Hi, we’re Vic and Leonie Ratnieks. Welcome to our site.
Originally from Adelaide, we spent three and a half years in Melbourne and two in Bendigo, Victoria.
We love the outdoors and spending time driving and camping to the best places Australia has to offer in our 4WD.
In November 2017 we embarked on a lifestyle change, to live life by camping (and working!) full-time around Australia. Follow us on Livelifecamp.
Vic works for Align Systems, a software and website development company we started way back in 1993. COVID slowed our travels down a bit. We had grand plans to make it around Australia but spent about 18 months in WA and about the same in SA. At the end of 2021 we headed back to Victoria and have decided to pull up stumps in Gembrook so Vic can focus on Turers, a new business he’s building software for in the travel and tour industry. Stay tuned for its launch in 2022! Gembrook is a beautiful and peaceful town about 70kms east of Melbourne.
Some of Vic’s photos are for sale on Getty Images and EyeEm, a great website to showcase photography and hopefully earn some diesel money along the way.
We also upload selected photos onto Redbubble so you can buy prints on canvas, posters, phone covers and items like pillows. If you see a photo on our site and would like us to add it to Redbubble, please let us know. Thank you and we hope to meet you on the road some day!
Leonie and Vic in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne
My mothers maiden name was Ratnieks. She had a sister,Velta and brothers Alfreds and Janis who went to Australia from Germany after the second world war. I was born in 1949 an had a brother who was born in 48. Grandfather,Janis ,was born in 188o. MY mother, Mirdza, married Janis Udris, Velta wed Peteris Laiva. All went to U.S except for Janis. Ratnieks not a common name. Possible relationship?
My father’s name was Janis, born in Valmiera and he was the son of Julijs Ratnieks, a bee keeper in Latvia who died in the late 60’s. I’ll send you an email and we can explore our genealogy, who knows!
I knew that I could buy piragi on the Internet and was scrolling through the sites when I came up wth the Ratnieks recipe site. If any info I sent rings a bell please contact. All Ratnieks side of family here has passed.