This week has been awesome in so many ways. It’s been mixed with a small amount of work, and plenty of family adventures.
We had loads of fun at the Lithgow Halloween 15 Festival. I spent 12 hours on my feet serving green smoothies and talking to people about real food. But this is our Family Tour Diary Week 4, and I’ll write about our mission separately when I do my Lithgow report for you. For now, here’s a bit of a look at what our Family Tour Diary Week 4 looked like.
Lithgow Halloween 15 Festival
This festival was amazing. Evidently it is one of the biggest Halloween Festivals in NSW and we had a blast. What I really loved about this festival was how nearly all the shops in the whole of Main Street really got into the spirit of the festival. The shop front displays were incredible. The festival draws people from outside Lithgow too. Everyone gets in the spirit – there was barely a person who was not dressed up. If you’re asking yourself why as a Health Coach I would be talking about Halloween as being amazing and having a blast, you can find out my views on Halloween here.
The other thing is I’ve read how a lot of mums are concerned about how trick or treat encourages kids to go knocking on doors and taking lollies from strangers. With a festival like this, it’s a big street party and the shop owners are giving out the lollies for trick or treat. Yes they are still strangers but I personally feel it’s a safer environment because the shop owners have a lot at stake, and in a town, the shop owners are usually well known. Plus there’s also safety in numbers and numbers there were at this festival.
Glow Worm Tunnel
Before leaving Lithgow, we took a short drive (about 1 hour) to the Glow Worm Tunnel at Wollemi National Park.
The drive into the National Park is largely along a dirt road with lots of bends which Israel loved. Said it reminded him of those sega rally car games. All I can say, it is must feel safer when you’re holding onto the steering wheel because I personally did not enjoy some of the bends in the road. With that said, visually it was an interesting drive because the road is right through the middle of a plantation forest. It was a great way for the kids to learn about how this kind of logging is sustainable – the forests are planted in rows with the specific view of it being chopped down. They could see how some parts of the plantation were newly planted, others in mid growth and then the ones which has been totally cleared with the logs stacked in massive piles – bigger than the car.
Then we arrived at the car park to access the tunnel. The walk to the tunnel was probably about 30 minutes, and it was a lovely walk through the forest. We saw rock formations called Pagodas which were 200 million years old. Once we got to the tunnel, we put on our headlamps and walked quietly into the tunnel. After about a 5 minute walk into the tunnel, we turned off our headlamps, and there they were. The glow worms. Tiny little green spots all over the tunnel. Beautiful! Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any photos of the glow worms because it was too black in the tunnel and if you turn on your light or use the flash, the glow worms turn off their glow.
Home is where we park – Bathurst
We also left Lithgow and drove to Bathurst with no mechanical incident, yep you read right, no mechanical incident. It’s the first time we have driven on any leg of this tour without having to stop somewhere along the way to fix a problem. So there was much rejoicing and high fiving when we got to Bathurst.
The past 6 weeks have been so intense and stressful for us that we decided to use the opportunity in Bathurst to destress a little, catch up with some friends, and do some planning for the rest of our Australian Tour. We chose for the first few days to camp at Big 4 Bathurst Panorama Holiday Park because it had a jumping pillow, park, recreation room and a pool to occupy the kids so we could get some work done. Out the front of the holiday park is the famous giant sculpture of the gold panner, which of course, we had to have a selfie with. Later in the week, we free camped at the hockey field carpark just near the Bathurst Skate Park.
Bathurst & Mount Panorama
Bathurst is 200 years old this year. I love how the city has retained much of it’s old world charm. There’s the clock tower at the Bathurst Courthouse which excited the kids because they have become besotted (rightly so) by the Back To The Future movies. I can’t tell you how many times Rilien said “Great Scott” during our time in Bathurst- lol! Then we strolled through the magnificent gardens of Kings Parade with it’s statues of Australian Explorers Burke, Wills, Wentworth & Evans and the eternal flame at a memorial. Everywhere in Bathurst was so lush and green, the manicured lawns of the city were like bowling greens.
Oh and I nearly forgot, we drove Mount Panorama – three times! Not in the bus, but in our car. Would you believe the first drive around in the car was to scope out if we could take Kaley (our bus) around. It was an experience – he’s a little video footage of only one part of the drive. This gives you a bit of an indication of how I felt being the passenger in the car.
During the week in Bathurst, we caught up with one of Israel’s dear friends and we met his family. We had such a fabulous time and they gave us so much help with their inside knowledge of the towns we are about to go into. It was a great week and we worked out our strategy for how we were going to raise awareness in every town we travel too – starting with Dubbo (stay tuned when we talk our mission in a separate post).
Whilst we were in town, we also met the most incredibly talented artist and author Dean Mobbs. His studio is a work of art itself. An eclectic world of different styles of art, all wonderfully intriguing that leave you thinking, “wow” and “how did he come up with that idea”, and “I wish I had space on the bus to hang that!”. If you get to Bathurst, pop in and meet Dean – not only are his artworks incredible, but he is truly a great guy – happy to stop and chat about art, the world and life.
Learnings
1. Don’t take the corners too quickly. We made the fatal mistake of taking a corner in Lithgow too fast – the reality was we were probably only 10-15km’s but when you’re 19 tonne, that’s pretty quick. Our pantry doors flew open and pretty much most of the contents spilled out on the floor. The drawers under the kids beds flew open and their wardrobe doors too – thankfully nothing fell out of these.
2. Nature is the best playground. We’ve got a TV but we are yet to install it in the bus. We’ve found the best way of keeping sane is just to be outside in nature. And I think we have both been surprised at the games the kids make up when they are outdoors.
3. Go with the flow. We’ve set ourselves a schedule for this first leg of the tour, but we stayed longer in Bathurst – not for any other reason, other than we were having such a great time with our friends. It’s meant we will need to miss a side trip to Crescent Head in a couple of weeks, but we’re ok with that. I think it will take us a while to get use to this going with the flow that travelling life brings but I’m sure we will benefit from it. For me, personally my last 20 years of work life have all been pretty structured with time frames and me use to being in control. We’ve also found it a juggling act trying to keep on top of Indrani’s school work. We’ve had to become a little more relaxed about subjects other than numeracy and literacy (she must do those). Time to be ok with other items being submitted late.
4. Rainy days require patience and thinking out of the box. So we had LOTS of rain when we were in Bathurst. We have learnt to be creative in the hallway of the bus. We did kids yoga with Cosmic Kids (on You Tube). Indrani and Rilien created their own game of getting into the pillow cases with the pillows in them and trying to walk. The idea of the pillow still being in the pillow cases was when they fell forward onto their knees, they would land on the pillows – and then subsequently be in fits of laughter. All this fun for free – lol!
Personal Growth
So week 4 was not all rainbows and unicorns. It did have it’s challenges. We’re still learning how to juggle work, play, sightseeing and school. It’s meant we have had way too many late nights – all of us. We’ve learnt tired people in a confined space is not always a happy space. We’ve learnt that sometimes you have to go for a walk to let off steam. And most importantly, we’ve learnt that sleep is important. So if we get to bed late, then it’s ok to stay in bed til later. We’re still working on how to ensure we are not still sitting at the tables working after 10.30pm.
Next week
We move on to Orange, Parkes and Dubbo. Join us next week for week 5. xo