wiljen’s Adventures blog update 12/01/2021

By Will.
Title photo: Hayden at the Granites, Meekatharra late 1995.

Hello friends, family and blog followers, I hope you’re all keeping relatively sane in this crazy world. Quite a special day today for Jenny and I, 27 years ago today the second of our 3 children was born at the Pinjarra District Hospital (12-01-1994). Hayden arrived into this world at 8.30am via a preplanned cesarean birth. 

Life doesn’t often go to plan and Jenny wasn’t able to have children naturally. Still mother and child were both fine and life continued on. Five days later I picked them both up from hospital and we returned to our newly purchased small 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom, brick and iron roof home just 3 minutes walk from the sparkling Indian Ocean and pristine beach in Falcon, Western Australia.

Falcon, Western Australia, 1994. Our first family home, purchased in 1993 for $90k, (our annual family earnings at the time were $45k pa, mortgage rate was 8%) forced by Bankwest to sell in 2005 due to a credit crunch while building a new home. Many great memories.

Once Jenny had recovered enough and I’d burnt through all my annual leave I returned to my 2 week on, 1 week off, fly in/ fly out job at a Gold Mine (Gidgee) in the Murchison. It was in the era before now, before social media, before mobile phones, home computers, disposable everything. In some ways it was a basic easy carefree life. Being away from the family and home was difficult, the only communication was a solitary pay phone in the mining camp, “keep your calls to 10 minutes please”.

Eventually the FIFO became to difficult on our family dynamics and we left our cute little beach shack, packed up our small family including the dog and moved to Meekatharra in late February 1994. Still a tough life working long ours at the gold mining game but at least we were now together as a family.

April 1998 during a holiday trip to Broome WA, parenting is an enriching experience 10% of the time it’s exceptional, 80% greatly rewarding, 10% you wish you were somewhere else. Love you Harper, Hayden & Olivia.

Fast forward to 2020, some great moments like becoming Grand Parents for the first time, Jenny having her second damaged knee replaced and experiencing an excellent recovery, having a couple of short 2 week camping trips away. Some great motorbike and sailing trips. Finally taking ownership of our new Hybrid Camper Trailer after an 8 month wait was a positive highlight. Jenny making it to half a century, Will successfully completing 7 weeks working on the annual grain harvest for CBH, selling our Mandurah investment rental property (at a loss) in a “buyers market”. It really has been a memorable life altering year. 

Like most of you out there it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. The politics of fear is what we are all having forced down our throats at the moment. Now that it appears if you’re unfortunate enough to actually catch the “bug” the chance of actually dying from the “bug”  is less than *1% and as low as low as 0.3% if you’re under 65 years old, we feel we have spent enough time waiting around and it’s time to get on with living .

(* https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/).

Team wiljen are wanderers and Government pandemic generated rules and restrictions have severely curtailed our roaming (everyone’s freedoms and liberties have been permanently put on hold). Now it’s 2021 and we’re ready to continue living the life we love. Travelling, seeing and learning new things, meeting interesting people. International travel currently appears way to difficult and restrictive for us mere mortals but Australia is a big country. It’s time to take to Australia’s highways and byways, time to find freedom on the open road. 

We refuse to by restricted by the fear put out there by media, government and others. Yes we intend to follow the current pandemic rules and restrictions imposed by the Federal and various State Governments, stay away from “red zones”, isolate for 2 weeks when crossing hard borders and with in reason what ever other BS recommendations the powers that be feel they need to implement. More often then not there are work arounds and loopholes. Don’t let fear stop you from living life !

When our current State Premier “Mark McGowan” says he strongly advises Western Australian residents do not leave WA as it’s too dangerous I know the Government has lost the plot. Originally we were told we are aiming for suppression of the “bug” so our health system doesn’t become overwhelmed with sick people. Now he has publicly stated they want elimination of the “bug” (how is that even possible when planes, trucks and ships continue to arrive into WA from across Australia and the globe) ?

Right now Jenny, Rodgie dog and I are in Binningup, near Bunbury trying out our Reconn 2 Hyper Camper for a few nights, next month we head deep into the South West of WA to further hone our towing and camper trailer skills. We will also be doing a lot of bicycle training for our end to end Munda Biddi Bicycle Trail attempt in April.

Stay strong and see you out there on the road.

Will and Jenny.

Some photos from our last 3 months of 2020.

Below, Sailing off Woodmans Point on SV Elizabeth with Andrew Dunn and crew. 18th of October 2020.

Team wiljen pick up the new mobile Base Camp from Touring 360 (formally Challenge Campers) in Welshpool, Perth. Thank you Sean Anson, nice hand over. Wow very excited !

Jenny cracks half a century. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my sweetheart. Of cause it rained so we move into Lorraine’s (Jenny’s Mum’s shed). 1st of November 2020.

Will ends up doing 7 weeks on the Grain Harvest finishing up on the 23rd of December, middle photo right side, after work drinks with Liam and Lincs.