most kids have, two of them have lived on the bus from little babies and the other three have been born whilst travelling in different parts of Australia so all they know is life on the road. As for the education, we were working through a distance education system but we found it didn’t suit, so we taught them and then placed them into schooling in the Northern Territory as we were there for a while, they loved meeting different kids but as from now as a family we have decided we will teach them ourselves following the curriculum and not bother with placing them into schools. We are all happy with that decision.
8. This is a question for the kids. Hi kids! What’s your favorite thing about living in the coach?
The kids say a big hello too! And after reading your question they have come to the conclusion that their most favourite thing about living in the coach is you get to take your home travelling; you are not stuck in one place, you are in many places seeing many things.
(end of interview)
Are you a nomadic family? Share your experience in the comments!
I want to help you find your calm center and experience travel with courage, curiosity and compassion.
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