When solo traveller Vida Whale first left Perth with her ute and caravan, her plan was to spend a few months on the road.
That was more than 12 years ago … and she just never went home.
The secret to making the most of this ‘wonderful lifestyle’, she says is to simply slow down.
Part of the way Vida has slowed down her own travels, at the same time as temporarily becoming part of various communities, is by volunteering.
Her first ‘gig’ was back in 2013 in Longreach, Queensland, when she catalogued photos and was allowed to camp at the back of the Stockman’s Hall of Fame in return.
Serial volunteeer, Vida, still loves to camp.
She then volunteered as an office assistant with BlazeAid following the 2015 fires around Waroona in WA. Vida’s stint at Waroona also led her to start housesitting through locals she met there.
“I spent the next four years house and farm sitting in between travelling, and made some lovely friends in the area,” she said.
Vida spent her 70th birthday at the monastic town of New Norcia in WA, and ended up volunteering to archive the letters there for the monks. Nearly a year later, the gargantuan task was complete and Vida was on the verge of leaving when Covid struck. It led to her staying two more years while she used the Mosaic program to make sure all artworks were correctly recorded.
This experience then led to her finding other opportunities at Beverley Museum, Gundagai Museum … and, at the Nungarin Heritage, Machinery & Army Museum in WA.
“They give you two weeks free at the caravan park in exchange for two weeks volunteering,” said Vida. “I remade a booklet, did a mud map of walking trails, designed a museum road sign for a quote, and did other office work.”
When Vida returned to WA this year, she began volunteering at Nungarin again, and now also helps out at Wyalkatchem, 70 kilometres down the road, on alternate months ‘for a change of scenery’.
She says all these country museums desperately need volunteers.
“The town populations are getting older and the young ones don’t seem interested,” said Vida. “Although my work is mostly computer based, there are many other jobs.”
At Nungarin, she says, these include everything from restoring farm machinery, dusting, and greeting visitors.
“It is such a pleasure stopping a while and becoming involved in these lovely small communities which is something that didn’t happen when I was driving around admiring the scenery,” said Vida. “Funny thing is that I don’t normally go to museums after I visited the Herberton Village in Queensland several years ago … and realised that many things in there were from childhood!”
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