Every winter, Trish Harper is based in Rubyvale, a small town in outback Queensland where the brolgas dance below bright sunsets, and finding sapphires is the dream of many.

Trish and her husband, Robb, spent their working lives behind a desk – her doing administrative work at a high school, him working in a newspaper pre-press department – and focus their retirement on something vastly different. While in Rubyvale, Robb mines on their land lease while Trish works as a local tour guide. Or, as Trish puts it: “I buy him jack hammers and he finds me sapphires – that’s fair!”

Working while they’re on the road wasn’t the initial plan but Trish says you have to just go along with things sometimes. “Another lady who works there (at Miner’s Heritage mine tours) was going on a holiday and they were looking for someone to fill in for her, so I did it… and I’m still there,” she says, adding that she wouldn’t have it any other way. “I do underground tours and I show people how to fossick for sapphires; it’s great when someone finds a sapphire and they get so excited. I just love it.”

But the big attraction to her job is the people she meets. “I meet lots of people who want to enjoy and see the same things that I really enjoy,” Trish says. “I really like sharing it with them and they just want to know more about the place. Everybody who goes there is fascinated by it.”

When they’re not in the Queensland gem fields, Trish and Robb could be anywhere in Australia: at their home in Cairns, travelling around Tasmania in their caravan, touring the Kimberley, or finding small towns that surprise them – just as Rubyvale, the only place they work these days, did. “You have to give those quiet little places a chance,” Trish says. “There’s something there and you’ve got to stop and find out what it is.”

The flexibility of this nomadic lifestyle is perfect for the couple right now and Trish says that mindset is the key to retirement. “I don’t think you can have a dream that doesn’t change when you retire. You hope for a lot of things and if you’re lucky enough to live long enough and stay healthy enough, your dream evolves.”

And ultimately, it’s about having all choices available to them. Trish works the hours she wants at Miner’s Heritage and the rest of the year they just go where they feel inclined to be. “On the back of our caravan we say every day is ‘Chooseday’,” laughs Trish. “We get up and choose what we’re going to do that day, where we’re going to go, how long we’re going to stay there, and when it doesn’t feel right we pack up and go.”

It’s the ultimate post-retirement nomadic life, with a touch of an encore career about it, and another way to make retirement a reality in your own way.

Source: Living Well Navigator