Those things you pack that, well you really don’t need…

Alrighty the time has come for us to share with you just how much extra and unneeded crap we had stashed away in our car.

Just a little intermission blog post between our travels to the Whitsundays. I promise this post is insightful and hopefully entertaining…

If you have been following our story for a while, you will know that we left Perth with half our house in the boot. At the time we assumed we had packed everything we needed, thinking that each item would come in use at some point on our trip. Well we were wrong!

Anyone ever packed a shit load of stuff for a trip that they didn’t need or use? Well for anyone interested this is what we packed that we did not need, did not use or had in excess. Have fun reading.

First item:

Sheets

Now how many sheets does a couple really need? Well it seems in the haste of packing up our house I packed I’d say 6 sheets.

I must justify my initial packing decision ok. If you think about it, when your camping in the bush after a few days without a shower you want to have at least a clean bed, right? Well that’s the first justification.

Second, would be the fact that we would not encounter a washing machine for quite a while, or really need one for a few weeks for that matter. And so having that many pairs of sheets seems logical.

Well no it’s not. I’ll tell you why. We had one set out of the 6 that were the softest and nicest, and so we kept on using it. We would wash it and then use it that same day, ensuring we washed it with enough time to dry.

That’s commitment to a sheet! So the first item to go was 4 pairs of sheets.

Food stocks

Good old food stocks. What everyone thinks is a good idea to pack when you are going camping. Well again another big no from our perspective or shall I say experience.

Ok yes we did pack what was left in our pantry at home, so a bunch of baked beans cans, heaps of half full sauce bottles and I’m talking all sauces you can think of like tomato, hoi sin, fish sauce, red and white vinegar, olive, truffle, avocado and even coconut oil. We had more tin’s of beans, cans of tuna, corn and the likes. And that’s just scratching the surface really.

You can imagine that all of this stuff took up a lot of room in our car. In fact originally when packing up the house we had 3 massive plastic tubs. They didn’t all fit in the car, and on our day of departure Lianne, Alex’s sister, was able to minimise everything into one box. But we still had too much.

I hope you are all happy to know that someone at the Cairns Holiday Park is enjoying our half filled bottles of coconut oil, hoi sin sauce, a whole bunch of cans and whatever else we did not need.

It was actually a really great system where anyone can donate food and other items to go to a good home. Nothing goes to waste, which we are extremely happy about. #waronwaste!

We have learnt from this trip that we only need the essentials; they being salt, pepper, olive oil, kejap manis, vinegar, siracha and kewpie on occasions when we feel like it. You can imagine this would take up a lot less space than whatever else we described before?!

It must be noted that we still carry stocks of rice and pasta, but only one bag of each, not 3 like we did have when we left Perth!

We are surviving on a shop every 2-3 days, unless we are referring to the Gibb River Road which was an exception. But we keep it simple and shop as much fresh produce as possible. It’s cheaper, but also healthier which we try to maintain.

Containers

Next item on the list would be containers. Anyone who knows me well understands that everything has a place and I need everything in a place. As such everything was in a container that corresponded to whatever it was, whether it be food, electronics, games or even pots and pans.

Well life does not work that way, especially if you are living in a car.

At first my need for order was a little overwhelming, however as time has gone on and our need for ease has increased, the number of containers needed was reduced. However until this spring clean we conducted we had in fact accumulated more containers than what we left Perth with.

So in the pile went about 5 containers. We gave a few to a Dutch couple we encountered, again in the Cairns Holiday Park, who were happy to have some containers for their trip. The rest was left in the donation area. When we left the caravan park they were no longer there, so kudos to our donation.

Shoes

Anyone else struggle to decide what shoes to take with them on a trip? No that’s just me?

Ok well what about if you pack a pair of Blundstones, a pair of sneakers..maybe 2, a pair of heels, for me not Alex, a pair of ugg boots, also me, and then two pairs of thongs each, is that enough? I may have a few other pairs of shoes in there but well I’m a woman so no judgment!

Well we can easily say that, other than a few hiking occasions, we have in fact only worn our thongs. Everyday, all day, in a pair of Havaianas. #thonglife am I right?!

Blankets

So we are in Australia and yes I know it gets bloody warm here, but we did depart Perth in winter and it does sometimes experience cold weather.

Thankfully we have actually missed all of it, but along the way we have encountered a few cold nights, even a few where it got to 0.

When packing we considered that it would be 3 of us to begin with for the first month. Whe then of course also considered that along the trip we would even at times be four people. That meant packing enough blankets to cover us all when it got cold, if it got cold.

So we had our doona, a supplementary doona, a sleeping bag, two other blankets and then of course the famous sheets I mentioned above. We also had pillows enough for 3 people.

All of this takes up quite a bit of room.

Now we still have all of these blankets, and I must say that they have all come in great use at some point, or even many along our journey so far. However we have had two, three and four people in the car at one time, which meant that we had so have these supplies.

In saying that after our trip went from 3 to just us again, my wonderful aunt in Broome gave us one of those space saving bags. We shoved the doona, extra pillows and now another blanket in there. We have then stored another blanket in the base of a bag in our boot. It is there for emergencies, but otherwise its out of the way.

This is our solution, and we know we have too much with us, but it has all come in handy.

Be warned Australia can get chilly.

Books

Last on our list of items that we really could have done without is books.

Books of all kinds. Firstly ill start with all those travel, road map, pamphlet types. We left Perth with at least three different travelling Australia books. They are all fantastic and have come in use many times, but they do take up a lot of space.

Do yourself a favour and just get one. The one we use the most is definitely the free camps book that my nan gave to us. Has everything you need in one book.

The second type of book would be those for reading pleasure, which would be my books. Now I did not pack many, only bringing along 3 hard back books and bying a third whilst in Bali. But they take us space, space that we don’t have.

I was fortunate enough to donate two of the books at random places around the country, just at book exchanges in campgrounds. It made me feel great leaving them for someone else to enjoy.

Since then I have not in fact read the other two books, I actually use my iPad and my mum’s Amazon account. In fact I have read over 10 books on there. Thanks dad!

Annnnnnndddddd that is what finish’s this post. We have written another post about all things essential that we have needed and used whilst being on our trip. Some extravagant like our Nespresso machine and as simple as our spice box.

We will post it very soon so stay tuned!

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