Menu
Meet Ray and Leonie Forbutt – long-time campers, new business owners, proud paw-rents to two golden retrievers and full-time travellers in their On The Move Adventure caravan.
For Ray, their new lifestyle came from a deeply personal place.
“I lost my mum, my dad and Leonie’s father all within a short period of time,” he said. “And that just said to me, there’s got to be more to life than just going to and from work and slogging it out and paying the bills,” he said.
He started doing his research, looking for a way out of the grind, to change their lifestyle and do what they wanted to do, which was travel.
Now, they’re not only doing just that, but they have a new business inspired by their new life.
“We bought our beautiful OTM van two years ago,” Leonie said. “We were just camping, but now we’re doing a little business on the side.”
The couple run an online store selling camping accessories – not the big-ticket gear, but the smart little things that make life easier on the road.
“Lights, fire pits, covers, chairs… that sort of stuff,” Ray said. “We attend camping expos, different camping shows, ag shows, field days etc.”
Their business is mobile, just like them.
“It allows us to travel,” Leonie said. “That’s why we’re doing the expos and everything to build up our website so that then we can just work on the road.”
They’ve had the online business for about 18 months, but just recently took it full-time.
“We just did our very first big show at Coffs Harbour last weekend,” Ray said. “It’s all new to us at the moment.”
When Ray realised he was finally free to attend this year’s OTM Retreat, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision.
“I quit my job about three weeks ago,” he said. “While we were at Coffs Harbour, I said to Leonie, hey honey, how would you like to go to the OTM Retreat? Because I’m now available.”
It sounded like a great idea at the time – until they checked the map.
“We didn’t really realise how far it was,” Leonie said. “We didn’t have our dogs with us at Coffs Harbour. So we had to dump the caravan, go back to Sydney, grab the dogs, grab more food, grab more clothes and then drive all the way back up.”
They even had to swing through Coffs Harbour again to pick the van back up.
“I said to him, I can’t believe we’re nearly in Queensland,” Leonie said. “But it’s wonderful we can do that now because we’re both retired. We don’t have to be anywhere.”
Though they missed last year’s retreat, they were thrilled to finally make it to this one.
“Yeah, it’s been great,” Leonie said. “I won bingo last night… I won the outdoor cutlery set!”
Beyond the games and giveaways, they’ve loved meeting other OTM owners.
“We’ve spoken to a few people already, obviously everyone’s the same because we’ve all got the same caravan and we’re all travelling in the caravans,” Leonie said.
Ray appreciated the sense of shared experience.
“They’ve had issues the same as I’ve got and gave me some pointers of how they’ve got around it… just little things,” he said. “It’s nice to talk to other people who have got the same caravan.”
“Definitely a community,” Leonie agreed. “We’re on a few On The Move Facebook groups as well and you always get great advice from people. And Brig’s really good. When you contact her, she gets onto it straight away, which is good.”
Their two golden retrievers are as much a part of the journey as the van itself.
“We wouldn’t go anywhere without our dogs,” Ray said.
“They don’t go, we don’t go,” Leonie said.
They’re full-time travel companions and the van and gear are built around them.
“That’s why we have a dual cab truck. That’s why we bought a bigger caravan because of the dogs,” Leonie said. “We even had a little tinny, and I just went, it’s too small with these two big dogs.”
“So we had to buy a bigger boat for the dogs and a bigger caravan for the dogs,” Ray said.
Leonie said, “It’s all about the dogs – but we love our house now.”
