Monday, March 23

Final day in Barn Hill paradise


Our last full day at Barn Hill. I have really enjoyed being here. It has been nice to be in the one spot for so long. Though I think the girls have found it a bit boring at times. Mind you this has encouraged them to read more and try a little more school work. There are still rather large battles when it comes to doing school stuff but I remain confident that this too shall eventually pass.

Making the most of our last day we headed down to the beach not too long after breakfast. The sun yesterday was particularly harsh so we wanted to make sure we were home before things heated up too much. As it turned out, it wasn’t as hot though by about eleven the winds were starting to pick so we headed home in time for lunch.

I had told Zany that lunch was going to be a salad with some of the new leaves that we acquired the day before from Pam and Bill only I realised if we had them for lunch there wouldn’t be anything for dinner. Much to Zany’s disappointment lunch became toasted jaffle wraps and the salad postponed till dinner.

The rest of the day was pretty much a nothing kind of day. Well a reading nothing kind of day. Which is always a bit nice. Since our trip into town on Thursday where we purchased a few new books the girls have happily been devouring all the words on the pages. Something that makes my heart swell no end.

Having read the final book in the Hunger Games series when we first arrived here I am now without anything to read myself. Well there are a few Les Norton books that Mr Awesome loves laying around but they just don’t really take my fancy yet. Plus I have plenty of crocheting to keep my occupied. 

Mind you I mentioned to one of our neighbours, Marj, that I was out of books to read and shortly after she brought me over two she thought I might be interested in. The friendliness of those on the road constantly amazes me. Everywhere we go we seem to just come across the most loveliest of people.
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Sunday, March 22

Day 63 Sept 20

Today was meant to be our leaving day, though we decided a few days ago that we would stay on for another two nights. It is hard to not stay for longer but really there is no reason to. Other than read, walk on the beach and crochet there is not a lot to be done here. Which in many ways is the beauty of it all.

We have noticed that there are quite a few long term residents here. They arrive at the start of the season (April) and stay till the end of October. There are certainly worse places to spend six months of the year. Two of those long termers, Bill and Pam are leaving tomorrow. A few weeks earlier than what they normally would due to some ill health. We have been watching them pack and sort themselves out for the last few days. In some strange way it was all a bit sad.

What wasn’t sad though was when Pam asked me if I wanted to take her little box of lettuces with us. I had said to Mr Awesome at the start of the trip that I would like to take a little herb garden with me but he said it just wasn’t possible. Fingers crossed the dirt doesn’t fall out all through Edna the first time we move.

Late yesterday afternoon we gained some new neighbours. Rather close ones given how many empty spaces were available. It always amazes me how some people think camping is done best when sites are on top of one another. It also amazes me when people want to camp in close proximity to us, because you know, we have children and are (at least to my ears) noisy. Turns out that the new neighbours had children of their own though so perhaps that was why they thought being close would be a good thing.

Their two girls were close in age to Zany and Teapot. One was a year younger than Zany and the other a year older than Teapot. They had the most wonderful time all playing together. Children just seem to be drawn to playing at our camp. Which in many ways is very lovely but today I barely wanted my own children around let alone any extras.

I didn’t exactly sleep well the night before and woke up a tad on the grumpy side of life. To make things worse I was expecting a visit from Aunty Flo and her non arrival was making slightly anxious. As late as I am with most things in life, getting my period is not usually on the list. Unless of course there is a baby growing. Having another baby is the absolute last thing I want. My baby making days are done and dusted, I am quite happy working with the ones I have rather than starting again with new additions thankyouverymuch.

In slightly happier news though yesterday, despite it's somewhat dubious start, turned out to be a bit of a cracker of a day. Once every one else had caught up on the whole getting up thing Mr Awesome and I enjoyed our coffee together and these two little fellows decided to stop by and say hello. I really do love watching birds.

Shortly after Mr A, living up to his name realised that I was not necessarily in the mood for dealing with the trials and tribulations of children and bundled the little two up and took them down the beach. 

After enough peace and quiet, when I felt able to deal with the never-ending tirade of the cries of mum that are inevitable whenever I am in the presence of children, I mustered up the energy to walk down to the sand and investigate what they had all been up too. 

As it turned out they had been up to some pretty masterful sand castle creating. Standing there, surveying the scene before me, my heart began to swell as I was once again reminded of just how incredibly awesome Mr Awesome actually is. Something tells me there are few fathers that would spend a morning creating a sand castle masterpiece such as this.





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Wednesday, March 11

Back to Broome.

The day got off to a rather unusual start as when we awoke we were greeted with bit of foggy mist. Having had limited experience with such weather phenomena I am not sure whether to call it fog or mist. 

Either way it was kinda cool not being able to see more than ten feet in front of ourselves. 

Sadly though it didn’t hang around for too long. Which was probably actually a bit of a blessing because we had an early start on the road today.

Originally we had only planned to stay here at Barn Hill for a week. We had enough food to stay a week here, two nights at 80 Mile Beach and then two more at a free camp on the way to Port Hedland. Only we like it so much we just don’t want to leave.

As we watched some other residents head into Broome yesterday to restock their supplies we realised there was no reason why we couldn’t do the same which would then enable us to stay here a bit longer.

So today that is exactly what we did. Headed back to Broome for a bit of shopping and some lunch. 

A day or two before we left last time we came across a particularly awesome butcher. His meat was all organic grass fed and came cryovacced which meant it lasted for a month. It is also very reasonably priced. Unfortunately for us we discovered his awesomeness right after we had filled up the fridge so we were limited on how much we could get. 

Of course that fridge is now relatively empty and I am just a bit excited to be able to fill it up with just good meat. I am also a bit excited about having lunch at Matso Brewery. When we were staying in Broome I ran past it a few times and thought how nice it would be to actually go there but for whatever reason we never made it.

Matso’s did not disappoint and their food was as good as their beer and cider. I was particularly proud of myself because the caesar salad with prawns I ordered was brought out without any prawns and I spoke up about it. There was a time when I would have just let it slide because I don’t like to cause a fuss but I really wanted prawns. They were mighty tasty so I am super glad I spoke up.

Of course I did momentarily beat myself up about it all because the waitress told me what a bad day she was having. And while she might not have said I made it worse I naturally took it as being implied. In between beating myself up about adding to her woes I wondered what it was that actually lead me to such thought processes. Such complex beings we humans are.


Joining in with
My Brown Paper Packages

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Tuesday, March 10

Yet another day in paradise

Today was not unlike yesterday. Lots of relaxing and just being with each other. Mr Awesome decided he wanted to try his hand at fishing. Primarily because one of the old locals gave him some bait and told him how to find his ‘secret’ location.

Personally I am only a fan of fishing if there is a guarantee that fish will be caught. I couldn’t see that this was a guaranteed situation so Lovely and I decided to hang back at camp for awhile. Mr A and the two little ones headed off to the furthest end of the beach they could find.

I probably used my relatively unattended time wisely and did something like crochet or read. While Lovely did some reading of her own or perhaps colouring in. It is a little hard to recall the finer details of it all because I am actually typing this up some hundred and seventy days after it actually occurred. #keepingitreal

Before too long Lovely was complaining of starvation which led me to think the others would be doing the same. In a bid to enter the mother and wife of the year I decided to prepare some food and take it down to the hunters. Lovely decided that packet pasta was the preferred dining option for all so we set about whipping some up.

While some might have found it a little strange to head to the beach with a saucepan of pasta to me it seemed perfectly reasonable. In fact I thought the others would be all kinds of excited to have a pasta picnic on the sand. Well apart from Zany who is not really a fan but I had a few tins of tuna and corn to tide her over.

As suspected the hunger pains had begun to ravish the other two so we were more than welcomed with our meagre offerings of food. As was also suspected no fish had yet been caught. A fun time had been had by all though so little else really mattered.

Lovely in the open topped rock cave
Once every one had finished eating I had the brilliant idea to wash the bowls in the rather roughish surf. Unfortunately I didn’t have the brilliant idea to hold onto the bowls tightly while I washed them in the rather roughish surf and not one but two bowls were ripped out of my fingertips and washed out to sea.

With the dishes taken care of I set about exploring some of the rocks with the girls. There was one particular area where the rocks formed a little open top cave. Lovely thought this was a prime place to try her modelling. There is no denying that the girl is incredibly photogenic.

All the photo taking on a secluded beach made me think of my mate Coombsey and his Naked Tuesday Page. Even though it wasn’t technically a Tuesday I decided to get my gear of and snap a couple of shots to share. Combsey has been diagnosed with terminal cancer but rather than just roll over and give up the ghost he is determined to get out there and make the rest of his life, the best of his life. I motto which I find rather inspiring and try to abide by as much as possible as well.
A photo posted by @aparentinglife on

The waves and the wind turned out to be far to rough for fish catching so Mr A packed up and headed home with us all in tow. Weary from a day on the sand and in the sun but full of love and happiness.

It's Tuesday and while I haven't got my gear off I have managed to sort a blog post, which is my other favourite past time for Tuesdays as it means I get to join in with Essentially Jess for IBOT
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Saturday, March 7

Still hanging at Barn Hill. Day 59 (Sept 16)

Today I took the opportunity today to finish reading the Hunger Games series. Still amazed that I had written it off when the rest of the world was raving about it.

While I submersed myself in my book the girls happily entertained themselves. Though by the afternoon they started to require my attention.

I loved how Lovely was so insistent on being the one
to run beside her.
Since I had not really done a lot of moving over the last few days I decided it was the perfect time to work on teaching Teapot how to ride her bike without training wheels. There was plenty of flat open ground and not a lot of people around so it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

She has such a great sense of balance and can ride a scooter incredibly well I figured it would not take much to get her biking riding. It was more about building her confidence up to try than anything else.

After a bit of convincing to just have a go she was away and before long the big sisters were in on the act of helping her get started and she was cycling like a professional.

Once the novelty of cycling wore off, or rather we got sick of helping her get started we headed down to the beach to explore in the other direction. So far most of our waking had involved walking to our left. Today we headed to our right. 

It was much like the left only completely different as well.


The rocks didn’t seem to be as red and the distance the water came up seemed to differ as well. We did however find some lovely spots to take a few selfies!


As is so often the case, the walk home so every one else out in front while I toddled on behind, snapping away at all kinds of things that took my fancy.

Including this,

Father and daughter skipping along the water's edge together
which could very well be one of my most favourite photos ever. 

Though this one also rates rather high on the list.

The perfect end to another fabulous day in paradise.
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Wednesday, March 4

There's something I need to say

I came across this little flower today
when I stopped to watch some waves for
a bit. I love how something that is
essentially a weed still has such a
beauty to it. 
For those avidly following on my adventure tales this one might seem a out of place. Given that when last I wrote it was only day 58 and all. I promise I will get to sharing it all, just for today I wanted to share the moment.

It is funny the things that one learns about oneself when travelling on the road. And not just oneself either. Much insight can be gained about those travelling with you as well. Though I guess those that are truly astute about their inner being and the people around them may become aware of such things without the need to spend two hundred and twenty eight days moving from one spot to another. 

Yes that’s right today marks the the two hundred and twenty eighth day since we packed up and hit the road. It makes my heart race at great pace to think we actually made it to leaving. In the lead up I did have my doubts. Mr Awesome and I are both well known for being gunnas. You know gunna do this and gunna do that but more often than not nothing actually eventuates. I feared that #ouradventureofalifetime was going to pan out that way. 

Beyond thankful doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about the fact that those fears were unfounded. Waking up each day without a worry, care or concern in the world is an amazing feeling and for me it has taken this adventure to be able to do so. I had always thought of myself as a relatively stress free easy going type of soul. With the pressures and expectations of normal life removed I realise now I know what stress free living is all about. And let me tell you it is great, in fact it is better than great.

Mind you to say that I have loved and embraced every moment of the trip would not necessarily true. It has not always been rainbows and flowers. There have been days where the children have managed to reduce me to an endless flow of tears. As children a want to do I might add. However I don't think those times have been nearly as many as if we had of still been at home, doing the same thing that we have always done.

There have still been many a day where I have dreaded the onset of feeding hour. Which I do believe is worsened with all the fresh air and outside time our roadtripping lifestyle blesses us with. The continual rumbling tummies of children seem to have rumbled even more so. However a lack of choices combined with the increased rumbling has lead to emptier plates than ever before.

It saddens me to think that this lifestyle has to come to an end. Deep down I did always know that it would I just longed and hoped it would be so much later rather than sooner. As it turns out it is actually the other way.

According to our grand master plan we should still have another hundred and thirty seven days on the road. Sadly that will not be the case. 

It literally pains my heart to say that our journey will end in about twenty three days. Give or take a few. In so many ways it makes me feel like some type of failure. Which while deep down I know is ridiculous I still can’t help but feel it.

As always though, all is not lost.


For as much as #ouradventureofalifetime is temporarily being put on hold a new exciting chapter in our lives is getting ready to begin. You see when the end of the month arrives and our travelling days end we will not be pulling up stumps in sunny Darwin. Instead we are going to be in Bunbury, experiencing winter and all that comes with starting life a fresh in a new place. Which in so many ways is just a little exciting.
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