An Ivanhoe couple who left on a six-month lap of Australia in a seventeen-foot caravan have, eleven days into the journey and 120 kilometres from home, revised their itinerary to "Anglesea, indefinitely."
The original plan, laminated and stored in the passenger door pocket, listed twenty-six stops with arrival dates, fuel estimates and a colour-coded key. Cairns was pencilled in for early August. Broome had its own highlighted box.
"We were meant to do one night in Anglesea," the husband said. "Stretch the legs, check the van's sound, move on to Port Fairy. The booking was for Tuesday."
The caravan park had a grassed powered site beside the river, a camp kitchen with a working toasted sandwich press, and a kangaroo that, according to the wife, "just stood there like it lived next door."
"We stayed Wednesday because the washing was still drying," she said. "We stayed Thursday because of the kangaroo. By Friday we'd met the people in the next van, who are from Mildura and know a lot about caravan awnings."
The couple has since revised the itinerary by hand, striking through Port Fairy, Mount Gambier and most of South Australia with a ruler. The remaining stops, listed in the new "Phase Two" section, are the Anglesea bakery, the Anglesea golf course, and a reservation to return next April.
Their daughter, who was told her parents would be "somewhere around Adelaide by now," received the update by text and has requested a call.
"We're not not doing the lap," the husband said. "We're just doing it in a more focused way. Depth over breadth."
The wife said she has already laminated the amended itinerary and attached it over the original with a bulldog clip.
"It's honestly quite freeing," she said, and then, hearing the word, added that she was only going to say it the once. The couple's CB radio, installed at some expense in Ivanhoe, has so far been used to confirm that the sandwich press is free.