by David Bates
Family of four take to caravan, leave Sydney behind
Two Australian city-slickers have traded in their Sydney lifestyle to escape the rat race with their two young children in a luxury caravan.
Matt and Kass Pine have taken their two children, five-year-old Luca and three-year-old Sullivan, on a nine-month caravan tour extraordinaire, leaving behind their hard-earned and much-enjoyed careers.
Britain’s Meek family are famous for their caravan tours, frequently taking their children from school on long cultural trips, but it looks like they’ve got serious rivals.
The Pines considered themselves typical Sydneysiders; Matt plied his trade as a sports scientist for top Aussie Rules side Sydney Swans, while Kass co-owned Boheem Design in Surry Hills for eleven years.
Self-confessed spenders, a significant proportion of which was on the pricey mortgage on their Lilyfield – an inner west Sydney suburb – home, Matt now home-schools elder son Luca and Kass works remotely for Boheem Design on a smaller scale.
Both parents acknowledge their plans were blessed by a strong property market and Kass’ existing business. Kass said: “After chatting with my business partner, we agreed I could access equity I had in our graphic design business to purchase our caravan and Jeep, and then it was a case of reducing our debt so we had as little expenses as possible while we were on the road.
“This prompted us to make the decision to sell our house in Lilyfield. Fortunately we sold at a good time and we were then able to use the profit to make a couple of new investments,” she continued.
A partially owned flat in Surry Hills was fully settled, with the resultant rent now providing valuable income on the road and they laid further foundations for the future in an ‘off the plan’ property in Brisbane.
Neither Pine professes to be a monetary guru, in fact they required advice from Equeus financial planning to ensure their caravan dream could become a sustainable and practical reality.
Travelling in a caravan has obviously brought the family together, but the Pines have also made an effort to visit family members who they may have missed in city life. Beginning on the east coast, Matt said: “We moved at a pretty leisurely pace for this segment of the trip as we had lots of friends and family to catch up with in different places which included a detour into Armidale – the country town where we both grew up.”
They certainly aren’t looking back just yet and their trip has already taken them up through Townsville, west through the Outback and Queensland, north into Katherine and Kakadu, onwards to Darwin and Kimberley in West Australia.
Matt admitted: “It will be difficult to think about going back to normal life,” but plans are certainly in place, with Kass using the trip as an opportunity to develop an All-Australian Stock Photography business in conjunction with her Boheem Designs partner.
Having bitten the bullet, they are now living a life many fantasize over, but few experience, and understandably they have no regrets. What’s more, with a landscape as spectacular as Australia’s, they’ll definitely have some holiday snaps to remember.
