Work-from-roam. Transparency warrior Rex Patrick hits the road.

Tireless transparency warrior Rex Patrick he left the building and wandered across this wide brown land, continuing his fight for truth and justice from a rural office.

Those who work from home know the routine. You set up your laptop at one of your favorite coffee shops near you, order a coffee, and work on that report for a few hours before returning to your home office. But does modern technology allow you to try a new cafe in a new town every day? I’m about to find out.

‘Hey Jupiter’ is a French café in Adelaide’s boutique East End. Most mornings, from seven to eleven, you’d find me writing an article, doing an FOI, or making some other public interest issue.

Every few days I would mix it up with a different cafe just to ‘share the love’.

This got me thinking. Why would I limit my choices? I might be Australian wandering transparency warrior Most of my job is getting documents from governments (state or federal) that they want to hide. This is a vast, brown territory with varying state rules, but accessing and fighting for this information can be done literally anywhere. I could head out and go to a different cafe every day (or week); a grand zig-zag tour of the country.

Working from work, working from home,

work from circulation – seems like the next logical step in human development.

office

It is possible. In fact, it’s more than possible (warning – I’m going to get angry).

The first thing you need to do is to have a comfortable mobile office that can also be used as a place to live. I chose a 20-foot caravan suitable for off-roading (most good ones are) so the office could be on a beach, a national park, a free camping site in the hills, or in the red dusty outback (avoiding winter).

I say campervan, not all-in-one RV (Recreational Vehicle), because you will need to leave the office from time to time to go to a stationary store or an airport for an interstate trip, or to do something social or touristy between jobs.

There are many, many RVs available and choosing one can be difficult. I preferred a composite minibus; a light, strong and natural insulator; I’ve loaded up everything you need to work remotely without having to worry about life’s basics.

My new office has 1240 Watts of solar and 800 Amp Hour lithium batteries (I told you I’d be a geek) – this gets you off the grid

Without the risk of running out of power to run equipment to combat the transparency challenge.

It feels great to see the electric bill go away forever and to finally be free, at least in a personal sense, from the politics of coal, wind, solar and nuclear.

You need to consider the vehicle required to perform the towing. I haven’t upgraded to an electric vehicle because I already had a tow vehicle (from my days as a senator visiting every corner of South Australia) and there is value in having a diesel-driven generator (alternator) as a source of emergency office power for the unlikely event that the sun isn’t shining all week.

Maybe the next hybrid?

Towing a caravan doubles fuel consumption, but you can limit your movements to 100 kilometers or more every two weeks. You’ll be better off than your city counterparts who commute daily.

Water is of course very important. My new office has 2 x 80 liter fresh water armored protected poly tanks and a separate 80 liter drinking water poly tank (can be cross-linked if necessary). This means I have 240 liters of water for two weeks of full isolation.

This claim comes with the caveat that I was aboard Oberon-class submarines and was trained to manage scarce resources. There was a saying, “A shower a week, whether you need it or not.” I’m sure readers will be relieved to know that I take a quick (1) soak, (2) lather, (3) rinse shower every day. (TMI, Rex – editor’s note.)

Warrior mod cons. Image provided by the author.

to store

Like most Australians, my house was full of stuff. I was determined to start navigating life without the clutter. The whole process was a positive cleansing,

I got rid of many things that I never used or needed.

Storage space may be limited in a mobile office. As a former submariner, I’m not intimidated by small spaces, and I’ve swapped most of my work clothes for shorts and t-shirts; I have a jacket and shirt if a formal Zoom pops up. But I don’t have to worry about the seasons. Cold and harsh winters are a thing of the past in an office that changes latitude.

I have a small print library of mostly law books in my new office and a significant number of electronic and audio books on my iPad and iPhone.

No slum building!

Switching to a nomadic working life does not mean turning it into a slum.

Modern motorhomes have heating (in case you get the latitude wrong), super-efficient sirocco fans, induction cooktops (indoor and outdoor), microwave, TV, LED lighting, power outlets (3-pin and USB-C), washing machine, toilet, shower, and queen bed.

The sunroof, vents and large windows that open provide a cross breeze on a hot day along with air conditioning. This week I had a 37 degree day and worked from 10am to 5pm in a 20 degree workspace.

mobile office technology

The 2020s brought us mobile office technologies that would blow the minds of workers of the 1990s or 2000s.

I’m equipped with a high-end MacBook Pro that has so much power that I rarely need to go beyond second gear. And of course the laptop can be carried to new cafes for morning coffee.

While sitting on a sun lounger or outdoor camping chair, I work on my laptop via Apple Vision Pro; This means the ‘office’ is filled with a virtual widescreen and more virtual ‘safari’ windows that would make a stockbroker jealous.

And they’re all connected to the world with high-speed internet anywhere and everywhere with Starlink Mini. A small monthly 5G purchase gets me connectivity in or around the city.

This week I zoomed in, covered the House and Senate, followed all the news, checked the stock market, researched and wrote. I also read and share on social media; Expect a few more sunrise and sunset photos to be shared on BlueSky and Facebook.

This wide brown land

It’s great to dive into the environment instead of imagining it.

I’m not even sure a morning cage is needed when Australia’s unique fauna beckon at first light. I’m looking for a quality coffee machine.

My grand tour is only a week away. My biggest drama so far was a blister between my big toe and index finger (TMI!!!), this was due to my now overused Queensland work shoes (thongs).

Narrabri sunrise. Image by the author.

Rex Patrick is a former South Australian Senator and formerly a submariner in the armed forces. Known as an advocate of anti-corruption and transparency, Rex is also known as “Transparency Warrior“