White toes are seeing the sun for the first time in many months as RV owners slip into thongs in Sunny Gunnedah.
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John and Lorraine Hall are among the RV owners who have come from all over Australia to converge on the Gunnedah Showground complex for the Campervan and Motorhome Club of Australia (CMCA) National Rally.
The pair have been in the club for 26 years and have attended about 20 rallies, with Barcaldine their first.
They have been around Australia three times and haven’t stepped foot in their Brisbane home since May.
“We enjoy the lifestyle,” John said.
“We love to get away.”
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Lorraine said they enjoyed the “companionship” and spend a lot of time with Marion and John Hartnett who they met when they lived in Maryborough, Queensland.
“We’ve probably done about 13 cruises together. We motorhome together too,” John Hall said.
They recalled a unique Christmas Day spent on the Nullarbor Plains in 2015, with a “great, big” brown snake discovered under the picnic table. It was said that John Hartnett may have packed it in and hidden in the motorhome.
Fellow CMCA members Cathy and Garry Lee have also had their share of adventures. The pair hail from Canberra but “live on the road”.
“We’ve only been home 33 days this year,” Cathy said on Tuesday.
The pair are hauling a brand new Paradise Independent Deluxe, which is a home away from home.
“Ours has everything in it that we have at home except a dishwasher,” Cathy said.
“And you have to have that, otherwise you won’t use it.”
Garry joked that no matter how full the motor home was, “Cathy won’t leave home without 10 pairs of shoes”.
“You can always find another spot for shoes,” Cathy said.
You’re able to form your own opinion about places if you travel there.
- Garry Lee
The travellers have seen much of Australia and said "we love the Kimberleys”.
“We’ll go back there just towards the end of the wet season to see the waterfalls,” Garry said.
Garry said visiting so many places “dispels a lot of the myths” about them.
“You’re able to form your own opinion about places if you travel there,” he said.
“It’s more about the characters we meet.”
The couple recalled a man they met in a caravan park in the Barossa Valley who thought he ran the park. Cathy said he would come looking for them in the afternoons to sit with them and enjoy a wine.
“He was really sad when we were leaving,” Cathy said.
The CMCA National Rally will wrap-up on the weekend.
