Every year the team come across truly inspiring families who are hitting the road for caravanning adventures with big challenges and huge hearts! None bigger than Narelle and her family from Perth.  On their Lap of a lifetime with their boys, including Zac who has Autism, showing the country that ANYTHING is possible… Real Stories by Real Families – Read their story here:

Travelling with Autism in a Caravan is a family of 4 from Perth WA living with and loving Autism.

We are Narelle, Iain, Zac and Oli. We decided to sell our business, sell all our stuff and store our sentimental stuff in storage to hit the road. We are now living in a Jayco Starcraft towed by a Lexus Landcruiser.

It was sure interesting trying to pack a 6 bedroom house, with 2 living areas and 2 bathrooms into a small caravan. Miss Moo the cat has moved in with Nanna, Taco and Bee our doggies moved to a farm in Lort River. Unfortunately, on Day 2 of our lap Bee was bitten by a tiger snake and died.

Our son Zac has Autism and we wanted to try something different with him, so the decision was made, and we removed Zac and Oli from school to explore Australia. Zac loves animals, caring for them, learning about them and holding them. He loves all forms of water and being outside. Oli loves animals too and exploring. Both boys love going off on their own adventures. We wanted to take Autism on the road to share our good days and our bad days. We aim to share how we road school and incorporate therapy into our daily Adventures. We have so many special needs families asking how we do it, is it really ok for them to move out of their comfort zone and take their special needs child camping, even for one night. Our answer is YES regardless of how daunting and challenging it may be it can be done.

We will happily admit some days are so damm hard and if you are camping near us you will surely hear the caper that is going on. But at the end of the day the memories and the fun of taking any child out into a camping set up is worth every minute.

We are well into our second month on the road now. Our first month started in Pinjarra and ended in Lort River WA. We have stopped at Pinjarra, Boddington (Armoin), Waroona (Lake Navarino), Kalgarin, Hopetoun, Esperance, Salmon Gums & Lort River. The boys have been Zookeepers for a day, toured Alcoa, tree climbing, horse riding, kayaking, visited National Parks, rivers & beaches, been to a large water slide, seen Tin Horses, been to museums & parks & more. We have been 4wdriving & looked for Geocaches. We have had a funeral & a birthday & a dash back to Perth twice. We have had 1 bee sting, 1 car battery died. 2 pairs of shoes worn out. We have had a great month of fun, adventure & exploring.

Our second month has seen us leave WA behind and we are now exploring SA. We survived the Nullarbor and were amazed at the changing landscapes. We are now thoroughly enjoying exploring the bays we have so far been to Fowler’s Bay, Smoky Bay Streaky Bay, Elliston and Coffin Bay. We have been charmed by these little fishing towns and amazed at the stunning views of the ocean. We currently have a Facebook page portraying our adventures on a day by day record, we also show posts about Geocaching, road school/ home school which also includes therapy, we post about some of the Autism moments we have, we are always open to questions about Autism and special needs. We post about mini golf, mini free libraries and book exchanges, cooking in the van, useful tips, products we use and buy.

We have a Facebook store in progress as our Blog page is being set up. The boys are also looking into posting videos on You Tube. We hope to meet some families on our adventure around and through Australia and cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings. We hope to learn from other people’s experiences and learn from our own experiences. They say it takes a village to raise a child and I am proud to be a part of the village of the ever increasing number of families hitting the road with their families and exploring our country Australia.

Narelle – Travelling with Autism in a Caravan-Australia