We are the Quinn Family and “Lapping the Island” we love exploring, adventure and hate to sit around and do nothing. We are a family of 5, Dereck 36, Jayde 32, Paityn 8, Koby 6 and Lahni 8 months old and we are loving our new life on the road.

We now live by the moto “don’t count the days, make the days count”

We chose to sell up and travel our magnificent Australia. With the Aussie dream changing from people whose primary goal once was to own a house and have a mortgage, it’s now a realisation for younger generations like ours to simply get up and go and worry about a castle sometime later.

We’re seeking out adventurous places to travel through as a family and excited to share our experiences with you.

We have no set time frame and no road is too hard to explore.

Our tow rig is a 2016 Toyota Landcruiser Sahara that has been set up for touring and towing. Our caravan of choice after extensive research was the Lotus Trooper 21.6-foot triple bunk.

Although we’ve done plenty of camping, we are fairly new to the caravanning world and before we set off, we had a few modifications done. One was a long-range fuel tank on the vehicle, but if you haven’t learnt how far you can travel off road and towing with a full tank yet, you may, as we quickly discovered you might get caught out.

After watching a YouTube series about Gove Peninsula back in 2015, Nhulumbuy has been on our must do list. But we were like so many other travellers and not too sure if we should or shouldn’t tackle Nhulumbuy for many reasons,

  • Will the van stand up to it?
  • Will we have enough fuel capacity to get all the way out there and back?
  • Is it worth breaking anything and holding up the rest of the trip?
  • Will there be civilisation?
  • Is it safe for the kids?
  • Is the fishing as good as the fishing show made it out to be?

We went to Katherine information centre who have all the information on what you need to do to go to Gove. The permits were easily obtained through the Land Council in Katherine with no worries at all, we went in at around 4pm and by 4.30 we had them signed and handed to us just before they knocked off. You do not need to pay for these Permits, however that night we paid and booked our dates to enter the general permitted areas of Arnhem land, Gove Peninsula.

 

After calming down for a second I sat up late googling as much information as I could to see what to expect. Jayde prepared for EVERYTHING; I think she felt like we were going to be stranded in the desert for months. We couldn’t sleep with nerves, obviously both very different nerves, Jayde was scared, and I was so bloody excited about what was to come.

Stay tuned for part 2 “the Journey out to Nhulumbuy” soon

 

Cheers Lapping The Island