In the last six months of 2021, Mooroopna’s Chelsea Hall has been “everywhere, man”.
Everywhere in Australia, that is.
Inspired by #vanlife social media content, Ms Hall bought a 2003 Toyota LandCruiser Troopy with 345,000km on the clock, and just started driving.
“My friend had invited me in her van the first year of COVID and we went up to Queensland for a month,” she said.
“And I had no idea this van life was a thing and started looking at social media.
“I didn’t really plan much, I just hit the road before one of the lockdowns in June,” she said.
Ms Hall travelled through NSW to the Gold Coast, where she stayed for a month with family.
From there, she was joined by friends and drove to far north Queensland, before turning west and heading for Darwin.
“We did Fraser Island, then my family left and my two friends came,” she said.
“We went from Sunshine Coast to as far as Port Douglas.”
After spending a few months in Darwin, Ms Hall and friends travelled down the west coast of Western Australia to Perth, before crossing the Nullarbor just in time to attend a wedding back home.
But it wouldn’t be right to take a road trip during a pandemic and not get held up at a border at least once.
And thankfully the pit stop was well worth it.
“We got stopped at the border when we went to enter the NT ... and so we drove to the nearest big town, Mt Isa,” Ms Hall said.
They arrived just in time for the Mt Isa Rodeo, a week-long “epic” event.
“A church put us up for free for the week and also gave us free tickets,” Ms Hall said.
And it wouldn’t be a holiday without at least one hospital trip.
“My friend fell off a waterfall in Katherine, and she was pretty bruised and battered,” Ms Hall said.
“So we drove her straight to Darwin so she could recover.”
Ms Hall ended up staying in Darwin for two months finishing work for her teaching degree.
When she finished, she headed across the Top End, then down the west coast, stopping to explore a bit of the Kimberley and swim with whale sharks in Exmouth.
You also can’t call it a road trip unless you have car troubles.
Ms Hall almost made it home before she went through the character-building experience.
“The Troopy was just gold and I raved on about it,” she said.
“And then my gearbox blew up in Perth.”
At the end of her marathon trip, Ms Hall was lucky enough to find a mechanic to fix her once-reliable Troopy before Christmas.
“This one mechanic said ‘I can fit you in’ and he charged me half the price,” she said.
“And then I shot across the Nullarbor with my sister.”
She said they fit 40 hours of travel into three days to get back for their cousin’s wedding in the Goulburn Valley.
“I literally drove straight to the wedding, I got home an hour before.”
After travelling some 25,000km, Ms Hall said would take the trip all over again and recommends you do it, too.
“I want other people to realise how cool Australia is,” she said.
“You don’t have to fly and book a hotel, you can go in your car, experience some of the coolest things and it barely costs you anything.”