practical living
Grey nomads
Exploring the world of
Australia’s older travellers.
By Dallas Bastian
M
ost people will have seen a
couple of caravanning seniors
making their way through
town or toll booth as they chart dots big
and small on the Australian map, but one
researcher says little is known about these
older travellers and their relationship with
the health system.
Dr Wendy Madsen, from Central
Queensland University, recently evaluated
a socially engaged theatrical production
that explored the world of Australia’s
grey nomads. Titled Grey Nomads vs the
World and performed twice in October
during Bundaberg’s Crush Festival, the
show explores social issues like access
to healthcare systems while travelling,
loneliness and purpose in life.
Set around a karaoke competition at a
campground, the two-act comedy follows
a married couple, two single friends and
a younger traveller. But socially engaged
theatre aims to not only entertain but raise
social consciousness among audiences
and explore overlooked issues.
To develop the script, Di Wills from
Creative Regions visited eight community
meetings and engaged with over 400
retirees in the Wide Bay region, asking
them to tell their stories.
From that engagement, Wills said, a few
key issues became apparent, including the
lack of value retirees felt the community
placed on seniors, and the feelings of
isolation that prompted them to travel.
24 agedcareinsite.com.au
“There was a sense of isolation and …
they were using their nomadic lifestyle to,
ironically, change that,” she said.
Lily Nixon and her husband, Keith,
both 80, spent the better part of a
decade charting Australia’s roads. The
couple visited dozens of cities and
towns, including Alice Springs, Broome,
Cairns and Darwin.
Nixon said she and her husband were
staying in a hotel while on holiday when
they noticed other retirees caravanning
and questioned why they weren’t doing
the same thing.
Reflecting on their experiences, she said
it was exciting to visit new places and meet
new people.
“It costs you nothing to say g’day to a
person on the same site, then you find out
where they’ve been and start taking about
family and where they’re from,” she said.
“It’s a great life.”
Wills added that grey nomads also
discussed the challenges they faced in
accessing healthcare.
“They would travel, they would get all
the scripts they needed to, and be well
prepared, and then things would happen
on the road. Or they’d be away a month
longer than anticipated and need to visit a
doctor in the middle of nowhere to refill a
script,” she said.
Madsen sought the views of audience
members after the show and, although
survey responses were low in number,
she said grey nomads are challenging
commonly understood narratives of ageing.
She added it may be appropriate to use
the production to challenge stereotypes
of ageing for younger audiences, such as
health professional students.
As most of the audience were grey
nomads, Madsen gained some insights into
how they felt about the health system. Most
indicated they didn’t have any difficulty
accessing healthcare services, but specialist
services posed more of a challenge.
“They seem to have really good health …
and to not have loneliness as an issue at
all. They were very well connected socially
and most of them reported living a very
meaningful life,” Madsen said. “It may be
that we just happened to get a group of
pretty well connected, happy individuals
coming along to that production, but that’s
certainly what the results are suggesting.”
Madsen added that while grey nomads
are well researched in terms of tourism,
there is scope for more studies into their
relationship with the health sector.
She said: “While they’re heading into large
regional centres, [access to health services]
probably isn’t an issue, but quite a lot of
them do head into quite remote areas of
Australia, sometimes for extensive periods
of time. I think more research needs to
be done in terms of their experiences of
healthcare services, but also the healthcare
services’ experiences of them coming in,
because a lot of these remote areas do
have very limited infrastructure in terms of
health services that are available to them.”
Madsen added that arts in health is an
area that could be further capitalised on.
“I’m beginning to really appreciate the
role that the arts could play in stimulating
us to think about things in a different way,
in getting us to have conversations about
some of these difficult social issues.”
Because of the positive feedback Wills
has received, she’s now looking to tour the
production in 2019. ■