The Page family and its home on wheels

A YOUNG nomadic family is focusing on the positives  after the theft of cameras from its mobile home in outback South Australia.

The family of six thought priceless photographs and videos of their travels were gone forever when a sneak thief raided their caravan in the small opal mining township of Andamooka.

But members were over the moon when the Canon camera and video recorder were discovered two weeks later by a woman searching for opals at the bottom of an open-cut mine.

The opportunist crook had made off with the gear while the Page's 22ft Paramount caravan was left unattended.

"We didn't hold out much hope of getting the stuff back," relieved mum Amy told Caravanning News.

"We are just amazed at our good fortune that someone honest found them. Luckily, there are more honest and helpful people around than dishonest.

"Andamooka is surrounded by these mines, rather like Coober Pedy. The cameras couldn’t have been there long because they were still working and there had been lots of dew every morning and it had rained since the gear was stolen."

Amy, husband Jarrad and their four children – Peter (9), Susan (8), Lucy (5) and Edmund (2) – have been on the road full-time since leaving their Melbourne home in January last year.

"We move slowly to avoid long car trips and to explore the areas we travel through," Amy explained.

"We stop and work in remote and rural communities. Jarrad is an electrician by trade and I'm a pharmacist and naturopath. We usually look for work in our professions.

"Peter, Susan and Lucy are home schooled and I do most of their schooling for languages and maths, while science, history, geography and other themed areas tend to be learnt from what we see and explore."

Amy described their sojourn as an "open ended" adventure, with her family reluctant to settle down permanently.

"Susan finds it amusing to tell people we are homeless," she laughed. "Of course this isn't strictly true, it's just that our home is on wheels and we rarely stay in the one place for more than a week."

Amy said the theft did have a positive in that it served as a warning to other travellers over the importance of security and insurance.

"For us, these were the really big points to come from it. We wanted easy access to the cameras to grab them at the front door when something happened that we wanted to capture. But the converse side is that it also made it easier for someone else to grab them and run."