After three years on the road, exploring every state of Australia by caravan, Murray and Barbara McKay moved to GemLife Bribie Island last month to establish a home base.
The adventurous caravaning couple discovered GemLife after hearing about it from friends and fellow residents Trish and Warren Brown and couldn’t be happier with their choice.
“It’s nice to have a home again,” said Barbara.
“There is still a lot that we want to see and do but with the current climate that isn’t going to happen for a little while. We’ll take this time to unpack and settle down for a bit, but as soon as things settle down we plan on doing more caravan trips,” she said.
Caravaning has always been an important part of the McKay’s lifestyle, Murray came from a family of caravaners before introducing it to Barbara and their children.
“We started caravaning when our children were very young. Back then we had tents and then bought our first caravan with bunk beds when our children were still in primary school. But now our children have their own children, so it’s just the two of us on our travels,” said Barbara.
The couple’s three-year caravan tour around the country had been in the works for a long time.
“We’ve done a lot of overseas travel while we were both working and we always said that once we retire and are able to take our time we will travel around Australia. It has been amazing.”
“There have been so many highlights, such as riding camels in Broom for example. But I would have to say my favourite places so far have been Adelaide and the Horizontal Falls in Western Australia,” said Barbara.
“It was absolutely magnificent, it’s very difficult to describe and to imagine horizontal waterfalls, it’s something you need to see.”
The McKays were very pleased to secure caravan storage onsite at GemLife but hope that their caravan won’t need to be in storage for much longer.
“Once we are able to do so, we are planning on hitting the road again. We want to follow the Murray River from New South Wales to Victoria to South Australia.
“There are still lots of things we want to do and places we want to see.”
