When the sugar cane harvest finished we headed back down to Sydney/Newcastle to see our daughters and grandson. Christmas was not far away and we had to admit we were missing the girls and really wanted to give our grandson a big cuddle. We took a couple of weeks to travel down the coast and during this time we noticed a job for Caravan Park Managers at Cessnock. Even though we had saved a bit of money so did not need to work, we felt it would be nice to have a job within visiting distance from our daughters, giving us the opportunity to spend some time with our grandson, who had just turned two. Well, we weren’t selected for the job but we were asked if we could do it for a couple of months until the new managers could start. We agreed to do that and even though it was pretty hard work, just the two of us and no real handover, we learnt a lot, got to go to a Cat Stevens concert, visited the Christmas Lights show at Hunter Valley Gardens with our grandson and spent Christmas with our daughters.

Cashed up, we decided to explore around the area as we still wanted to be near the kids. We decided we could leave our dog, Beni, with our daughter while we explored the Blue Mountains for a few weeks. We found a lovely free lakeside camp in Lithgow and started to plan our next adventure.

The next day I got a phone call from a stranger in Sydney, who rang to tell me they had my dog, having gotten my number from his collar. I rang my daughter who had left Beni locked inside the house while she went shopping. She had no idea how he got out. Once she got home, she sent me this photo of where Beni had escaped!

He pushed out the fly screen and forced his body through a three inch gap, two stories high, landing on cement! I have written about Beni in an earlier post – “Travelling with a Dog”. Basically he is very spoilt but suffers severe separation anxiety. He was coming to find us. We can’t leave him in the van because he has learnt how to open the screens and windows. Our daughter assured us that he did not appear injured but I had trouble believing he could fall from that height and not have broken bones or internal injuries. The next day, after visiting Scenic World at Katoomba, we went and picked him up.

The next day we headed off with the van to visit the Glow Worm Tunnels. We had found a great free camp on Wikkicamps, that was described as “easy access with views to die for.” All I can say is that some people must think it is very funny to encourage people to camps by providing a false description. We towed our definitely-not-off-road van up a bumpy gravel road, up hills sometimes so steep that at one stage we almost didn’t make it.

We got to the camp site, which was ok as a bush camp, but totally isolated and no views. We decided to keep going, not realising that this was also a no-through road. Another tip, always bring the electronic map up big enough to show whether two roads actually connect. Anyway, we drove for miles along a windy, bumpy narrow road, finally ending up in the car park at the glow worm tunnels. This was inside the van when we arrived! Yes, that yellow stuff is mustard!

It was stinking hot and we were exhausted so we laid down for a nap. As other tourists arrived we heard so many comments similar to this, “OMG, who would bring a van down here” 😂 Once it cooled down we thoroughly enjoyed exploring the glow worm tunnels, spent the night, then headed back along the gravel track.

We enjoyed the next few weeks looking around the Blue Mountains region, as much as we could with a dog. We went west as far as Parkes to attend the Elvis Festival before making making our way towards Ulladulla to visit friends then headed back to Sydney/Newcastle and our girls.

On our way back up the south coast we were to have another amazing experience. We chose a camp not far from Bendalong. It was beautiful weather so we headed for the beach. There were a few people swimming when I noticed something in the water very near them. I came close to screaming out to everyone to get out of the water but it seemed that they were aware there was something there and didn’t seem to be worried. We were soon to discover that on this little beach at Bendalong, schools of string rays swim into the shallows to be fed and patted by human visitors. It was surreal, they obviously enjoyed the contact, swimming up to and around the legs of enchanted visitors.

Visiting our kids is not always straight forward as finding somewhere to park the van for a few days in a city can be difficult and there are no caravan parks close to where they live. I have a fear of being ticked-off or even booked for parking the van in a suburban street since that argument with old mate at 6am because we were parked across the road from his driveway and he felt we were in his way!

We do miss our family when we are on the road. We do have occasional feelings of guilt that we should be there for them and to help raise the grandson, whose parents are separated. We do imagine being the sort of grandparents that regularly has the grandkids home for the weekend. We sometimes wonder if we and the grandson are missing out on something.

But these are just passing thoughts, simply contemplation really. If we lived in a house we would most likely be working full time and free time would be limited. At the moment, care of our grandson is shared between Mum and Dad, limiting when we could have him as well. If we didn’t live on the road we may have never fed and patted wild sting rays, seen glow worm tunnels or taken numerous photos with people dressed up like Elvis. We are in our fifties and still able to work as we go and enjoy life on the road but who knows what the future brings. We might not be able to do this later in life and we love doing this. We dedicated our lives to our children, who are now strong and independent young adults. It’s OK to focus on our lives now.

We have found social media to be an amazing way to keep in touch. My grandson video calls me regularly. We chat, tell stories, play games and have a ball “dressing up” with the messenger app! We have a family chat where we all chat and post photos and videos of our lives. I sometimes make books for our Grandson, with pictures and stories of our adventures. I have flown home a couple of times when the girls really needed there Mum. I can honestly say we know more about each other’s lives and are closer since we took off, due to these modern forms of communication.

We spent the remainder of summer at Wauchope where I worked and Thomas helped out with gardening in exchange for a free site. We caught up with old friends and were close enough to visit the kids a few times before heading north to Cape York for the 2018 winter.

We will continue to travel and I guess we will sometimes wonder what we are missing because of it. One day we will settle down again but at the moment we are living one long adventure and loving it.

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