Wayne, Vikki and Astro pull up at the Peaceful Place and share their full-time travelling story. Wayne retired at 59, bought a caravan, and—with Vikki as chief itinerary planner—set off to explore Australia at their own pace.

In this episode, we talk about their 50,000 kilometres on the road, the Nullarbor, Kalgoorlie, Fremantle, Margaret River, a memorable run of wild weather, and the strange experience of watching the sun rise on the “wrong” side of the country.

It’s a relaxed yarn about retirement, family, freedom, caravanning, and making the most of the chance to get out there.

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Mark swapped 30 years on the railways for a paintbrush, a Jayco, and his big dog Ned. He's not waiting for retirement — he's out chasing sunsets and painting the Aussie bush, red dirt and all. No timeframe, no plan, just the road. This one's got tomcats, lost licences, and the kind of yarns that only happen when you stop for a while.

Welcome back to Stopped for a While, the podcast about the travelers who roll into the Peaceful Place on the Fraser Coast, just north of Hervey Bay, and the stories they bring with them.

This episode, Barry sits down with Bryan and Cath — grey nomads currently living out their "If Not Now, When?" tour after 30+ years in South Australia. They share how they first crossed paths at 15 and 16 in high school, lost touch, and reconnected years later in a Darwin pub. From a 14-foot caravan with two kids in the '90s to today's big lap around Australia, they talk near-misses with a five-year-old grandchild's birthday, close calls with real estate near the beach, and why "everything's within cooee of everything else" out here.

Plus: a shampoo-and-conditioner mix-up worthy of the Peaceful Place bush telegraph, a tribute to the park's veteran community and the local RSL sub-branch, and a teaser for the next guest — Mark, another ex-rail worker following in Cliff's footsteps.

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Stoped for a While is brought to you by Mac Mouth Media, with music by Ben Clayton.

Episode 18 of Stopped for a While pulls into Serenity Caravan Park on the Fraser Coast, where host Barry sits down with Cliff — a former Queensland Rail linesman whose 32-year career ended after a serious on-the-job back injury. Cliff shares his journey from working the tracks around Brisbane to rebuilding his life on a disability pension, all while staying close to family (helping out at his son-in-law's air conditioning business) and returning to the beaches near Tugun that he's visited since childhood. The conversation turns to good-natured fishing rivalry, an infamous e-scooter face-plant at a caravan park party, and the unpretentious joys of van life on a budget. Plus: birthday shoutouts to local legend Rob, and musings on the unpredictable 2026 travel season along the highway.

Join us for a true-blue Aussie yarn in this episode, where Mark, Lorren, and James stumble into The Peaceful Place by pure chance—and reckon it’s the best detour they’ve ever made! From Rob’s noisy renos to surprise run-ins with old mates and a Porsche towing a 22-foot van (yeah, you read that right), it’s a classic mix of laughs, stories, and that unbeatable Aussie community spirit. Whether you’re a seasoned traveller or just love a good chinwag, this episode packs in all the mishaps and magic you’d expect from life on the road. Listen in for a dose of outback warmth, larrikin humour, and tales that’ll make you feel right at home.

They dated in their 20s, drifted apart, and ended up on opposite sides of the world — one in Australia, one in the USA. Then a single Facebook message changed everything. Now Sarah and Simon, aka "Team Sassy," are newly retired, freshly hitched, and just weeks into life on the road with their two Shepherd-Staffy dogs in tow.

But retirement hasn't exactly gone to plan. There's a reason their friends and family can't stop laughing about it — and you'll want to hear that story for yourself.

We also find out how a chance discovery at a caravan show solved one of the trickiest challenges of travelling with dogs, why a VW Touareg is turning heads at every park they pull into, and what it's really like to start your caravanning adventure from scratch in your 60s.

Plus, Barry shares some only-at-a-caravan-park tales — including the no-smoking guests who thought an annex was a loophole, and the woman who somehow only just picked up the habit. Classic.

New to the road, full of stories, and not slowing down anytime soon — this one's a ripper.

Stopped for a While — stories from the peaceful place on the Fraser Coast. Subscribe for free here on Spotify

What do a 12-year-old grade driver, a head-on collision at 110km/h, a manufacturing jeweller, and a restored 1985 Viscount caravan all have in common? They're all chapters in Greg's extraordinary life.

In this episode, Greg and his wife Christine pull up at the Peaceful Place on the Fraser Coast and share a story that covers just about everything — a childhood in North Turramurra with dairy cows and draft horses, a near-fatal car accident, five unforgettable months in hospital (including ward parties, a matron standoff, and a cheeky pick-up line that landed him a wife), and a career that swung from jeweller to air conditioning to top house sales rep in Western Australia.

Now retired and on the road full-time, Greg and Christine have clocked over 50,000km, completed 22 house-sits across Australia, and are finally settling — for a while — on the Fraser Coast.

If you love stories about resilience, reinvention, and the freedom of life on the road, this one's for you.

In this episode of Stopped for a While, we meet Gary — a Tasmanian-born adventurer who's never been short of a story or a new direction in life.

After school, Gary tried his hand at a few things before finding his feet in a career that took him across the world. One thing led to another, and somewhere along the way, he ended up living the kind of life most people only dream about — including a stretch on one of Queensland's most iconic island destinations.

These days, Gary travels the coast in style with his wife Annika and their dogs in tow. If a place doesn't welcome the dogs, they don't go — simple as that. And when he's not exploring, he's feeding a need for speed at a local racetrack in a car that might just surprise you.

Gary's story is one of curiosity, adaptability, and always asking: what's around the corner?

Tune in to find out just how many lives this bloke has lived.

This week at the peaceful place on the Fraser Coast, Barry confesses to almost letting the van go up in flames — all because he wouldn't listen to his better half. Meanwhile, Barra Bob has been quietly running a fishing masterclass for anyone who'd take him up on it, releasing a near metre-long barramundi full of eggs back into the river, and setting crab pots with the kids at sundown. But the real jaw-dropper? The story of three worn-out marbles rolling around his motorhome floor — that turned out to be yellow diamonds. Bob also shares a life lived wide: accountant, timber cutter, produce merchant, world traveller, and a bloke who once sold 40 mud crabs in 90 minutes outside an ag show. Grab a cold one. This one stretches as far as the highway.

At the “peaceful place” on Queensland’s Fraser Coast, David and Michelle arrive from the Gold Coast for a five-to-six-week caravan stay focused on fishing, relaxing, and returning again next year. David shares his life story, from being born in High Wycombe, England, and migrating to Australia in 1955, through a long career spanning accounting and fleet car sales across Sydney, Port Macquarie, Toowoomba, and Queensland, including multi-brand dealerships and a key COVID-era 20-car phone sale secured through rapport. The episode also covers their lifelong camping evolution to a Jayco Outback built to Michelle’s long-planned floor plan, practical challenges like off-grid power for David’s CPAP, plus caravan-park reversing mishaps, a tidy-up turnaround at Kirra, and lighter tales featuring Scooby’s beach zoomies and Michelle’s travel herb garden.