What if? - The homecoming version.

Early last July, on the day before we left home, I wrote out a list of 'what if' questions. All the stuff I was worried about and stressing over was on that list. I knew we were heading for an awesome adventure, but it still helped to write down the niggly fears. The stuff at the back of my mind.

Yesterday we had a still day in Streaky Bay. We relaxed, admired our gorgeous view, did some housework and made a few plans for the next little while. 

Probably because we are homeward bound, last night I decided to visit that list for the first time since I published it. And then I found myself needing to answer those 'what ifs'.

Here goes:

What if I am as impatient with my kids as I feel today?

There were times when I was. Absolutely. But I think I mainly get impatient when I have an agenda and the girls are getting in the way and slowing me down. Life on the road is so much slower than life at home. And I have had more time and my farmer boy around to back me up when I have needed five minutes out to breathe.

What if it was all really about the styling and the fixing?

It wasn't but I'm so glad we spent that time. The curtains, the pale blue walls, the bed covers, the crocheted bits and bobs, the cupboard door handles...they have all gone to making this place a home. Our little nest. The styling and fixing made all the difference.

When we go home we have vowed to try a bit of styling there too. Perhaps it is possible to make our Copper-Art house more us with some paint, some rearranging and some special loving.

What if I am antisocial and don't feel like making new friends?

I guess the best part of travelling with a caravan is that you have your home with you where ever you go. Like a turtle. When you feel like being sociable and making new friends you do and when you don't, you can go inside. Back into your shell.

At home I often had issues with being sociable because I was always busy trying to get three hundred things done before the end of the day. Being sociable meant I'd do less. Achieve less. Somehow when we get home I have to reconcile the doing and the friending. Prioritise both. I hope I can.

What if something bad happens back home?

A few really bad things did happen. In six months it was inevitable.

I lost a friend to cancer. A young Mum with kids the same ages as mine. A friend who I spent time with a few times a week. My whole community has dealt with their loss. I really haven't. I am nervous about seeing her family without her and for dancing classes and play school drop offs when we get home. I miss her.

And my gorgeous grandfather had a terrible fall and ended up in hospital for a few weeks. I got progress reports all along the way but the photos of his face and being so far away were awfully painful.

What if I have no personal space?

I didn't. There is no personal space in a caravan.

Right now as I type these words Indi and Jazzy are singing some repetitive song about an elephant, Miss Pepper is throwing a lid of a cardboard box around and farmer Bren is trying to untangle his kite strings.

What if we only have access to crappy food?

We did. Right up the centre and then down the west coast until about Carnarvon we ate from the stupid market. We did our best to choose and cook well. But we didn't find anything organic or local or direct from the farmer until Carnarvon.

What if they don't make friends?

Thank goodness they did make friends and have friends around most of the time.

Well the smallest two did. Miss Indi found it a lot more difficult. There aren't many eleven year olds on the road. Which is a shame because eleven is such a great age to appreciate and learn from traveling. Its also a shame because she really could have benefited from the independence of friendships and we could have dealt with a bit more space on occasion too.

What if something runs out of batteries and we can't charge them?

I don't think this ever happened. We have that many chargers and cords that we have a whole cupboard dedicated to them.

What if they just fight all the time?

There have spent so much time together over the past six months that there were bound to be times when it felt like they did, but the majority of the time they have been great.

What if I have forgotten how to slow down and unplan?

I have relearned and remembered. My hope now is that I can maintain this slow when we get home.

What if I forget something important?

We didn't.

What if someone gets sick or hurt?

Miss Pepper was really sick for a while in Darwin, we also had to visit a dentist in Darwin and Miss Pepper dislocated her elbow in Abany. We survived. Its all part of the story of our trip now.

What if something important gets lost or stolen?

We have a week left and I'm afraid I'll jinx it if  I speak too soon, but up until now we have been incredibly lucky. We lost some tea-spoons and a couple of pairs of thongs early on, but we replaced them and moved on. 

What if we are being too ambitious?

We weren't.

But our next plan for sailing around the world might be. We are not boat people. Not yet anyway. We'll see.

What if I have packed the wrong things?

I think I packed well. And anything we needed we picked up along the way. Except for wool. There was a desperate shortage of wool for a couple of months until we got to Geraldton. But other than that we did great.

 

And finally here's the new list; the homecoming 'what ifs'. I am pretty sure that we are ready to go home. That we have plans and decisions in place and that we are ready and full of inspiration and strength. But 'what if'??

What if I spend too much of my time driving the girls in and out of town?

What if all our homecoming plans are too ambitious?

What if our house is unfixable?

What if everything is exactly the same?

What if everything is really different?

What if I don't have enough time to get everything done?

What if the girls are just too far behind in their schooling?

What if I get swallowed up by housework?

What if I feel sad and uninspired and coming home is a comedown?

What if the stresses we left behind are there waiting for us?

What if we go home rested and inspired and full of energy and enthusiasm and what if we are happy?! Let's hope so. We do live in one of the most beautiful parts in Australia and grow organic produce for us and for a living after all.

Travel safe peeps. xx

Spots in Belladonia.

Late Friday afternoon we finished our first leg of the Nullarbor, 242.5km, and I finished hooking my 20 crocheted circles in squares into long scarves.

We were in Belladonia in western Australia. A tiny dusty dot on the edge of highway one. There was nothing there except a roadhouse and a caravan park with a couple of straggly tenants, a western themed toilet and a scary looking motel. And there was us. Us and the scarves.

There were crocheted spots everywhere.

What fun.

What else are you meant to do on a Friday afternoon in the middle of nowhere?

To my farmer boy;
Happy twelfth on 12/12.
I adore you.
You are so ace.
You totally rock my socks. xx

To all of you;
I hope you have the most surprising and wonderful week.
I'm sure you are ace too. xx

Loops and knots.

Thanks Marieke Hardy for making me question my blog and my need to document this trip in pictures, words, thoughts and stories.

This morning I sat down and loaded some photos onto my blog. I was going to show and tell you the story of the surfing lessons at Bunker Bunker, the 61 meter tree climb in Pemberton and one of the most magnificent beaches I have ever seen at Green's Point.

While the pictures were loading I sat down and read a couple of pages of Marieke's book You'll be sorry when I'm dead . In the bit I was reading she was talking about traveling with her parents and then later partners and how she documented all her trips in scrap books. On page 99 I found this '...Amanda Palmer once bemoaned, "It's a tragedy that my reaction to seeing something interesting is turning away to grab my camera. The first thought is that it will be meaningless if I don't share it. Those are frightening moments."'

Touche!

I'm not sure if I am as desperate to share the moments as I am to capture them though. I have a great and powerful need to have a record of everything on this trip. Every detail great and small. The places, the landmarks, the friends, caravan life, what we've eaten, what I've read and made, how we've felt and how it's changed and changing...

I have thousands and thousands of photos from this trip sitting in iphoto. I guess my blog and instagram help me organise and categorise and put them in a context. Words with pictures. Order.

Would I still blog if no one were reading? I don't know.

Would you?

While I'm in the middle of this thought process and wondering about the living in the moment versus the capturing of the living in the moment I think I'll leave this morning's half written blog in drafts. We surfed and climbed and swam. It happened and I took photos of it happening. It exists.

Right now, this moment in time is different though. It's an ordinary moment not necessarily worthy of photos or documenting but a moment of our trip.

Yesterday we left Albany and were on our way to Esperance when we had caravan tyre issues and had to turn back.

Yesterday at the caravan park institution that is the jumping pillow, (an enormous piece of rubber filled with air - kind of like a cross between a trampoline and a jumping castle), there was an incident that ended in a dislocated elbow and a trip to Albany accident and emergency. There were lots of tears, there were x-rays, there was a great doctor and a quick readjust and a sling.

Today we are nursing Miss Pepper, our patient and taking it very easy. Today we are hoping that when the mechanic arrives he will laugh at the simplicity of our caravan tyre problem and fix it and we'll be on our way tomorrow.

The girls are watching Beauty and the Beast in the caravan.

We are drinking lots of tea.

Enjoying the serenity.

And I'm crocheting circles in squares.

Hooking around and around, adding to the pile and enjoying this pattern that I now know so well and can let my fingers do the work while my mind drifts and tries to answer questions and in the process comes up with more.

I'm being a good girl and darning in some ends as I go.

And I'm thinking about the smells and sounds and stories of the south west captured in their loops and knots. 

That's what's going on right now. Our moment. It is not a spectacular moment but a moment none the less. And you know what? I'm kinda glad I have this blog to capture it in its unspectacularness.

So how about you? Do you always have your camera on hand just in case? Do you live to capture the moments? Does something mean more to you if its shared? What have you been making?

I wonder.

I'm going to check back on my little patient and then get back to my squares. 

Happy travels my friends. xx

Blog.

And just like that I've forgotten how and why I blog.

It's the strangest thing really. One minute we were in the beautiful coastal town of Yallingup and I made a little promise inside my head to blog everyday for a little while to catch up on some of the backlog of posts in my head. I managed a few days in a row. And the next day we had to leave the caravan park to make room for the hordes of weekenders from Perth who had booked all the sites and left us siteless.

So we travelled down to Hamlin Bay and camped in the National park on the beach for a while. It was gorgeous.

But we were out of range.

Which meant no blogging and now an even bigger backlog and an inability to work out where to start. I can't even hear the words at night begging me to blog them, begging me to describe the scenes and the feelings that made up the day gone by. I have thousands of pictures waiting and no words to tell their stories.

So it is in the hope of the more I write the more I write that I sit here in Denmark Riverside caravan park this morning hitting the keys. It is a hope that the familiar ritual of loading and resizing the photos, tapping the keys and being in the zone that will enable me to continue where I left off.

Believe me I understand that a break is as good as a holiday...and that blogging should be fun... and that there should be no pressure...but I think I am a nicer person when I have been writing. I love writing. I love having the record. I want to blog. I am a blogger.

(Incidentally, one of the lovely things about life on the road is that almost everyone travelling alongside you is a blogger too. No more funny looks and Really? Whatever for? and What's a blog? When you tell people you have a blog they understand because they do too. You've never seen so many DSLR's.)

OK, gotta pack up and hit the road now. We're off to Albany for a couple of days.

Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow.

Happy travels. xx

Our Indi is 11.

Our beautiful Indigo Apple is 11!!

Eleven. Wow!

Yallingup caravan park, prezzies, i-shaped pancakes, roller blading, fish plaiting, Dunsborough, surfy shopping, sushi lunch, horse riding, game shopping, back to Yallingup, talking and texting and Ichatting, ice cream cake, running races, handstands, kites, pasta bake...fun.

We adore you.

We are so proud of you.

You drive us crazy sometimes.

You rock our socks.

Happy birthday our angel. xx

Indi is nine here.
Indi is 10 here.

Friends, road trippers, caravanners...

Yesterday we spent the day with three other road tripping families celebrating a friend, Ali's, 40th birthday. Between us we were eight adults and 10 kids. All of us around the same age, all having left the comfort and security of home and work for a six month trip around Australia and all of us having met one another in the past few months.

In his birthday speech to his wife, John spoke about how originally Ali had planned to fly home with her family for her birthday. How she had planned to spend the important mile stone celebrating with family and life long friends. But as the weeks grew nearer she realised that what she really wanted, was to spend the day somewhere on the road with her caravanning friends.

I totally get that.

Road tripping is intense. Road tripping friendships are quickly intimate and true. They are based on an experience in common and they share a language of adventures and memories.

All down the west coast of Australia we have bumped into the same families again and again. The kids have formed packs and have spent hours bike riding, playing at the playgrounds, swimming, exploring and adventuring. More than once a child has been dragged kicking and screaming on a family outing when they would much rather have stayed at the caravan park and played with their friends. 'Who cares about dolphins when I can do handstands with Grace and Tom!'

And to an extent its the same for us. In the absence of our families and community, our new friends have shared the journey with us. They share newly made memories and similar experiences.

They remember camping under the air force flight path in Darwin, the grumpy four-wheel driving cleaner in Broome, the wind in Geraldton, the heated shower floor in Busselton. We commiserate over stories of snoring neighbours, fighting couples and crying babies. We empathise over blown tyres and wet beds. We share the experience of parenting in public, of bathing and laundering in public, of wearing the same thing day in-day out in public, and letting our hair cuts and colours grow out in public.

We share our camping secrets, we copy the movies off each others' hard drives and we swap books

We share stories we've heard of the best camping spots and places to visit and the must nots.

And over time we share bits and pieces about our real lives too. Who we are at home, what we do and why we are doing this trip.

Sometimes I think that in the days and years to come, it will be the friendships and camaraderie that we remember as the highlight of this trip. The excitement of watching a car and caravan full of friends pull up at a caravan park, nights spent chatting and laughing and drinking, trips together to tourist spots, having the van full of kids watching a movie, and the long sunny days filled with children running back and forth between vans and jumping pillows.

I guess in life the friends you relate to are often those experiencing the life stages that you are when you are. School friends, uni friends, work friends, friends with little kids, school Mum friends, craft group friends, road tripping friends...

Happy travels my friends. xx

ps. This night eleven years ago was my last as a non Mother. Wowee!!

The school of the road.

Before we left Daylesford we had a meeting with the principal of our girls' school. We told him of our plan to travel this enormous land of ours. We assured him that as well as all the exploring there would be journal keeping, book reading and blog writing. He loved the idea. Together we agreed that the lessons learned on the road would be important ones and he wished us well and sent us on our way.

I am great at listing the benefits of the school of the road to anyone who asks. I have no trouble justifying how improved their geography is, how wonderful their Australian history, their social studies, their life skills.

But I am not very good at the real schooling part. I thought I'd be better.

I watch other parents in the caravan park patiently sitting with their kids doing maths and spelling and reading and writing. Sometimes I hear the kids in the shower blocks discussing what module they are up to and how many weeks until they are finished. I hear parents rushing their kids out of the pool to finish their maths.

That makes me feel guilty.

And so I buy activity books and make them fill in the pages. And we read together and journal and sometimes I sit my girls down in front of pieces of white paper and give them the first sentences of stories... 'It happened at sunset...' and 'Once when I dived deep down under the waves...' I start them off and they write pages and pages and then read them out to us proudly.

Then I feel like the best Mum in town and vow to make them do schooling more often. But the next day we head out on a boat early and the day after that we pack up and leave the caravan park and drive somewhere new and the day after that the concept of schooling has long been forgotten.

I always assumed that they would watch me and my farmer boy read book after book, writing my blog and my journal and want to do the same. I assumed they would want some sort of structure. Some sort of schooling. But they don't.

My kids would rather play, swim, make stuff or draw.

And then a few months into this trip I watched as my middle kid took ages to write a postcard and my eldest preferred to read a magazine than a book and I worried. I know that they are not keeping up with what their classmates are doing back home but I do not want them to go backwards either.

They do have journals filled with drawings and descriptions of places we've been and things we've seen and done. Miss Indi had a rating system, one through ten, for everything. And Miss Jazzy draws elaborate drawings. But is this enough??

They have visited almost every type of museum and sanctuary and gallery and natural attraction that you can imagine. 

And experiences along the way have lead to in depth conversations and discussions on issues like indigenous rights, refugees, remote living, respect, history, art and culture. Conversations that have a depth of understanding and feeling because of what they have witnessed and experienced.

One such lengthy discussion happened one night after dinner in Eighty Mile beach. There was a man there called Bill who spent his days driving his four wheel motor bikes up and down the beach looking for suspicious activity. He had coast watch signs on all his bikes and *Billawood detention centre sign on his cabin. 

We spoke about the refugee situation for hours. The maturity of opinions and the understanding that was evident in this timely debate filled me with confidence and pride.

I have no doubt that my girls are ahead of their peers in some subjects. They have had experiences and learned lessons that you could never get in a classroom or a book. My fear is that they will go back to school next year and struggle with the academic subjects. My hope is that they will have a maturity that will enable them to realise the work that has to be done to catch up and get on with it.

Time will tell.

See ya!

* a play on the his name and the Villawood detention centre

Six things & a winner.

(The fanciest caravan park bathroom so far in Mandalay in Busselton).

Hello!!  Firstly, an enormous thank you for all your beautiful birthday texts, emails, twitters and comments. Every single one read and appreciated and loved. xx

(Birthday me.)

(Birthday lunch.)

(Busselton pier).

(cake!)

Secondly, I had the best birthday ever! It was the type of day where I remembered it was my birthday all day long.

We woke up and had birthday cuddles in bed. We ate K shaped pancakes, I opened prezzies and unwrapped cards. I chatted on the phone and got sung to and serenaded with the ukulele. We ate lunch on the water, made birthday speeches and cheersed with bubbles. We walked to the end of Busselton jetty and back. We made and ate delicious pizzas for dinner. I blew out the candles of a caravan baked chocolate cake. We watched a few episodes of Modern Family before bed. And I wore my birthday tiara all day long!! A very happy birthday indeed.

Thirdly. The green magazine giveaway. In the tradition of road trip giveaways, the camp site number chose the winner. In this case it seemed most fitting for the guests to decide. I am so very, very lucky that my parents flew over to join us on the road for my birthday week and their site number is three.

So number three it is. Comment number three is Miss Gourmet Girlfriend Ruth!! Hooray!!

Hugest congratulations Ruth. I hope you love your two year subscription to green magazine and find it endlessly inspiring.

Fourthly, I have another great giveaway coming up very soon so watch this space.

(Yarn bombed chair in front of Margaret River Wool shop.)

Fifthly, we are loving the south west but are freeeeeeeeeezing. Its so nice after many months of red dirt and sand to be surrounded by green and trees. Its also great to be able to access things we have missed on the road like organic food, wool shops and good coffee.

(Gorgeous chair and my minestrone lunch at Samudra in Dunsborough).

Sixthly, the first few days of my forties have been great. Beautiful food, lovely places, great company, inspiring conversation. I am feeling very blessed indeed.

Thanks so much for traveling with me.

See ya! xx