The caravan park is a swirling cocktail of humanity—equal parts desperation, ambition, and chaos. You don’t end up here by accident. This is where the edges of society fray, where people come to escape, rebuild, or just drift. It’s not suburbia. It’s not civilisation. It’s something wilder, dirtier, and infinitely more honest.
The myths about places like this are mostly true. You’ll find the lost souls—the meth heads with their jittery eyes and busted teeth, the alcoholics nursing hangovers under the midday sun, their faces a road map of regrets. But they’re just one layer of the onion. Peel it back, and you’ll meet the miners, working themselves to the bone, chasing paychecks they’ll probably blow on jet skis and divorce settlements. You’ll meet the families crammed into secondhand Jayco’s, riding the poverty line while their kids run feral between the gravel driveways.
And then there are the nomads. People like me and Will, with no fixed address and no real plan, just a stubborn refusal to stay in one place for too long. We’ve got a van, a dog, and the kind of restless energy that keeps us moving. For now, the caravan park is our roost, our halfway house on the road to nowhere.
It’s not all bad. For $40 a night, you get a patch of dirt, a power outlet, and the illusion of stability. The showers are clean, the camp kitchen’s stocked, and there’s a pool to soak in when the Outback heat threatens to melt your brain. And, It’s cheaper than renting,
Sure, there are drawbacks. The kids next door scream as if they’re being murdered, though they’re just chasing one another around with water pistols. The bloke in the caravan behind you snores like an old bull, and yes, you can hear the neighbour fart if the wind’s right. But these are transient problems, as transient as the people themselves. No one stays forever.
Still, there’s something oddly addictive about this life. It’s a giant share house on wheels, a transient circus where everyone’s running from or towards something. You can sit at the kitchen table and talk to a grey nomad who’s been caravanning since Whitlam was in power, then turn around and share a beer with a bloke who just quit his mining job because he thought working 90 hours a week would be easy money.
For now, we’re here to max out our 88-day stay, biding our time while Will lines up a job in the mines. Accommodation’s tight here in Kalgoorlie, especially with a dog, so we’ll dig in and ride it out. Six months, maybe, if the cards fall right. Then we’ll pack up and move on, like the dust storms that blow through this place, leaving nothing but memories and empty beer cans.
Call us gypsies, call us trailer trash, call us whatever you like. In this moving home, where the horizon is both our compass and our destination, we’ve found a freedom that most only dream of—a life unbound.
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Thanks for rolling by! If this post fueled your van life or travel dreams, hit the like button, share it with your fellow wanderers, or shout a coffee to keep the wheels turning and the journey going! - Adam, Will and Wally.