After many years in Sydney, New South Wales, we’ve moved north – a long way north.

In April 2019 we began our Big Lap of Australia searching for new adventures, scenery, experiences and a future place to call home. Cut short by a family bereavement in the UK just as Covid began to take hold and then dumped by Qantas leaving us stranded for ten months – long enough to experience all four seasons from cold through to cold again.

Hello Queensland

During our first few weeks exploring Queensland we stopped on the Sunshine Coast and very quickly fell for its unspoilt scenery, laid-back style, friendly people and, of course, great coffee. Unknown to us at the time we would be returning and on a more permanent basis.

New State, New Home

In 2021 we started seriously to consider moving north to somewhere warmer during the winter, cooler during the summer and closer to the coast. And the first place we thought of was the happy times we had spent on the Sunshine Coast in 2019.

We had long thought of building a new property in the classic ‘Hamptons’ style and began researching designs and builders settling on a GJ Gardner design that was on display at one of their regional show home sites near Sydney.

And so began the search for land to build on…

Not a Good Start

In early February 2022 we went to collect our Jayco Silverline Outback caravan from covered storage only to be greeted with dismay. Mold was growing on every plastic surface inside the van, in and around the skylights and along the ceiling joints. Then we discovered the doona and mattress was soaking wet. Puzzled, we noticed a sizeable rusty hole in the roof of the storage shed directly over the rear skylight. How water had got in to the van was a mystery. The caravan had been out in pouring rain with no issue apart from a small leak around the fridge roof vent in 2019. It had previously been in the same storage location for months with frequent severe weather events and no leaks.

We had already booked overnight stops in New South Wales and Queensland and we couldn’t hang around. So several hours of cleaning followed by a fruitless complaint with the caravan storage owners saw us heading back to our house to start loading-up for a six-week trip.

A bit of Luck

Heading north, our first overnight stop at Bateau Bay brought us a bit of good luck. The mattress was far too wet to sleep on but it was slowly drying and coincidentally right next to us was a caravan repair agent, who was working on the site during the season. He climbed up onto the roof and immediately saw the issue. Some mindless caravan builder at Jayco had put screws right through the water barrier that secures the skylights to the roof panel. Luck had prevented any earlier leaks with heavy rain running right off the roof but a persistent drip was all that was required to allow water to penetrate. Fortunately a spread of silicone sealant was all that was required to fix the problem, for now.

Unable to sleep in the caravan overnight we had to resort to one of the site’s cabins to give the mattress longer to dry out.

Popcorn

Okay, not the edible variety, popcorn in this case was just one sign of the damage the leak had caused. The roof panels of the caravan are a sandwich of glass fibre, solid foam and plywood coated in a vinyl textured liner similar to wallpaper. The water had travelled down the skylight screws through the foam layer and settled on the plywood causing it to expand. The result was a pitted surface in the vinyl reminiscent of, and unpopularly known in America as a popcorn ceiling. At least we were covered by insurance… or so we thought! More on that in a later post.

The Search Begins

A few more stops on the way at Forster, Sawtell and Lennox Heads before we finally arrived 1,026km later on the Sunshine Coast.

We met with one of GJ Gardner’s very knowledgeable agents to walk through the house plans and Queensland’s building process. All up we were to expect an 8-month build – much quicker than we had expected. All we had to do now was to find a large enough, level lot for a single storey house with good views and a space to store the caravan. How hard can that be?

Well, as it happened much harder than we had hoped. Yes there was land available and in some lovely areas too, some with sea views some looking over fields or the plains and some among the Sunshine Coast Hinterland nestled in recently cleared forests. But all came with issues.
The Sunshine Coast is a mix of volcanic mountains, steep hills, open plains, marshland and forested National Parks. Many of the established settlements would have been a challenge for the caravan and our legs when cycling. A couple of lots we later discovered had known issues with the site engineering leaving properties subject to potential landslides. Nothing we saw really met with our wishlist or were not level enough, massively overpriced or not the right area for the style of the property we were intending to build.

We spoke with real estate agents, checked the property listings in the local papers and searched the Internet. We looked at options for newly built homes but were either not of a style we liked, too near to main roads or schools or too far from shops and cafes. While admiring the sea views in an area we explored on our earlier ‘around Australia’ adventure, we spotted an interesting, very modern house that we had seen on the Internet. Initially Catherine wasn’t too keen to take a look but a little persuasion and a quick call to the real estate agent and we were hooked. Nothing like the style we had intended, metal clad, on a steep hill and very industrial with lots of concrete but it had everything we were looking for; plenty of space for the caravan, low maintenance build and gardens, a pool, a big garage, a cinema room and views over Noosa National Park to the sea.

We had a lot to think over. Buying an existing house was never part of our plan. Initially we were looking to at least a year before we moved to Queensland – plenty of time to get our house in Sydney on the market and sold. A second visit the following day, an offer accepted and the owners agreeable to a 45-day settlement left us searching for a local solicitor. Ever efficient as the Australian State’s system is, we needed to enlist a Queensland-based solicitor for the purchase and a New South Wales solicitor for the sale requiring communication between the two. In the end we were lucky and worked with two excellent solicitors who made sure we were aware of the intricacies of buying and selling between two different states.

Get your Skates On!

We were now left with a big problem compounded by a recent deluge the likes of which the locals had never before seen here. We urgently had to get back to Sydney to get our house on the market and achieve a sale within 45-days – a tall order at the best of times and the main route to Sydney closed for 160km as a result of storm damage. Our only option was to head back cross-country and hope the roads were clear. They weren’t and we spent 4-hours waiting for the road to open at xx with the bridge underwater. Not the best way to spend your 60th birthday!

Sold!

What followed was perhaps the most stressful time of our lives. But we did get a buyer for our house just as property prices in Sydney were about to take a downward path. Despite further delays and complications with our buyer’s solicitor we finally made the long drive north to settle into our new home and now call ourselves Queenslanders.

We’re at the start of a brand new adventure.