Why we left (the full story)

The idea had been circling around for years, even before we had kids. When we moved to Darwin back in 2015, we had a loose plan. Work hard, make good money, maybe buy an investment property, then go travelling. But like most things, life rolled on and that idea just sat in the background.

Until it didn’t.

Late 2024, early 2025, it started creeping back in properly. We’d bought what we thought was our forever home. Bigger house, more land, further out of town. On paper it was everything we wanted. But the reality felt different. Everything required a drive. There were no kids nearby for ours to just wander out and play with. It was quieter… but also more isolated than we expected.

That’s when the doubts started. We started talking about the house. Do we sell? Do we move again? Do we stay? And underneath all of that was the bigger question… if we don’t do this adventure now, will we ever?

Maddie was getting older. Time wasn’t slowing down.

So we started looking into it properly. Research, budgets, spreadsheets, what we would do with our dog Lulu, trying to work out if it was even possible. We didn’t win the lottery or receive some huge inheritance. Our original plan was to sell everything to fund it. But after getting some solid financial advice, we made the call to keep the house and rent it out instead. That gave us a path forward.

We’d been quietly saving for years without really having a clear goal. When we finally made the decision, we pulled it all together and that’s what funded the trip.

At that point, the decision was all but made, we just needed to finalise a few things and start booking it in.

Then the school situation with Emmett hit.

Some mornings we’d be chasing him around the yard trying to get him into the car. Other days we were bargaining just to get him through the gate. And then there was the day it all boiled over. He wouldn’t go in, wouldn’t let us leave, completely beside himself. The principal tried to help and he ran from her too.

It felt out of control.

We tried everything, but nothing was working. And at that point, we weren’t in a position to homeschool. We had jobs, commitments, a life built around the routine. But it was breaking our hearts.

Eventually Kia couldn’t do the drop-offs anymore. It became my job.

I’d wake up early, get an hour of work done, help get the kids ready, push through the drop-off, then drive an hour to work. Work all day. Go for a run. Drive an hour home. By the time I got back, I’d see the kids for maybe half an hour before bed.

I hated it.

That was the shift.

All of a sudden, everything got ratcheted up a notch. It became something we needed to do. Timelines were drafted up and we strategically started working through everything we needed to do.

We still had doubts though. Especially around schooling. The plan was I’d work a few hours a day and Kia would take on most of the schoolwork. She wasn’t exactly excited about carrying that on her own, and honestly, we had no idea if it would work.

We were winging it.

Maddie was the one asking the big questions. She was worried about how we were going to teach her. Fair enough. She pointed out we aren’t teachers. I told her there are no two better people to teach her maths and English. I deal with it every day as a surveyor, and Kia is a writer. She accepted that… but then asked about everything else.

I told her she’d learn more travelling than she ever would sitting in a classroom.

Emmett didn’t need convincing. He was ready to go straight away.

Packing up our house was surreal. We sold what we didn’t need, gave a lot away, and packed our entire life into a shipping container in a week. It was chaos right to the last second, trying to juggle packing, cleaning and getting the house ready to rent.

Then the container was gone. On its way to my parent place to live in their paddock.

And suddenly everything felt very real.

We didn’t even spend our last night in our own home. There was nothing left in it. We stayed at a friend’s place, ordered pizza and fell into bed exhausted.

The next day was a blur of last-minute jobs, packing, and trying to get everything done before the flight.

We made it to the airport just in time.

Dropped our dog Lulu off for her flight. Then we flew to Cairns.

We didn’t leave Australia straight away. We spent three weeks there with Kia’s family on their cane farm. That’s where Lulu stayed. It made sense, but it still didn’t make it easy leaving her there.

Cairns ended up being the perfect soft landing.

Kia and the kids slipped into holiday mode straight away. I was still working full-time, finishing projects and wrapping things up. I was stuck between two worlds. One foot in the old life, one foot already out.

Looking back, those three weeks were exactly what we needed.

And then we left for real.

Not with everything figured out. Not with certainty.

Just with a decision.

We worked hard for this. We backed ourselves. And if things go sideways, we’ll deal with it like we always do.

Together.

And we haven’t looked back since.