What does it take to change your life, the way you think and your desires for things you don’t need. For me it was one car and one motorbike….
Even the title sounds like a dream. One that Ive been searching out for myself for some time now. I never graduated from school and after dropping out at the tender age of 15 I kind of bounced into a life of retail and low paid jobs.
With a father who was a cabinetmaker by trade and a craftsman painter and decorator I managed to stumble my career (for want of a better word) into working in a paint and hardware store.
Customers just assumed that because I worked there and that my father was such a great builder and so skilled in turning a piece of wood into a piece of practical art that i too would succumb to the same skill set, but sadly no… I’ve never built anything in my life.
Meeting my best friend and wife some almost 20 years ago we shared the same goals and longed for the day when we could have a big piece of land with animals and veggies.
It was always a dream, something we did to pass a Sunday afternoon. We’d take a drive to the country and ponder over pastures with “For Sale” signs tied to the fence.
Our jobs were paying well, we had the large city home complete with the pool, designer kitchen and walk in wardrobes, yet something always felt like it was missing.
A car pulled out one morning while I was riding to work. It took me from 60kmh to 0kmh in a matter of seconds. At first I thought he saw me , then he pulled out…. there was literally no time to do anything, I hit him hard, the impact threw me more than 50m up the road. The accident resulted in a hematoma bruise that covered my entire thigh and multiple stitches to the back of my knee. I was off work for a month and took 5 months to fully recover.
Talking to the guys I know who run the motorcycle riding academy at the local motorbike shop all agreed, any faster or should the car have been another 1m further out onto the road I would be a dead man.
It was during this time that I came to realize that unless I made some drastic changes to our current way of life we would continue to go to work and be allowed to have our two day weekend for the rest of out lives….. trust me, that’s not a way of life…. That’s a life sentence in a prison with no walls.
It was from this accident that we realized that life is short and life is what happens to you while you’re busy doing everything else.
We decided that we wanted to see the world, travel is a passion for both of us. So we started to sell up everything we owned. Our goal was to get everything we owned down to a weight of 20kg as this was usually the Airline baggage allowance.
We spent the next 2 years selling our house and selling everything that was of value, we were on track…. Then we took a trip to Vanuatu…. And our life path turned and sent us blazing a new trail….
After 6 trips to Vanuatu we found our slice of paradise and purchased a 65 year lease on a 1 hectare block with our own sandy beach on the northern island of Espiritu Santo.We’ve met some wonderful new friends in both Port Vila and on what we now call our island.
While still working in Brisbane for now we are constantly looking at our pictures and videos while also researching every website and social media page to discover more about our new island home
In September of 2015 we plan to spend our first month on the land building a small shed which initially will be our shelter. It’s scary knowing that we together have never built anything, so the challenge starts. In the future we plan to build a bigger home using natural materials and to live off the land. We’ll have our own water, solar energy, organic produce, chickens, goats and pigs….
Now all I need is a little help with a shed….
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