Six Famous Aussies on Why They Love the Road
Turns out a country music legend, an AFL Hall of Famer and an Olympic champion all pack the car for much the same reason you do.
Everyone reckons their reason for loving caravanning is their own. Then you hear six well-known Australians talk about it and realise they're saying exactly what you would. That's the charm of Caravan and Camping with the Stars, the short video series from the team at Let's Go Caravan & Camping (the Caravan Industry Association of Australia). Six familiar faces. Six honest chats. One very familiar feeling. Here's who's in it, and why it's worth a watch.
A country legend and a couple who've seen the lot
If you're going to open a series about the great Australian outdoors, you could do far worse than John Williamson. The man behind "True Blue" and "Home Among the Gumtrees" has spent a lifetime writing about this country and looking after it, and he kicks things off with the ease of someone who's clocked up plenty of nights under the stars. No surprise the bloke who wrote our unofficial anthems has a soft spot for the bush.
Frankie J. Holden and Michelle Pettigrove bring a different kind of pedigree. You'll know Frankie from the screen, including his Logie-winning turn in A Place to Call Home, but camping runs deeper than any role. He grew up in the Northern Territory taking long, rough-and-ready family trips every wet season, while Michelle was towed down the far south coast of New South Wales before she could walk. They even ran a beachside holiday park for years. When this pair talk caravanning, they're talking about a whole life.
Sporting royalty who'd rather be by a campfire
Spida Everitt played 291 games and three All-Australian seasons at the top of the AFL. These days he and his wife Sheree host a travel show and criss-cross the country by motorhome, caravan and four-wheel drive, so when they sit down to talk life on the road, it's the day job and the love job rolled into one. Their episode is the longest in the series, and it's easy to see why they didn't want to wrap up.
Brooke Hanson knows a fair bit about pressure. You don't win Olympic gold and silver without it. So it says something that one of Australia's best-loved swimmers unwinds the same way half the country does: away with the family, phone down, nothing much on the schedule. Elite athlete, ordinary holiday. That's rather the point.
Proof it's for everyone
Jason Hodges, the landscaper from Better Homes and Gardens, has been camping since he was a kid tagging along with the rellies. Now he takes his own mob away to see the country and get everyone off their screens for a while, which is about the most relatable reason to hitch up a van there is.
And then there's Ben Tullipan. Ben is the most seriously injured Australian survivor of the 2002 Bali bombings; he lost both legs and was given long odds just to pull through. He learned to walk again, and these days he's out on the road with his wife Kerrie and their family, having completed a leg of the national Follow the Sun Relay. His episode carries a simple message the whole series quietly makes: if Ben and his family can get out and explore, so can yours.
What they've all worked out
Watch the six of them and the differences fall away. Country singer, footballer, Olympian, gardener, actor, survivor — every one of them lands on the same few things: freedom, family, and the plain good sense of switching off for a few days. Nobody's selling anything. They're just describing the kind of holiday where the schedule goes out the window and the best part of the day is a cuppa by the fire.
If that sounds like your speed, go and hear it from the stars themselves. Watch Caravan and Camping with the Stars on the Let's Go Caravan & Camping channel, then point the car somewhere good and make a few stories of your own.