Housekeeping on the road

Just so you don’t think we are lazing around all the time, this post is about the realities of life on the road. Some days it’s plain HARD. Shopping is not as easy especially with a caravan in tow and the kids are eating SO much with all the physical activity they are packing into each day. We have had constant problems with keeping our fridge and esky at appropriate temperatures. At one point, our entire freezer defrosted everything without our knowledge. We had a lot of cooking & eating to do that night. Then had to live on noodles until we could reach a supermarket a few days later. Cooking is always interesting with VERY limited bench space but we've become used to that. We miss not having an oven – I even bought a cake from Coles the other day and the kids screamed in delight!

It is very cramped with 6 people in a space similar to one large room. Sleep is sometimes interrupted by heat, mosquitoes, noisy neighbours (or howling dingoes!), children toileting at all times of the night and tempers often fray after a bad night. This is teaching us a lot of patience! The best tip someone told me was “be very specific with what you need” – that might seem obvious but has saved our family harmony on many occasions. For example, with 3 people doing dishes beside the kitchen sink, one has to ask ‘please move to the left so I can put this dish away’ rather than assuming someone will know where you need to get into and shouting ‘get out of my way!’. This is a good learning curve for Mum & Dad too!

Here is a photo of us doing washing. We had 7 days’ worth of clothes and no coins to operate the washing machine so had to hand wash and wring the entire 2 loads. This was a good lesson in historical housekeeping given we’d visited a homestead the day before where 5 children lived and worked by themselves in the 1920’s in very basic conditions. It certainly makes us appreciate the luxuries of home even more!

Basic toilet & shower amenities are also another luxury we miss. Our kids have a rating system for the amenities we encounter now! So far the rest stop pit toilets have been the lowest at a 2/10 (dirty pit toilet with no water complete with redbacks!) and Darwin Big4 ensuites have scored the highest (ahh just like home).

Basic necessities like water become important. We turned up to a campsite last week and discovered they only had undrinkable water – our tanks were empty so Kieren had to race into a town and buy water. We had to move on the next day to find water. It makes you appreciate how important water sources were for the early pioneers.

Homeschooling. Need I say more. Teachers and fellow homeschooling mums – you have my utmost respect! We are blessed with 4 very bright and curious children but even they have their days where they just. don’t. want. to. do. anything. Trying to keep their journals up to date has been a never-ending task, and can be very frustrating when you know they are capable of so much more (picture one sentence in 3 hours!) Trying to balance learning on the road with formal schoolwork is a constant seesaw ;)

But even with all these difficulties, this is the best thing we could have done. We will never forget this time together and all the special moments we have enjoyed. As I sign off before another day of packing up/unpacking and travelling to a new location, I’ll leave you with this video of what can happen when kids are contained in cars too long. Introducing crazy Miss T (and this was toned down for the camera ;) !) So if everything turns pear-shaped - just listen to 'Cosby Sweater' and you'll soon be smiling....