Martins BUSTA Move: BUSTA our bus

Now we had a bus we could drive off into the sunset. It became quite clear very quickly that there was so much more to it than that.

Firstly the house had to be cleared. Stuff was sold off on Ebay, friends bought lounges and dining tables, the op shop acquired a tonne of toys and the garbage tip received a few more trailer loads of ‘junk’. Boxes were packed and all our possessions crammed to either fit in the bus or in a very small storage unit. I enjoyed this process a lot more than I thought, there is something rather cleansing about de-cluttering on a large scale. We moved out of our house at the end of November back into the caravan in an effort to save a little money and avoid a last minute move at Christmas time.

Whilst we did all this the kids carried on with their normal routines unaware the added pressures of end of year concerts, Christmas parties, school reunions, fun days, canteen duty, and birthdays brought. Simon kept on working full time wishing he was working on the bus as the Christmas deadline crept closer. I made list after list of what needed to be done. I do like lists. The mail had to be re-directed and bills paid up to date. The kids enrollment forms for distance education alone seemed to take me days to fill out.

Every spare minute was spent trying to do work on the bus. So many people helped out in different ways, there were volunteer babysitters, builders, welders, people sewing, electricians, and handymen. There were gas fitters and diesel mechanics, bus driving instructors and friends who gave our bus somewhere to live for a few months. We painted, glued, cut, nailed, screwed, cleaned, drilled and sweated. It felt like the sunset we were heading for was not going to be reached. Sime’s dad Steve was over from Armidale almost every Sunday helping in every way possible to help get us on the road.

A whole week of midnight efforts still wasn’t enough to get us going on the day we planned. 3 more days of full on working allowed us to drive away tired and exhausted, but away. BUSTA isn’t quite finished yet but I guess by the time our adventure is over it might be just the way we like it.