Indefatigable transparency warrior Rex Patrick has left the building, continuing his crusade for truth and fairness from an outback office, roaming this wide brown land.
Work-from-homers know the routine. You set up your laptop in one of your nearby favoured cafés, order a coffee, and work on that report for a couple of hours before heading back to the home office. But does modern technology let you try a new café … in a new town … each day? I’m about to find out.
‘Hey Jupiter’ is a French café in Adelaide city’s boutique East End. Most mornings, from seven, often up to eleven, you’d find me writing an article, doing an FOI, or up to some other public interest trouble-making.
Every few days, I’d mix it up with a different café, just to ‘share the love’.
It got me thinking. Why limit my choices? I can be Australia’s nomadic transparency warrior. Most of my work is getting documents out of governments (be they state or federal) that they want to hide. It’s a wide brown land with different state rules, but accessing and fighting to get that information can literally be done from anywhere. I could hit the road and go to a different café each day (or week) – one big zig-zagging lap of the country.
Work-from-work, work-from-home,
work-from-roam – it seems the next logical step in human development.
Transparency roamer. Image supplied by author.
The office
It is possible. Indeed, it’s more than possible (warning – I’m going to get nerdy).
The first thing you have to do is get a comfortable mobile office, something that doubles up as a place to live. I chose a 20-foot caravan that was off-road capable (most good ones are) so that the office can be on a beach, in a national park, in a free-camp site in the hills or in the red dust outback (avoiding the winter).
I say caravan, not an all-in-one RV (Recreational Vehicle), because from time to time you’ll need to decouple from the office to go to a stationary shop, or an airport for an interstate trip, or to do something social or touristy between jobs.
There are many, many caravans and choosing one can be confronting. I opted for a composite van; light, tough and a natural insulator, which I loaded up with all the things you need to work remotely without the need to worry about life essentials.
My new office has 1240 Watts of solar and 800 Ampere Hours of lithium batteries (I told you I would get nerdy) – this gets you off-grid
without the risk of running out of power to run the equipment to fight the transparency fight.
It’s a great feeling to see the power bill gone for good, and finally be free, at least in a personal sense, from the politics of coal vs wind vs solar vs nuclear.
You need to think about the vehicle needed to do the towing. I didn’t switch to an electric vehicle because, well, I had a towing vehicle already (from my days as a senator visiting every corner of South Australia) and there’s some value in having a diesel-driven generator (alternator) as an emergency source of office power, for the highly unlikely event when the sun hasn’t shone all week.
Maybe a hybrid next?
Towing a caravan doubles fuel consumption, but you can limit your moves to 100 or so kilometres a fortnight. You’ll be doing better than your city colleagues, who engage in a daily commute.
Water is obviously crucial. My new office has 2 x 80 litre fresh water armour protected poly tanks, and a separate 80 litre drinking water poly tank (that can be cross-connected, if necessary). That means I have 240 litres of water for a fortnight of total isolation.
That claim comes with the caveat that I served on Oberon-class submarines and am trained to manage scarce resources. “A shower once a week, whether you need it or not”, was the saying. I’m sure readers will be relieved to know I’ve taken a quick (1) wetting, (2) lather, (3) rinse shower every day. (TMI, Rex – editor’s note.)
Warrior mod cons. Image supplied by author.
Storage
Like most Australians, my home was stuffed with stuff. I was determined to start roaming life without clutter. The whole process was positively cleansing,
I got rid of so much stuff that I never really used or needed.
Storage can be tight in a mobile office. As a former submariner, small spaces don’t freak me out, and besides, I swapped out most of my business attire for shorts and T-shirts; I do have a jacket and shirt if a formal Zoom looms. But I don’t have to worry about the seasons. With an office that changes latitude, a cold, hard winter is a thing of the past.
My new office has a small hardcopy library of mostly law books, and a significant number of electronic and audiobooks on my iPad and iPhone.
No slummin’ it!
Crossing over to a nomadic work life doesn’t mean slumming it.
Modern caravans have heating (in case you get the latitude wrong), super-efficient sirocco fans, induction cook-tops (inside and out), a microwave, TV, LED lighting, power-points (3 pin and USB-C), a washing machine, toilet, shower and a queen-size bed.
Sunroof, vents, and large opening windows ensure a cross breeze on a warm day, with the air conditioner for the very hot days. This week I had one day at 37 degrees, and I worked in a 20-degree workspace from 10 am until 5 pm.
Roaming office technology
The 2020s have brought us mobile office technologies that would blow the minds of a 1990s or 2000s worker.
I’m equipped with a high-end MacBook Pro that has so much power that there’s rarely a need to take it beyond second gear. And of course, the laptop is transportable to those new cafes for the morning coffee.
When sitting on the chaise lounge, or outside in the camp chair, I work on my laptop via an Apple Vision Pro, which means that the ‘office’ is filled with a virtual wide screen and more virtual ‘safari’ windows to leave a stockbroker envious.
And it’s all connected to the world by a Starlink Mini, high-speed internet anywhere and everywhere. A small 5G monthly purchase provides me connectivity when in town, or about.
This week I’ve been zooming, streaming the House and the Senate, keeping up with all the news, checking the stock market, researching and writing. I’ve been reading and posting on social media too – one can expect a few more sunrise and sunset pictures posted on my BlueSky and Facebook.
This wide brown land
It’s great to not be imagining the environment, but rather being immersed in it.
With Australia’s unique fauna calling by at first light, I’m not even sure the morning café is needed. I’m researching a quality coffee machine.
I’m only a week into my big lap. My biggest drama so far has been a blister that’s been forming between my big toe and index toe (TMI!!!), the cause of which is my now overused Queensland business shoes (thongs).
Narrabri sunrise. Image by author.