Grey nomads who criss-cross the country enjoying the Big Lap … and looking for a new place to call home … have suddenly got some serious competition.
For years, a significant minority of retired travellers have been selling their high-priced family home in the city and hitting the open road keeping an eye out for a super-affordable ‘home base’ in some beautiful country town.
The pandemic though has changed the game. Suddenly, thousands of people of working age are embracing the flexibility afforded them by staying out of the office … and regional Australia is looking good to them.
Lawrie and Lourdes have been looking for a new home base.
The tiny south-west Queensland town of Quilpie made headlines recently when it effectively offered ‘free land’ to new home builders.
Quilpie council’s offer of grants of up to $12,500 – the equivalent of a new block of land in that area – has attracted a massive response nationally and from overseas, including more than 250 inquiries from as far afield as Hong Kong and India.
Stuart McKenzie, the mayor of Quilpie, said “if we got three or four homes built out of it, we’d have been happy, but the amount of interest has been extraordinary”.
Quilpie council CEO, Justin Hancock, said there was a lot of interest from families living in the cities coming out of lockdown because ‘they don’t want to be locked up, they want to enjoy wide open spaces’.
And that all means a lot more competition for the likes of grey nomads, Lawrie and Lourdes Thomas, who sold their family home to hit the open road back in October, 2019.
“We are maybe looking to settle down and purchase a home but we’re still not sure where this will be and we’re in no rush,” said Lawrie. “We have seen some absolutely lovely places on our travels.”
Their planned two years on the road expired earlier this year, but the couple seemed suspiciously happy to keep doing what they’re doing … and definitely aren’t rushing to put down a deposit.
“Being grey nomads, we can sleep in every day if we wish, we start and stop whenever we want,” said Lawrie. “There are no time limits, and we travel at our own pace … loving it.”
