Clearly I have neglected this webpage and posting. There’s a super valid reason and it can be summed up in two words: complete reinvention. This was led by a complete upheaval and a diversion of the path my family had put into motion that we didn’t see coming. This is all separate from COVID too! Ha!
Anyway we ended up selling our house in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales and packed the kids and my husband into an RV, basically a tiny house on wheels, and drove around Australia for 8 months.
There were incredible ways of living going on in Queensland that were truly sensational. Like you can still be a miner, like an actual miner of precious gems like sapphires with your own mining claim. We went out to the Outback where there’s hardly any trees and even in spring we were so hot and sweaty while taking tours of dinosaur bones where the Golden Age of Palaeontology is happening. Who knew Australia was mostly underwater before! So there are all of these scientists and miners and pretty much fringe people wanting to live life on their own terms in the Outback.
Then we went over to Tin Can Bay where daily these people go and hand feed dolphins, like that’s their actual life! They get up early host some tourists then get on with the rest of their day like it’s no big deal that they are doing this really amazing activity everyday.
Up in the Daintree Rainforest and in Far North Queensland we found hippies, lots of hippies who can’t get into the water. That’s the strange thing like half of the country you can’t get into the water due to crocodiles in the ocean or fresh water crocs in the rivers and streams! Then there are the jellyfish which just adds another layer of the option of death. It was so weird to be hot and sticky wanting to go into the water and being so fearful of even getting close to the water’s edge. Too many people have been eaten just at the edge of the water let along actually going in.
We got to see some incredible wildlife like these tall prehistoric looking birds that my husband thought hand feeding them would be a good idea when they were as tall as our kids. Then a wild emu daddy with babies out near the dinosaurs. Then a cassowary daddy with babies in the Daintree.
Since we were traveling during the height of Australia’s covid pandemic we avoided the populations as best as possible. If there was a report of a covid case or outbreak we would completely change our plans and chose another place. The boys and my husband still managed to get a couple of respiratory infections and I had the worst flu of my life, none of which were covid. We attributed it to the fact that we were in new places with people who had different germs than us, it still wasn’t fun but it did lead to being isolated in the RV on a opening mining area where I found a sapphire on the ground when we were just walking along which was very exciting.
When the borders were opening up for Queensland we knew they weren’t prepared and we made a huge effort to catch the ferry to the island state of Tasmania just after their borders opened. We had been to Tasmania once before when our oldest son was just a baby and had loved it. We also knew that Tasmania was prepared for covid, or at least was more prepared with higher rates of vaccination so we felt it was a good idea.
We made a very covert through the countryside fast trip through inland Queensland, inland New South Wales and straight through Victoria to catch the overnight ferry to Tasmania.
Now let me say that for as much as I have traveled in my life and continue to do so, I still get so motion sick. In the RV I always had ginger, mints, and travel calm. None of it prepared me for the ferry. It was a rough night at sea and by time we made it back to land I was pretty much disoriented and was struggling something fierce after the up and down 8 hour ferry ride.
Tasmania is called The Nature State for a reason. It is lush, has beautiful sweeping coastlines, picturesque farmland, with a huge portion of the island protected in reserves or national parks. The island is the size of Ireland and the population is less than that of Finland with 500,000 people. It feels spacious and we instantly loved it, again.
We loved it so much that we decided to bed down and bought a house where we can see and hear the ocean waves all right next to a really great school in a family friendly town that has an awesome science and art centre.
Now life is beginning again with intention and it feels incredible.
That’s the update for now and I’ll be sharing more again soon, promise!