Some days kids can be complete little turds. This was one of them. Of course parents can be big turds too… but they can get away with it easier… That’s all I have to say about that.

‘Take it In’ by The Waifs has been a song we have listened to as we travel. It has that great message of enjoying every moment and we have been trying to do this as best we can. It kicks off with these words – that mean so much more now… (and yes – it was hard for me to admit to listening to The Waifs 🙂

now she’s thinking of the red soil and those mango trees

well in her mind she’s still splashing round down on cable beach

and her eyes are as rich and as far away

as the sunset there

but she’s not taking in a word i say

so i might as well be talking to my self

take it in, take it all in

now is the time that will not come again

take it in take it all in

this is the day and its here for the living

I have begun planning the next trip – checking out other vans – working out which 4WD would be the best etc. The BTB is a great car but at 25l/100km it is an embarrassment! The Jayco Camper is pretty cool, but perhaps next time bunks for the kids and a bathroom on board would be better. It would have been better this time too, but we made a compromise on the bigger van in the quest for better fuel economy… Oh well… diesel next time I think…

We took the camper off-road for the first time to Palm Springs and gave it a fair old rattle. A few things came apart and a bit of repair & cleaning work is required. I did some of it today and Danelle did the cleaning. We were headed into El Questro, but given the beating we gave the Jayco this week we thought we should let it recover and attend to what needs doing before giving it more grief.

I continue to imagine ways of never coming home, but just keeping on rolling… I’m sure it is doable and I’m even sure it would be a hell of an adventure! I am pretty confident that if we decided to, we could keep alive for several years in our current mode with occasional work. Of course that is the purely selfish side of me speaking and doesn’t pay any attention to what God may have in store for us. It also doesn’t consider two kids who regularly get homesick.

Our camping skills are improving. Pack up and set up are proving to be quite simple things to do now and the time it takes for us to do them has halved at least. For an overnight stop we can get set up in 10 or 15 minutes with no trouble and for a few days – where we unpack the car and put the annexe up it takes us about an hour or so depending on how fast we choose to go. Its nice to be able to do this a bit more efficiently.

I have loved seeing the changing landscape as we have moved north up the state. I honestly couldn’t say which part I have found most attractive, but having arrived in Kununurra today, I have to say this part of the Kimberley is right up there. I didn’t expect such a lush and ‘mountainous’ area nor for it to be so beautiful, but if it weren’t for the weather in wet season I don’t think I’d want to leave this part of the world.

Having said that I haven’t had that ‘I could live here’ feeling yet that I have had a few times in the south west of WA. That’s always a good thing, because I doubt it would happen in the near future anyway.