With the surname Gray, husband and wife team Neil and Christine call themselves the ‘Gray Ones’. Quite a fitting name for grey nomads, don’t you think? Over the past ten years Neil and Chris have been touring Australia on and off.

"We first headed off in a Holden Ute followed by a Jeep Cherokee and now in a Nissan Patrol" Neil tells me.

I can see by Christine’s expression that she is relating to fond memories.

We pack the surf board, pending our destination. Neil has been a mad keen surfer since 12 years of age, his surfing addiction started several decades ago with the first ballsef board imported by Gordon Woods from Brookvale. These boards were 4 inches thick and laminated together in blocks from trees out of the Amazon jungles. However we rarely pack a surf board for the Northern Territory or North Queensland. And when Neil surfs in South Australia I remind him if he gets eaten by a White Pointer I will simply spend the inheritance.

Neil is also a professional fisherman, Chris continues. We love camping on the Roper River in the NT which is a beaut little spot with facilities close by. Even though you are hundreds of kilometres away from civilisation, we can still use the mobile phone and the internet providing I perfect my balance on the bull bar.

Having access to communications when in remote areas is also a necessity as I was undergoing chemotherapy for several months. Being able to keep in touch with family, friends and doctors were vital during that time in our lives. Thankfully, as of December 2009, I have been given the all clear!

Hearing about Chris’s illness and the time spent beating it made us all feel admiration for her strength and somewhat awed by her determination and the fact that she didn’t just curl up somewhere and hope to recover. Chris was fighting cancer and still finding the time to out fish her husband.

Now in their seventh caravan, Neil tells me it is the best caravan they have ever invested in.

We were about to upgrade from our ‘Caramel’ to a Jayco Heritage, as we have lived in Jayco’s before. Caramel is simply our term for the last make of caravan we had, meaning soft and for suckers. Each to their own but our ‘Caramel’ gave us nothing but trouble. It just so happened that we were going through South Australia and came across the Smartvan Humpback Option RV. This caravan was designed and built by a fellow who had travelled around Australia and found he couldn’t get the service or modifications he needed, so he started his own business based on personal care and an Australia wide guarantee on his product. True to his word, when our air conditioner faulted in Katherine, NT, the repairs were organised in Mt Isa before we even arrived there.

I see you have some amazing pictures of barramundi. Tell us something about catching these magnificent fish.

They are truly an amazing fish to catch and release. Barramundi are ambush predators that like to sit amongst the snags and wait for something tasty to pass by. Understanding a barramundi’s behaviour means luring them from the comfort of their ambush area with an enticing lure, and once hooked you need to keep the pressure on the line and pull them away from the safety of the snags. Being a fish beyond edible size, we land them gently in a large net, take a photo or three then release them back into the safety of their domain. In saying that, we do keep the odd one to eat but never more than what we need. Oh, if all else fails, cheat and use a live cherabin for bait. Barramundi’s find them hard to resist, Neil explains.

Have you got a rule of thumb when travelling?

Yes. Each time we take off on a new adventure our first meal consists of fresh bread rolls, cooked king prawns and a bottle of champers. The day before leaving is always a bit of a rush making sure everything is packed and running OK. Therefore we like to keep the first night simple and to relax and celebrate the start of another fantastic chapter.