Winging it, camping style (by Helen, poem by Clara)

As Ben described in his post, we rented an SUV for the final leg of our Australian adventure and went on a road trip down to Melbourne and back. We finally used our camping suitcase, sleeping in a different place each night for 10 days. All but one night was in the tent. We had one stay at a Budget Ibis which we knew enough to jokingly refer to as a Budget Bin Chicken, having met some actual ibises with our relatives.

We booked a few sites before leaving Sydney and figured out the other ones en route, which worked out fine as the weather was getting colder and school holidays had just ended. We got faster and faster at putting up the tent— here is set up on our final night (Ben edited the video). The tent ended up feeling a little like a space ship- it appeared wherever we needed it to and had everything we needed. 

Camping meant that we spent more time outside and saw parts of Australia we wouldn’t have otherwise. One of my favourite sites was a leafy field outside a limestone mine. We saw the stars most nights. Nearly everything was unfamiliar, except for Orion, who was always throwing himself towards the horizon. We were often racing to get to sites before the sun set.

We chose Melbourne as our road trip destination to visit Alastair, one of Doug’s close friends from his climbing days. We spent Saturday at a village recreating life during the Australian gold rush. The kids were especially taken by the blacksmith demonstration and a ride in a horse carriage. That evening we had the nicest Chinese meal Will and I have ever tasted (the kids were mostly ‘Australian pescatarians’ and politely ate some stir fried rice). On Sunday, we hiked with Stardust the dog in the You Yang mountains. At one point Will had to brush an incredibly large, suspicious looking spider off of Clara (eek!). Alastair has led a remarkable life and we look forward to reading his books to learn more about he and Doug’s adventures.

A magical experience on our journey was watching the world’s largest colony of Little Penguins come in from the ocean at night and calling to each other across the hills. We also saw an impressive war museum and beautiful house of parliament in Canberra and paddled with surprisingly friendly sting rays. 

Meals were often an adventure. The last three were a pub meal surrounded by dog racing screens, veggie hotdogs at IKEA (I love IKEA), and a camping meal with extra noddles purchased in Montreal (both kids ate the mushrooms!). Driving, cooking, washing, learning, singing, talking…

Overall, things had a nice way of working themselves out. I wrote this on a flight to the UK, which we managed to get onto without a visa (imagine?). I’ve been reading Bill Bryson’s the history of everything, which was fitting while at the other end of the world. Just us in a tent, on a planet, in a galaxy, amid billions of galaxies; Holding onto each day.