Transitioning

We're moving.

And it's bittersweet.

Being part of a family, it's tricky to balance everyone's needs, dreams and desires.

And it isn't always a case of the one who shouts the loudest gets heard.

Pete and I have been having a recurring conversation about moving for many years, and now it is finally happening.

We moved from Melbourne to the Peninsula 13 years ago when I was pregnant with River.

Apart from Pete I knew no one who lived here. I think I'd only been to the Peninsula a handful of times.

Pete was connected to the ocean and land here through his surfing and photography, he had some long time surfing mates but they weren't people we spent a lot of time with.

I didn't really care, sure I'd left a big life and network in Melbourne that I'd created through my work in restaurants and as a journalist but I was ready for the next chapter - having a baby and becoming a family.

If I look back on the transition it wasn't without its tears, fears and frustrations but I was deeply happy in other ways because being a mother and creating a family was a deeply held dream.

It's taken a long, long time for the Peninsula to truly feel like home and ironically now that it does, we're leaving.

In the July school holidays this year we went on a camping trip to Waratah Bay and were instantly charmed.

We stopped in at a cafe in Fish Creek and were surprised and happy to find it owned by an old friend of mine from restaurant days in Melbourne. I knew Pete would be thinking this a 'sign' we were meant to be here.

Sure enough he did and the conversation about relocating to South Gippsland began.

This move is our compromise.

Ideally Pete would have loved us to be moving to southern New South Wales to the Bermagui / Bega area.

We have friends there living the life that Pete dreams of - sustainable, self-sufficient, in an artistic, creative community.

After many months of Pete trying to convince me that moving to southern New South Wales would be a great idea I had to find in myself a capital letters "NO"for him to understand that it was not something I was ever prepared to do.

Southern N.S.W. is eight hours drive from the Peninsula, 5 hours to Sydney and 3 hours to Canberra -that's not a location I'm excited about.

Now, one of the things that first attracted me to Pete way back when was his focus and determination to make his visions become a reality. I admired that. Any project or book he dreams up he stops at nothing to see it through.

Trying to deal with this quality when Pete applies it to a vision he has for the family is like trying to contain a tsunami in a paper cup. It has tested me.

And so, I feel like we are transitioning as a family to a new place and I am transitioning to a new place in myself.

A place where I learn to know myself better at this stage of life in my parenting, in my marriage, in my work. And it's scary. And exciting. Filled with challenges and opportunities.

It's time to grow. And sometimes that takes changing places.

Life is full of new beginnings. It's up to us to embrace them.

It doesn't erase what has gone before, it adds to it.

To quote Helen Keller, "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing".

And so off we go on a daring adventure. I'll be taking you all along with me :)

picture: Agnes Falls, South Gippsland.

tea & damper

"Will you go back to town on the weekend?" Shania stared intently at the fire, her brow furrowed. She shook her head no.

"You prefer it out here?" I pressed on.

She nodded. Still staring at the fire.

These were the first words we'd exchanged after sitting for an hour alone at the small, smouldering campfire we'd cooked breakfast on.

It was our job to keep the fire flickering away to boil the billy for tea and in case the hunters came back with fish or mudcrabs.

Shania liked her tea in a red plastic cup that easily held half a litre of strong tea.

She made each cup with two tea bags, water boiled on the fire, a splash of cold water and no milk but a good spoon of sugar stirred in. The sugar taken from a crumpled bag that had become home to a family of ants.

Pete had gone into town, an hour and a half away on red dirt and across four river crossings. One of the crossings called Boggy Creek for good reason.

We were camping at a homeland with the Elder Pete is working with on a community led healing program, and her family.

One of the Elders had woken with a toothache and realised that the next day was a public holiday so she needed to see a dentist today. Plus her husband needed to pick up his medication from the medical clinic.

Pete's focus was getting a generator and water pump back in action for the homeland after it being without running water for two years. He packed the parts into the 4WD, the Elders and their grand-daughter climbed in and they were gone for the day.

Sol and River had gone hunting with the Elders' son and grandson and a new friend we'd made in town who was helping with repairs at the homeland.

The whole time they were away hunting I was anxious about the boys getting sunburnt, about sand fly bites covering every piece of their exposed skin and the very worst fear...crocodiles.

Shania's three month old baby was at the camp with us,  I was delighted to be regularly handed the baby. Such a gorgeous boy, so chubby and full of smiles. When he grizzled I rocked him and walked the red dirt track til he fell asleep in my arms. I would return from walking and hand the sleeping baby to his mother who tucked him into bed inside one of the the three rooms that were used as bedrooms by the family.

Pete and I and the boys were camping in our two room tent and each morning I paid great attention to sweeping the sand out and straightening the bedcovers until they were perfectly straight. I needed order in the tent, it was an oasis from the sand flies whose bites stung for days.

After three days of heat and no running water our skin was grimy and itchy with sweat, sunscreen, sand, insect repellant that didn't work and the myriad of bites as evidence. I was ready to go back to town and have a shower but in an odd way I was enjoying the grime, the letting go of all the things that matter in town.

I was also ready for a full nights sleep without the constant hum of the generator or being woken by Sol who was beside himself with discomfort from the burn and itch of bites.

On more than one occasion I zipped myself out of the tent and into the night with my torch to find a bucket and pour a bit of water into it from the jerry can holding water collected from the river 10 minutes drive away. Every drop counted so I used it sparingly but I had to do something in an attempt to bring Sol relief and bring us both sleep.

I washed his bare bite covered legs down with the cool water, wetting a towel and laying it over his legs. Once the burn and sting had eased slightly I dabbed the bites with a tea tree antiseptic cream and layed beside him singing softly til he fell back to sleep.

Bleary eyed I rolled back over to my bed for a few hours sleep before he woke me again. It was one of those nights that felt endless, one of those nights that mother's know so well where you just will the sun to rise and bring the day because the night is for sleeping and you're getting none of that.

---------------------------------------

"We're having Grandmother's damper for supper" announced Rose sitting crossed legged by the fire she rolled up her sleeves and washed her hands in a bucket of water as she prepared to make the dough.

Shania was assembling the ingredients in front of Rose as she requested them. "Got any baking powder Galay?" Rose called out to me. "No, but I've got self-raising flour". "Ma," she said.

Galay is the kinship word Rose uses for me. The Indigenous kinship system is like a vast weaving that takes deep concentration to follow and to start to work out the relationships. Galay is the word that refers to 'brother's wife'. Rose calls Pete wawa (brother) which makes me galay.

'Ma' means ok.

Once all the ingredients were gathered from the tucker box I sat on the mat and watched Rose mix and need the dough. Her elegant hands flattened and smoothed the dough over and over until it was supple and lightly dusted in flour. Rose began shaping pieces into squares about the size of a slice of bread. She placed a fry pan on the grate over the fire and poured in sunflower oil to fry the dough in. The result was somewhere between a donut and the fried scones my great grandmother made when I was a child. Rose sat carefully cooking each piece until there were two towering piles. "This one's for your family, my family," she laughed, "I know how much boys eat".

With all the pieces cooked everyone gathered around to eat. It was dark by now. A fluorescent light powered by the generator hung from a nearby tree and gave us light to squeeze golden syrup onto our damper from a plastic squeezy bottle and to pour cups of tea.

I ate my piece of damper that was crisp on the outside and softly doughy on the inside. Golden syrup dripped down my hand adding stickiness to the mix of sweat, sand and sunscreen already on my skin.

The texture and sweetness of the damper was as satisfying as the nostalgic memory of my own grandmother's version also eaten with golden syrup. I thanked Rose for the damper, drank my tea and headed to the tent if not to sleep to rest until the sun rose again.

Have you eaten damper by the fire? Or fried scones with your grandmother? I'd love to hear your stories.

*some names have been changed 

first impressions: north east arnhem land

After a mere 10 hours driving from Katherine, 700 kms of the drive on red dirt avoiding pot holes, sandy bogs and jagged rock we arrived in Arnhem Land.

For 11 years I've been hearing about Arnhem Land and Peter's Yolgnu family who live here.

Finally we are here together with our own children.

Pete is working with a Yolngu Grandmother here who takes care of her community through a healing program, taking young at-risk Yolngu out to homelands for support and healing.

We are based in Nhulunbuy the mining town set up here on the Gove Peninsula in the late 60's when Rio Tinto started mining bauxite for aluminium.

From Nhulunbuy we go out bush with Pete for him to do his work.

The coastline and landscape is postcard perfect except when the mine and refinery come into view, the mined red earth and the imposing refinery buildings and silos look like something out of a sci fi film dropped from the sky.

It is hard to fathom what it must have been like here in the 60's before the mine arrived and even harder to imagine what it must have been like when Rio Tinto made their mining 'deal' with the Traditional Owners of this land.

I don't even feel like I am in Australia anymore. It is a place of its own here.

We are remote in many senses.

Food comes in on a barge from Darwin once a week. Once the supermarket runs out of something for the week that's it. I was told on one of my first visits to the shops "Sorry, no bananas until next week".

But then there's Nature's 'supermarket' where real food is plentiful if you know where to look and how to catch it.

On our first trip out bush we ate the most spectacular mud crab, speared in the mangroves by a Yolgnu friend and cooked on the beach by his mother. "From the mangrove, to the fire, to your mouth," she said laughing as she handed Sol and I a crab claw to share.

There was no sense of time that day on the beach until the sun started to set, "We need to get back to camp before its dark, so they can collect gapu (water) from the creek" our Grandmother friend said looking up the beach for her son and husband who had gone fishing with River and Pete.

As dusk settled around us on the beach I began to worry about baru (crocodile). I looked up the beach nervously hoping to see the hunters walking back. I noticed Grandmother and her daughter-in-law did not take their eyes off the sandy point in the distance where the men had gone hunting, they too seemed to be willing them to walk back into view soon.

Within minutes we could see them walking back towards us. No fish today. We were happy and grateful for the crab. Grandmother gave the other crab claw to Peter and River to share and divided the body of the crab up for her and her husband, her son and daughter-in-law.

*********

I shared this story on my facebook page, it has been one of my favorite moments of the trip so far...

We went to meet Nandi Beth, Pete's Yolgnu mum. Nandi is the Yolgnu word for mother. Nandi Beth was spending a few days in hospital, nothing serious so we went to the hospital to meet her. Her delight and joy at seeing River and Sol for the first time was so lovely. She hugged them to her and smiled from her heart, then stood back and looked at the boys, "I get depressed when I come to hospital. Now you've made me happy". In the car when we left Sol said, "We look different but we have the same feelings. Grandmothers love to see grandchildren." They sure do. It was such an experience of universal love.

**********

There are challenges here. Divisions. Politics. Corruption.

There are wonders here. Songlines. Dreaming. Artistry. Family. Ceremony.

I hope you'll stick around to hear more.

today

A man I'd never met before arrived at our door yesterday afternoon with an injured River on his back.

River had been playing footy at the little park four houses away in the court where we're staying. I'd been down to check on him about twenty minutes before he was returned home with a swollen, bruised and scraped right knee.

I'd agreed nervously to let him go down to the park with the other kids who live in the street, I'm usually one for keeping my boys within sight. But the park here is bordered by the homes of the children that River was with and the day before they'd been at the park and there were other parents around. What could happen I thought? Gotta let him have some independence some time. All those kind of thoughts were going through my head as I walked back from the park after checking on who was at the park. There were no adults when I went down there, just four boys. "Come straight home when the others go home" I instructed River. "Yes Mum" he answered immediately.

Instead, some of the other kids parents and uncle joined in the footy match and when one kicked the ball to River he was so busy focusing on the mark he forgot about the knee high fence behind him. Bang went his knee into the fence, he flipped over the railing and landed on his back. He was extremely lucky to get out of it with a bruise.

Ice packs and arnica cream seemed to help. Although, he went to bed with a throbbing leg wondering how he was going to sleep. "Remember that time Archie fell out of the tree house at Van's and landed on his arm and thought he was ok and then woke up in the middle of the night in bad pain and it was broken? Well what if that happens to me?" River asked.

I did my best to reassure him that if his knee was broken he'd be in too much pain to be going to sleep. As mothers do best I kept my thoughts to myself that wondered the same thing, what if he'd really damaged himself? I had visions of returning to Melbourne with River in plaster.

He slept soundly as he always does and despite laying straight as a board when he first was in bed, by morning he was tangled in his sheet legs bent and splayed in opposite directions. Clearly his knee hadn't bothered him overnight.

Pete set off at 6.30am out to a community where he is building a women's healing shelter. He had a long hot day in the sun ahead of him and wanted to get started early.

At about 7.30am I heard River hobbling his way out of bed. He still couldn't bear any weight on his knee. I helped him to the couch where it looked like he was set to stay for the day. Without a car and with River injured we were house bound. As it turns out, a day at home was just what we needed.

With so much to get involved in in Alice Springs and knowing we are only here for a limited time, I had forgotten the value of having a day at home.

Sol stayed in his pj's and ate buckwheat pancakes in the morning sun. River read for the best part of the morning and relished having a rooibos tea with milk and sugar because we'd run out of honey. We raided the bush camp bag that had sugar in it for when we made billy tea.

We did manage to do some school work, River wrote three songs and Sol created imaginary worlds and battles with his Star Wars figurines. I even let them do some maths games on the computer! A very rare event.

By the afternoon we'd all earned some down time, a movie for them and a cup of tea and time reading 'Wrong Way Round' a fabulous true tale of a family who packs up their life in Fitzroy, Melbourne and hits the road. Written by Lorna Hendry I'm aiming to finish it before the weekend when I'm going to a workshop Lorna is presenting at the Writer's Festival. I've been reading it to the boys too, they get totally lost in the story asking for one more page, one more page.

As I sipped my tea and soaked in the quiet of the house and the rhythm of Lorna's story I felt a slight pang of guilt that I should be doing something else, something more 'productive'. To stave off the guilt I told myself that essentially reading the book was work. I am a writer after all and I needed to 'study' the book before the weekend. The guilt also stemmed from thinking about Pete building in the blazing sun while we were in the cool comfort of the house. Guilt, it is so pointless isn't it?

By the end of the day River was back on his feet. At 4.30pm when the boys' buddy Jacob and the other kids in the street arrived home from their school day River's injury was a distant memory. "Who wants to play hide and seek?" they all scattered to find their hiding spot.

Have you forgotten the art of staying home? Are you caught in the busy loop too? Take a day off!

weekend reading

Have I told you lately how much I love Alice Springs?

The day we arrived here I was already thinking about how we'll be sad to leave. We're not leaving for a while but it has cast a spell on me as has happened to many, many people before me.

During the week Pete dropped us in town to go to the library, twenty minutes later after he'd driven off I realised the school book bag was still in the car. Instead of maths and writing we did a walking art gallery tour, spending time at Papunya Tula

On Friday night we spent time at Desert Mob to see some beautiful traditional dancing. I'll write more about that next week.

And enjoyed good coffee and friendly service from The Coffee Horse

I've added this cookbook to my collection since I've been here, I want to make so many of the recipes, I don't have an oven here though so some will have to wait til I'm home

I'm loving the Artful Parent, so many great ideas for art with kids

Winter is over here in Australia but for anyone still fending off the common cold here is a great post from Georgia, Top Five Foods to Reduce Mucus

I've mentioned it before but I'm really looking forward to the NT Writer's Festival

I've taken SO many photos this week, can't wait to share them with you. I'm hunting up recipes too!

I hope you're all having a beautiful weekend x

mister jones, bermagui

We stumbled upon mister jones at 7.3oam one morning a year ago.

Pete, River, Sol and I crept out of our sleeping friend's house to explore the local beaches and Bermagui township.

For those who haven't been to Bermagui, the postcard perfect coastline gives you much to be enchanted by. Throughout the seasons sun sparkles on the sapphire coloured water, Mount Dromedary stands strong across the bay and towering pine trees line the foreshore.

The town itself is changing. Until recently the fifteen or so shops have been about satisfying basic needs - butcher, baker, pub, post office, bait shop and so on - mister jones brings not only coffee worth driving a long way for but a welcome dose of character and originality.

Owner Matt Chun is a talented painter and illustrator who, as a traveller, wandered into town almost six years ago and noticed a for rent sign on a little shop window. A perfect place to paint.

Matt is also a coffee nut. "I always knew good coffee would need to happen to keep me in the town, so setting up to make coffee here was more to feed my own addiction. I thought I might make a couple of coffees a day for people coming to look at the art. And then the coffee took off," he says.

On the morning we visited we sat on cushion covered milk crates in front of the open shop windows and while waiting for our coffee, chai and hot chocolates we got chatting with locals. This is standard issue at mister jones. It is a meeting place.

"It's been a process getting people to step over their discomfort about coming into a place they're not used to. We don't do strawberry milkshakes and toasted sandwiches. The hippies were the first to embrace what I was doing here and then a tradie came in and realised the coffee was good, so then the tradies started coming in, and now it’s a diverse crowd," says Matt.

There's a buzz here that many city cafes would pay to have. I think part of what makes it work is Matt's clarity about what he will and won't do. Despite the small population and impact of the changing seasons on the economy here, Matt doesn't try to be all things to all people. 

Coffee is the focus there's no grey area about that. Every coffee is a work of art, from the sourcing of the ethical, organic beans, directly-traded with small roasters to the local jersey milk and the collection of vintage French glass, and handmade ceramic crockery - no detail is overlooked.

A brief breakfast menu offers exceptional local sourdough bread toasted and served with butter and jam, granola with yoghurt and stewed fruit, organic porridge with poached pear and honey or a green smoothie of almond, banana and wild greens. 

mister jones opens at 7am and closes at noon. Originally the noon closing time was so Matt could paint in the afternoon. The business has grown to the point where Matt hired fellow coffee afficionado Mikey which means Matt is no longer chained to the coffee machine.

I took these photos and interviewed Matt last year when we were there. I know, it has taken me a long time to share them! Last month when we visited again we saw that mister jones has spilled over to the shop next door. It seems the love for what's on offer here continues to grow...

mister jones espresso bar + open studio + drawing workshop + performance space

4 bunga street bermagui

Have you been to mister jones? Tell us your favorite country/coastal town cafe worth driving a long way for.

thursday recipe: lauren's chocolate brioche

We fell in love with Cooktown. As with all great loves, it is that element that you can't quite pin down or put into words that is the most seductive and that's the case with Cooktown. I can't quite put my finger on what stole my heart but stolen it was. (Ok so the consistent hot weather, palm trees and spectacular views of the mountains and sea had something to do with it).

The township of Cooktown is pretty basic, one pub, one bank, bakery, butcher, post office, a souvenir shop, an Italian restaurant, Indigenous art gallery, a couple of petrol stations, an independent supermarket with 4 aisles of groceries and a few accommodation options ranging from a caravan park and a back packers to guest houses.

Oh and there are a couple of cafes but don't bother with the coffee there. Pete decided he would brave a take away chai from one of the cafes, I went in and ordered it for him. The waiter asked, "Would you like coffee in it?" say no more.

One Sunday morning I visited the bakery thinking I'd buy River and Sol croissants. I scanned the few racks of bread and couldn't see anything that resembled pastry. "Do you have any croissants?"
"I could defrost some for you," came the reply. Thanks anyway.

So you can imagine our delight when we left Cooktown with our friend Dave who had flown up from Byron Bay, and headed out to Eddie's camp at the remote Elim beach and were treated to French and Vietnamese inspired campfire cuisine by our newfound friends French born Lauren and her boyfriend Josh.

It was out there at Elim beach where the heat was relentless, the showers cold, no swimming allowed of course because of the crocs, that we enjoyed good coffee brewed in Lauren and Josh's coffee press and Lauren's handmade chocolate brioche made using her Dad's recipe.

One afternoon while Pete, River and Josh went out fishing and crabbing, Sol, Dave and I watched Lauren create her French delicacy. The previous night in a stockpot over the campfire Josh had carefully prepared a wonderful Vietnamese fish curry. The spice kit they travelled with was better than the selection in my pantry at home!

This recipe isn't paleo, or raw, definitely not vegan, gluten free, sugar free or egg free. No, it's French. And having this made for us, in a remote location while listening to Lauren talk about her Dad and her life in France was as much a gift as the brioche itself.

Given we had been eating mainly fish and salad for days, the brioche was sheer decadence. (I did have a moment out at that camp where I thought I can't possibly eat fish again, and immediately felt very ungrateful!)

The day after making the brioche, we took some of the catch back into Hope Vale to share with our friends in the community.  The brioche however, well, leftover chocolate brioche? Whoever heard of that.

Lauren's chocolate brioche

60ml milk
3 eggs, whisked
140g butter (melted + cooled)
50g sugar
430g white flour
14g of yeast
a few drops orange essence (optional)
200g dark chocolate

In a large mixing bowl, place the flour, yeast and sugar and mix with a fork.

Make a well in the centre and using a fork, whisk in the eggs, followed by the milk and melted butter (and orange essence if using).

Mix until you have a dough.

Leave in a warm place for 2 hours or until it doubles in size.

Break dough into approximately 10-12 balls and press 2-4 squares of chocolate into the centre of each ball and cover the chocolate over with the dough.

Lauren baked the brioche in a camp oven over a campfire until it was golden. At home you can preheat the oven to 200C and bake on a tray until golden, approx. 12- 15 minutes.

stills collection

 

1. Yoke. A friend gifted me this new mag which made for great reading at our camp.

2. Cooktown stole our hearts.

3. Home made pasta is the best!

4. My man Pete with the beautiful Dr Tommy George Snr of the Kuku Thypan clan, in Cairns at the launch of the book they worked on together: Fire & the Story of Burning Country.

5. The beautiful Natalia Mann (home made pasta maker extraordinaire!) tuning up to play harp at the Fire book launch. Thankyou Natalia.

6. As we drove south out of Cairns we followed this cutie.

more from the road plus thursday recipe: sweet potato + haloumi salad

The heat from our days at Elim Beach is already merely a memory as I sit here in a coat today writing in Byron Bay where the weather is wintery.

I'm sorry these photos hardly do justice to the magnificence of the Cape York coastline. The best way to truly feel the magic of this place is to go there!

We set up camp at Traditional Owner Eddie Deemal's camp for one week. Eddie's camp is remote and therefore blissfully quiet. There were never more than four camp sites occupied at a time while we were there. To camp here a permit is required for details go here.

The days were hot, so we were thankful for the cold showers available because the crocodiles meant no swimming in the beautiful sea.

There is no hot running water at Eddie's camp, cold water is pumped up through some 97 underground springs where the water is filtered by the sand. A natural wonder!

The fish were plentiful. And when out in the boat catching the fish, the sandflies were plentiful too. After one fishing trip up the mangroves River returned with at least 100 bites on his bare calves and shins. Lesson learned: long sleeves and pants are a must as well as a good repellent.

For those who have never encountered a sandfly, the itch from the bite is intense and relentless. Sandflies are not like mosquitos in that you don't see them as they are so small and the itch lasts for days. Multiply that by 100 and you have a recipe for madness!

The night that River's itching was insufferable I put him under a cold shower and knew that taking his mind away from itch was just as important as relieving the itch with the cooling water. So, I told him to sing. His song choice was from Oliver, a movie we picked up in an op shop for $2 that he had watched over and over on long drives in the back of the car. Soon he was singing and soothed by the cool water and the Itch Eze cream I had picked up in Cooktown. tip: the remedy that really settled the bites down was to heat a pot with a few litres of water in it and add two capfuls of dettol and one capful of tea tree oil and soak the affected area.

Uncle Dave, our friend from Byron Bay, flew up to join us at Eddie's camp which was a treat for all of us to enjoy this place together and to introduce Dave to our friends in Hope Vale. 

Fresh fish was our staple over the week, while for Dave who eats a vegetarian diet I made sure the salads we ate had some protein punch in them in the form of nuts, seeds and haloumi. We also enjoyed dahl and a roasted vegetable pasta by the campfire.

I'd love to hear some of your travel tales. Are you on the road? Or dreaming of hitting the road? Tell us in the comments.

Sweet potato and Haloumi Salad

Ingredients

1 medium size sweet potato, peeled and sliced into 1/2cm slices
200g haloumi, sliced and fried til golden, cut into bite size pieces
3 tablespoons of tamari pepitas and sunflower seeds
mixed lettuce leaves
1 lebanese cucumber roughly chopped
1 tomato sliced and then each slice cut into quarters

To make

Roast or pan fry sweet potato until cooked, allow to cool.
Place all ingredients in a salad bowl, drizzle macadamia oil over the salad and splash on apple cider vinegar then toss salad and serve.

(To make tamari pepitas and sunflower seeds, dry roast seeds in a fry pan and at the end splash some tamari over and cook for a minute longer).

life on the road

We've been away from home for two months now and it is feeling like a feast I can hardly digest there is so much to take in.

The ever changing landscape, (although I must say the sugar cane fields in Queensland are a dominant feature in the foreground), so many new people with stories and delicious meals to share, beaches, campgrounds, rainforests each with their different feeling to adjust to.

River and Sol are travelling exceptionally well. We have clocked up 3000 kms now and it only took pulling over twice to lay the ground rules of being in the car - no fighting in the backseat - for them to settle in to the long days of driving.

Pete and I made the decision to buy them each a portable dvd player for the 400km plus days. This might sound like a given for many but it was kind of a big deal for us!

The only screen time our boys get at home is ABC TV or movies on the weekend. The dvd players have come in handy but for the most part River and Sol have settled into the road trip and don't really bat an eyelid at 4 hours in the car in a day.

I'm surprised at how much I like tent living. It simplifies everything. We have four plates, four bowls, four sets of cutlery, four cups, a box for a pantry, a heavy duty esky is our fridge, we each have an overnight bag of clothes, a few books, a few toys, bedding and well, that's about it!

Having said that, clothes still need to be washed (sometimes even by hand!) and folded, everyone still gets tired and hungry and along with "are we there yet?" comes "what's for dinner?" and "where will sleep tonight?" but before we eat or sleep we actually have to put up our house, the tent.

Just like at home we have our rough days where things don't flow, moods go up and down, patience is lost, and found and we look forward to the sun setting so we can start all over again tomorrow.

To anyone who has ever for a moment dreamt of hitting the road with their family I say do it. In two short months, that sometimes have felt years long, our family has made memories to last our lifetimes and put into practice the art of letting go.

We have let go of the familiar, the known, the school run, routine. There is very little that is routine about being on the road. Plans change from day to day, week to week. Sure I try to keep a rhythm to our days that revolves around meals and teeth being brushed and clothes being changed but that is about as routine as things get.

Having freshly washed and folded clothes is such a pleasure when you are on the road, as is sleeping in a real bed on the occasional nights we stay with friends or pull into a roadside motel when it is too late to put up the tent.

River and I have just in the last week started thinking about home, wondering what it would be like to be back there, wondering what our friends and family are up to.

Having been a keen traveller all my adult life I know that homesickness is part of travel so I just push those thoughts aside, knowing that the weather will still be freezing at home, that our dear friends and family will be there when we get back and that this journey we have undertaken as a family that goes beyond sight seeing is not yet complete.

I suggested to River that we phone his favorite friend from school and he was happy with that idea.

How about you? Do you have the travel bug? What's your remedy for homesickness?