11/9/08
Having actually only lived at College for a short time but always being in the public eye was exhausting. We lived in a donga (demountable building) up in the hospitality area with the entire construction crew. It was definitely fun, but as we had no kitchen facilities we ate in a common area with the rest of the staff and construction crew. Breakfast was help yourself, as was lunch, in a shared common area. Dinner was served at a set time and everyone ate together. There were definite benefits such as lots of socialising, not cooking and only cleaning up on the days you were rostered on. Being on display however with 5 young kids, especially when dinner was served after the 1 year old’s bedtime wasn’t always great. Needless to say a holiday was required. Most sane people would have flown their childen down to Sydney to stay with grandparents, and would have gone away alone, but we decided that driving 3000kms with 5 kids and camping would be the way to go. Sound refreshing?
It seemed like a good plan at the time, it was economical on paper, and had we had a care free relaxed year, may have done the trick. In mid June we stuffed our 4WD to the roof, shoved our kids in through the windows and drove away. The next few blog posts will show you snippets of our trip, things we learnt and highlights. Needless to say our kids had a blast, and Steve and I having been camping enthusiasts from way back, have thrown the tent away!!
