On the way back from Port Moresby last week, my umteenth and last trip this year, I browsed the bookshop for some reading unrelated to my work projects. I was delighted to find Adventures in Caravanistan: Around Australia at 80ks. Part of the pleasure of going away is the anticipation so a preliminary immersion in life on the road was good food for my soul.
About a year ago we stood in a park in Williamstown on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon and dreamed of how good it would be to leave the city and travel around. Its not a particularly unusual thought for us urbanites, but there was something about the thought that took hold. Why not we wondered? Really. Why not? Why wait until we are grey to be nomadic? Who's rules say you can't do it now?
The thought of buying a caravan had never entered our minds before that discussion. We couldn't let it go. Maria always says that choice is always real ... its about embracing the consequences of the choice that is hard. So we imagined how we could make traveling happen. Our original ideas of months away have been tempered as we weighed up the implications of the particular stages of schooling our kids are in. We landed on the more sober and in some ways more sustainable approach of monthly excursions.
So we are about to embark on another trip up the East Coast. We fell in love with Brunswick Heads when we were there in July, so we are going back ... why not? Then we gradually come down the Coast to Port Stephens and end up back in Brunswick (Melbourne) in late January. That's two months on the roads, including a week back here in the lead up to Christmas (flying).
Maybe we make our own luck, either way, I'm one fortunate bloke. Taking nothing for granted, sucking in the pleasure of the moment, even this early ordinary morning in a quite house when there is peace to be had.