Last night, we drove to a Rainbow brother’s property for the first time. We haven’t seen Duncan since November 2011, and I kept referring to the instructions in his message to navigate to his land. So I was surprised by what greeted us at the front gate.

I crocheted about fifteen of these arrows late last year for the February Rainbow Gathering in Tasmania.

When I asked Duncan about the arrow, he couldn’t remember exactly who had brought it to his land and left it for him. But it must have been someone who had been at the Rainbow Gathering in Tasmania!

For many years, we sought to join a tribe of like-minded people so we would be part of the village that would help us raise our children. Our November 2011 encounter with a Rainbow Gathering was the first time that we met the diverse group of people who have become our tribe, and they live all around the country and the world.

The last property we visited also had a Rainbow connection, and so many of the supportive relationships I have are the result of meetings at Rainbow Gatherings! Wherever we are in the country, I love to meet up with Rainbow Family brothers and sisters. As we travel in Europe later in the year, I intend to meet up with Rainbows whenever we cross paths.

We returned to some different friends’ house this evening — they haven’t been to a Rainbow Gathering — but Calista offered them the highest compliment possible: “These people are Rainbow Gatheringy-type people!” That means she feels completely comfortable with them, and it’s good to be home.

Pubic hair is natural, and for the sake of my children I would love to see more of it on public display. As I’m not that hirsute, I’m thrilled when I meet a woman who casually and confidently displays her naturally hairy state.

It's genetic. Some people have greater amounts of pubic hair than others, and its visible presence shouldn't make a woman less attractive.

One of the travesties of globalisation is the domination of a homogenised culture that has presented us with a standard of beauty that is rarely natural nor easily attainable. I have four daughters, and I don’t want them to grow up without seeing the full range of women’s body shapes, sizes and accoutrements that should incorporate the idea of “normal”.

I’m not attached to the idea that all women should give up their personal grooming habits, but I would like my children to see and know that they have options when it comes to how they want to arrange, tame, remove or cultivate their hair — both head hair and body hair. Others agree, with the photographer Ben Hopper creating an exhibition of beautiful women with armpit hair in Natural Beauty to challenge what he describes as the societal brainwashing by the beauty industry.

A woman (should I be saying “person”? I know some men feel this burden also) has the right to choose what to do with her body hair, including her pubes. Society should not be pressuring anyone to conform to one standard when it’s obvious that we’re all built differently and in reality, we appreciate and are attracted to different physical traits.

When I say “society” I’m really saying “me and you”. We need to normalise the natural state of body hair by displaying it proudly when it strays from the clothes we’re wearing. Because it’s us that makes the difference, and the beauty industry will inevitably catch on to the new trend — possibly even bringing out oils and products to enhance visible body hair. Because if there’s a market for it, someone will try to make a profit.

Let’s broaden the scope of beautiful options for our children. Starting with me.

What would it take for you to walk casually and confidently at the beach or pool with your pubes on display?

As a healthy, fertile woman, would you consider birthing a baby for your sister if she couldn’t have children but desperately wanted one? What about for your beloved friend? My answer is yes, and this is what I’m choosing to do. I’m delighted to share publicly that I’m pregnant again — but the baby isn’t mine. I’m growing a child for close friends of mine who can’t naturally conceive and birth their own child.

Growing a gayby is a privilege and joy for me.

When I consciously decided to birth a baby and allow someone else to parent the child, I knew the only way I could accomplish this was if I wholly and purely loved the intended parents. So I dove headfirst into intentionally falling in love with the couple that are the parents of the child growing in my belly. I met Ágúst and Ben online, we clicked immediately, and time and our shared experiences have confirmed that we are a good match for this endeavour. Although we’re separated by half a planet, we maintain a close relationship — with daily contact — and every time I feel the baby kick, I think of them with love, looking forward to the day when they’ll be holding their precious child.

It takes three to make this baby!

Surrogacy is not a novel concept to me. I grew up with Biblical stories of traditional surrogacy. I also noticed it in the lives of the West Africans who lived around me; I simultaneously recognised that while the Africans accepted intra-familial child-placement as normal, Westerners kept trying to define the relationships based on their own rigid ideas of what constitutes a nuclear family. “He’s not your brother, he’s your cousin,” they would insist to a child who had breastfed, grown and lived alongside their “brother” all their lives.

As a young mother, I considered egg donation. While browsing the parents’ magazines advertising the latest highchair design or gourmet birthday party impresarios, I often noticed the quietly desperate, paid-for rectangles where a loving couple pleaded for a generous woman to donate her eggs so they, too, could start a family. This idea was rejected by my husband who didn’t feel comfortable with the thought of genetic offspring that weren’t part of our lives.

Then as a single woman, the idea germinated again, and it was boosted by encounters with friends who shared their stories. One woman confided how she had donated her eggs — several times — despite the uncomfortable medical procedures that accompanied it. Then in Western Australia I met an amazing woman who shared her story of traditional surrogacy for her own best friend. The hardest part of the surrogacy journey, Millicent said, was being complicit in her friend’s emotional pain as she mourned again the loss of her dreams of pregnancy while she watched her husband’s baby grow in Millicent’s womb.

I knew that I didn’t want to deal with another woman’s emotional pain — my own is enough to process consciously. In the last couple of years, I’ve been growing in love for the gay community, and I knew having a baby with a gay couple would be a way I could make a meaningful difference in their lives. I contacted Ágúst and Ben through a surrogacy website, and from my first tentative email, we’ve developed a solid and fun friendship.

My girls are delighted to be part of this pregnancy too. They’ve followed every step of the process from the beginning. I had to gain my daughters’ blessing before I could leave them for two weeks last year to travel to Ben and Ágúst in Iceland, see the fathers’ home, meet their families and basically scope out their lives. When Ben and Ágúst came for Christmas and later Ágúst joined us for a month in Tasmania, the girls loved getting to know the men. By the end of Ágúst’s solo visit, he couldn’t sit down without someone on his lap, and while we’re apart from the fathers, the girls lavish all their love for the men onto my expanding belly. They kiss, cuddle and speak tenderly to the baby growing in my womb. They know that the baby isn’t ours and are looking forward to travelling to Europe before the birth.

Christmas dinner 2013 is a global family affair, with Ben and Ágúst joining us on the east coast of Tasmania.

During the past year, I’ve been buoyed by friends and family who have supported me with love and practical assistance. Two excellent friends looked after my four girls during my quick European trip last year. My mother-in-law flew to Tasmania to support me when I needed time and space for personal appointments. My dad — who is absolutely thrilled to be the grandfather of a gayby! — met the fathers and has offered his unconditional love and practical help. Other friends opened their homes to us, welcoming us when I was laid low with morning sickness, running me baths, and generally caring for me and the girls.

I know that what I’m doing will augment our worldwide network of loving friends — my girls will always be welcomed in Ágúst and Ben’s home when they choose to start travelling independently. I also expect that we’ll see more of the fathers and their child in the future — during their visits to Australia, the men fell in love with the country— especially Tasmania.

I’m not doing this for money, I’m doing it — quite literally — for love. The love that I put into this pregnancy is already returned to me multi-fold by those who support my endeavour. Unlike with commercial surrogacy, I’m not being paid for the pregnancy in any way, although the fathers did offer. Without any contracts, payments or legalities, this isn’t a surrogacy — it’s a love affair! I’ve enjoyed a romance with a married couple, fallen pregnant to them and will birth their baby in their home. The fathers will pay for the home-birth midwife’s services, and I’m covering all our travel costs and living expenses.

I really want to make an extraordinary difference in the world. I don’t have many amazing skills, but I do possess a generous spirit and the superpower of excellent child-production, so I’m using these to transform the lives of a couple by presenting them with a child. My gift is an intimate, personal offering — carefully considered and intentionally packaged with love. I trust that the life that we are consciously bringing into the world will create many positive ripples on the other side of the globe, just as my own children’s have and will continue to do.

With a seventeen-month gestation, so much love has gone into creating this precious baby. I’m thrilled I get to help start another family — mine has brought me such joy! — and I look forward to continuing a relationship with our Icelandic family in the years to come.

Nimbin market is a thriving, colourful space where almost anything is on sale, and locals browse the stalls as an excuse to catch up on their socialising. Although it’s been happening for about thirty years, the market has recently been revived through a new dose of energy and is now a must-do for anyone touring Northern NSW.

Nimbin isn’t usually one of the stops on our itinerary. We drive straight through on our way to friends’ who live in the area, but it’s been a couple of years since we’ve visited Nimbin properly. However, after encouragement from friends who participate each month, we made the effort to park the bus and discover what all the fuss was about.

While so many markets are happening throughout northern NSW, Nimbin's have grown into one of the more interesting options in the region.

The market stalls spill around the colourfully-decorated community centre at the northern end of town.

Many of the stalls are offering used household items, and given the calibre of people who inhabit the Nimbin region, most of them are handmade with natural materials.

Spiral and my girls enjoy looking at the displays of crystal jewelry.

Books are lined up on the benches so customers can easily browse their titles.

Even within the more commercial stalls, there is an astonishingly variation of items for sale.

Homemade hoops are for sale.

A string of food stalls gives us options for snacks and meals. Most are vegetarian meals, but some meat dishes are offered.

Hellena sits and spins or crochets while talking to those who browse her artistic creations or coloured skeins.

A customer browses the balls of wool and selects the colours she wants for her hat. Hellena will finish it within a couple hours.

Almost everything is offered for sale — including snake oil!

I love wandering among the bright, colourful displays!

At one corner of the grounds, a large stage and PA system broadcasts live music performed by local artists.

It has a slow start but really picks up in the afternoon. Nimbin markets starts at 8am but doesn't really get going until after noon.

Each month, someone else brings a new idea to the market. Today, the Speaker's Corner was introduced to the community.

A few stalls spill out to the upper carpark near the public toilets. Brioni keeps returning here to purchase lucky dip packages for herself and her sisters.

The variety of stalls and the friendly conversations with the stallholders makes Nimbin markets a fun place to browse on a Sunday.

Market stalls stretch all up the street and are outside many of the shops in town, but the main market is located around the back of the community hall, opposite the Oasis Café.

The market starts packing up after 3pm, but the music continues for long afterwards with live jamming or drumming. It’s great as a casual day out for both locals and tourists, so if you’re planning on visiting Nimbin, I recommend timing your visit to coincide with market day!

It’s a bit chilly to be sleeping outside, but the view makes it worth it. Tonight is the peak of the Delta Aquarids meteor shower and it coincides nicely with the very start of the Perseids meteor shower which we camped out for two years ago.

I didn't capture any shooting stars in the camera's frame tonight, but we saw so many that we lost count!

Three of their friends joined my girls and me on mattresses at the edge of the rural property where we had a good view of the sky. We used extra blankets to stay warm, but the evening is still quite mild for mid-winter. I enjoyed listening to the kids tell funny or spooky stories to each other, interspersed with exclamations of “I saw a shooting star!”.

I had some ideas earlier of using the time for a more formal astronomy lesson, but the kids were in a silly mood and took pleasure in making up their own constellations. And that’s really what early astronomers did anyhow. It just happens that they’ve written down the configurations and names that are passed on through the generations, and my daughter’s pig constellation is no less valid in an artistic sense.

It’s fun to sleep outside as a group, and even better when we see so many meteors! If you’re keen to catch some for yourself, the Perseids continue to fall through the sky until the end of August, with its peak between 10-13 August. Grab a friend and a blanket, a kid or two if you want extra fun, and start making wishes!

Have you seen potholes outlined in colourful lovehearts and sinewy, dotted snakes warning of cracks on the road? If it was in northern NSW, it was probably the work of the artist who goes by the suitable moniker “Roadart” (or possible “Roadheart”, see comment below). We only met Roadart at Nimbin market this week but fell in love with his spirit last year as we drove through the area and first enountered his artworks.

A loveheart painted on the bitumen leads the way to a pothole. It serves as a warning to motorists.

A bump at the edge of a bridge is highlighted with lines and dots.

When we start seeing roadart during our meandering drives throughout northern NSW — especially driving from Lismore to Nimbin — we feel like we’re on a mystery art tour. We never know when a splash of colour is going to catch our eyes — either on the road or next to it — and the girls abandon their usual scenery games and focus on the bitumen instead.

Colour is used to brighten the road.

This paint job is from last year, and the road crew have already patched the offending hole — covering most of the pretty pattern.

When the artwork is fresh, the colours are very bright. Perhaps the roadart encourages the council to repair potholes sooner!

When I asked Roadart about his motivations for decorating the road, he replied that he decorated the road intuitively as an artistic, spiritual expression, and it wasn’t until he analysed his actions that he recognised that he was healing the place with love by eliciting positive emotions from those who encountered his creations. The transient nature of his artwork means he can’t become attached to them, and his service and love is in the energetic production of them — not in leaving a permanent impression as other artists seek to do.

Fluorescent lovehearts are pinned to trees at random points along the road. Sometimes these are enhanced with geometric shapes in mini-mandalas. It's always a surprise to see one.

One heart is even hanging from the wire that stretches over the road. Other wires have a the industry-standard squares, so this one offers a heartfelt welcome to the village of Goolmangar.

Roadart told me an encounter he’d had with an Indigenous activist a couple of years ago while at a corroborree. The man told him, “You know why we call white fellas ‘tar-babies’? ‘Cause they cover all our sacred sites with tar!” Roadart replied from the heart without thinking: “The roads are the songlines of the white people,” he said!

And so, Roadart will continue to colour the songlines as his gift to the community who travels the same roads he does. It’s encouraging to encounter his rainbows, lovehearts, dots and lines, and I hope to continue to see his handiwork across the northern part of the state in our drives to come!

When nine-year-old Aisha started crying in the supermarket, I knew I was doing something wrong. The fact that she was crying in frustration over yoghurt choices made me realise that I was writing a story into her life that was harming her rather than helping her. So I stopped — collected myself, comforted Aisha, and then created a new dominant story about the food we choose to purchase and consume.

Ever since we visited a dairy farm in 2011, I’ve felt uncomfortable about conventional dairy products. The practices I saw (especially the ways the cows and calves were treated) directly converted to me being vegan for a season, which — in turn — led to Brioni adopting veganism at age five.

Since this time, I’ve felt reluctance to buy any dairy except, curiously, cheese — unless it is labelled as organic. My influencing story is that conventional dairy foods are the product of unhappy cows, and I don’t want to support that industry nor partake of food which was produced inhumanely. For food is energy.

We understand that all matter really is energy, and I believe that in generations to come, we’ll understand this science much better. When energy goes into our body, it produces energy, and I believe that foods that are composed of better energy come from meat that didn’t die traumatically or from plant-based foods that are closer to their living state. On this principle — on this story — I’ve guided the girls away from conventional meat and processed foods and asked them to choose food that was alive more recently.

I’ve also been told powerful stories about the nutrient content of certain foods, and this affects my belief about what is good food and what is a poor choice for our bodies. However, with an underlying principle that “living food is better”, I’d prefer to offer my children real fruit and vegetables over a multivitamin tablet any day.

More important than the nutrient content or the “living food” aspect of what we eat is the energetic content. Since food is essentially energy, I want to choose foods with “good” energy over foods with “bad” energy, and this is a subjective judgement, especially if I take into consideration the likelihood that food energy can be intentionally changed.

Ágúst looks at photographs of water crystals which demonstrate a change brought by a blessing. The top row is before consecration by a priest, the bottom row are pictures taken afterwards.

Critical to my belief in the changeable energy of foods are the artworks of Masaru Emoto who photographed the obvious change in water crystals after exposing them to specific music, prayers, words and photographs. Emoto’s photographs show that blessing water creates a noticeable difference in the water-crystal formation, something that religions have known for millennia! It’s not difficult to extrapolate that — since water comprises such a large percentage of our body and our foods — the structure of the molecules that we put into ourselves can be changed by peaceful thoughts or gratitude.

In Australia, a certain cordial manufacturer engraves words of virtue onto the base of their glass bottles — perhaps because they, too, believe that it affects the molecules of the drink within.

We read the labels on products and decide for ourselves whether something has “better” energy based on what we know of its production process. Is it organic? Free-range? Fair trade? From a permaculture establishment? Locally produced? Family owned? All these are factors that I’ve been sharing with the girls as we shop and travel, and they’ve guided our purchasing decisions in ways that are less economical but I believe are better for us, for our environment and for a sustainable future.

As always, a legalistic rule is easier to implement than assessing everything individually, and — for me — organic dairy was that rule. The girls know which brands of yoghurt are organic, and — after browsing the flavours available in the two brands on offer on the shelves this week — Aisha said that she didn’t like any of them very much. I know Aisha loves yoghurt, and I became impatient and asked her to choose one anyhow, “but it has to come from happy cows”, I said. And this is how the tears started.

Instead of assessing this particular food — yoghurt — by its specific energetic attraction to Aisha, I was allowing a label to dictate what was best for her. Although I don’t actually know anything about how an organic dairy farm works differently from a conventional dairy farm (we haven’t yet visited one, but I’d like to!), I had created a story that simply said “organic dairy is better”, and so that was what we bought. I was forcing Aisha to choose a flavour that she didn’t really like because of my dominant story.

Her dramatic reaction was necessary for me to realise how foolish I had become. In repenting to Aisha, I acknowledged that what I was saying was silly; I was saying that even a yoghurt she didn’t like the taste of was better than one she did like. I was completely ignoring the energetic factor of the food — the gratitude she would feel for what she was eating and how that would affect her body in real ways. When I explained all this to Aisha, she replied gently, “Yes, it’s silly — if I don’t like it, how will I get good energy from eating it?”

With the whole dairy aisle now available to her, it was much easier for Aisha to select a flavour she preferred. I’ll continue to encourage wise choices based on the principles of organic, locally-produced, family-owned, fair-trade, etc, but I’ll know now to not let that interfere with the personal energy we imbue into our food when we feel truly grateful for it.

Since she's grateful for what she's eating, this is good food for her.

Thank you for the lesson, Aisha. I’m so thankful that you’re continuing to teach me so much about myself and the world around me, and I’m sorry I made you cry.

A parent’s worst nightmare is usually the possibility of losing a child to death. All parents carry this grief with them; most of them only know it as an unopened package that they briefly examine in dark times, in sympathy or in fear. Others — like me — have experienced the reality of a child’s death and know what it feels like to move into and through the huge tar-mountain of parental grief.

Most parents have imagined some scenario for a child’s death and their response afterwards. We see it lurking in dark shadows, high trees, bath-tubs, solitary walks, careless moments of play, traffic accidents, raging house-fires, plane crashes, allergic reactions or medical beds.

That imagined loss looms large on the horizon as a huge mountain of horribleness, like an inverted tar-pit of despair. Once you cross the threshold of your child’s death, you’re surrounded by a dark morass of emotional pain, and it’ll take you an unspecified length of time to wade through to the clearer skies on the other side. There’s no way to make it through grief without becoming stained by the tar of the loss, and remnants will stick to you for years to come — probably for the rest of your life.

This is the reality for a parent who has lost a child. The tar-mountain of grief does exist. There’s no short-cut around it, and the darkness must be traversed in order to move into a different phase of life.

All people move through their grief-mountains at different paces. The pace varies; some stumble and fall in one spot for a while before picking themselves up and racing to brighter skies. Others pick a steady pace and clear the grief in the right time for themselves. Perhaps some never fully reach the other side.

There’s no way of truly conveying hope to a parent lost in grief. Even though others who are experienced in losing a child may say, “It’ll get better,” to a parent who is surrounded by the sticky morass of pain, loss, regret and shattered dreams, that doesn’t actually bring a glimpse of light. Until each person absorbs or fights the pain for themselves — processing it properly — they cannot move out from under the mountainous burden of their grief.

The future is always dotted with extra piles of sticky grief. It rises unexpectedly — in the form of another child the size of our dead one, in the places we shared happy moments, in the location of their death or remains, or in a memory that unexpectedly comes to mind. Each time, the parent must start wading through the sticky morass again, using the strategies that they discovered works for them — distractions, love of others, work, chemicals, meditation, or others.

My little friend Zarra is the same age as my son Elijah. Whenever I visit him, I mentally acknowledge the developmental stage Elijah would be at — physically, socially and emotionally. It's a delight to see Zarra's growth, and I've learned to welcome his unique presence in my life without it triggering feelings of pain.

My personal experience of the burden of parental grief — including with the public arrival of it and my honest working-through and true processing of it — is that although I have moved through the main mountain of my own emotional pain, others may not acknowledge my position because their own (theoretical or real) grief-mountain still looms large in front of them.

When others look at my life — available in static form because I’ve recorded it here — it’s easy for them to project their own burden of grief onto me. How is it possible to survive the death of my beloved only son at the hand of his father, my partner for sixteen years? How can I smile at a funeral? How can I forgive my husband? How can I move on with life? How can I give a baby away after losing one to death? As a person tries to imagine how they would cope if they were dropped into my scenario, it’s impossible for them to gain my perspective if their own grief mountain fills the sky with its hope-sucking darkness.

Everyone processes their grief differently. Some never fully step out of the darkness and retain gooey strings of deep pain hanging off their psyches for years. As an observer (to my life and to others’), refrain from projecting your own expectations or experience of what a grief-mountain looks and feels like onto other people. Just accept where a person is and offer assistance if they desire it.

In my own personal experience, my unwavering faith in spiritual realities gave me the tools to consciously process my grief and loss very rapidly, although remnant pain surfaces now and again to remind me that my work isn’t complete. My children, too, have been given the space, care, love and assistance to help them work through their own emotions surrounding our family’s experience with death and loss.

Two years on, my daughters and I have moved through our individual grief-mountains. If you meet us, you’ll see that for yourself. Until then, just accept it as being so. We are living on the other side, participating wholeheartedly in a joyous, adventurous life.

If you’re still moving through your dark morass of pain, I know your burden too. You have a future — bright with a new phase of life. I hope you see it soon.

While exploring northern NSW we stopped to check out one of the hideouts of Frederick Ward — a famous outlaw from the mid-1800s who gave himself the more exciting name of “Captain Thunderbolt”. Although it’s little more than a crack between several rocks, the shelter is easily accessible from Mt Lindsay Road, and the historic site arouses discussion of times before motorised transport, what’s needed for survival in the Australian bush and how law-enforcement practices have evolved to present-day methods.

A yellow robin helps direct the way to Split Rock, now officially called Thunderbolt's Hideout. The granite attraction is just 300 metres from the main road.

The girls test the bounce of the planks that lead us across a small creek. The water source would have been valuable to a bushranger hiding in the dry Australian bush, although I can't imagine that this small a waterway would still be flowing in the hot summertime.

Australia has romanticised its outlaws, and while Ward/Captain Thunderbolt is considered NSW’s most successful bushranger, he still isn’t as famous as Victoria’s Ned Kelly. Ward was originally convicted of receiving stolen horses and absconded from custody on Cockatoo Island — the island penitentiary in Sydney harbour — to further his career in bushranging. Despite the many horses he stole and the coaches he successfully robbed, Captain Thunderbolt gained a reputation as a “gentleman” because he declined to shoot at law enforcement officers and on more than one occasion left coach passengers’ purses intact while stealing only the official mailbag.

Two huge granite boulders cuddle each other, and the space in between provides enough shelter for a horse and a man. Although we didn't climb to the top of the rocks, the view would stretch across the surrounding bush, making it a great lookout for someone watching for dust trails of pursuit.

It's not really a cave — more of an overhang — and so we happily enter the lair of one of Australia's more famous outlaws.

Previous visitors have wanted to leave their mark, and while we spend some time reading the words and deciphering the initials with imaginary names, this rune leaves us puzzled.

This space — although not completely sheltered from rain — is large enough to stable a horse or two. This is a dry part of the country, and so shelter from the sun would be more important than cover from rain.

Another overhang gives enough space for sleeping and a fire.

The surrounding bush is not so thick, so a good vantage point would be an asset. The proximity of this hideout to the road is what made it popular with Ward, although as soon as the authorities discovered it, it became useless.

I grew up with stories of Captain Thunderbolt because — as the family legend goes — my great-(however many times)-great-grandfather worked as a blacksmith at Liston, a little village up the road from Thunderbolt’s hideout and — well, it’s not a legend if it isn’t a bit unbelievable — the story I heard was that he shod Ward’s horses backwards. (The first horseshoe was put on normally, and a second horseshoe was put over that in a reversing direction.) This way, the horseshoe prints would make it appear that Ward was riding in the opposite direction to the way he was actually travelling. I don’t know if I believe the family legend, but it makes for a good story, and — coupled with the idea of spending a night in Thunderbolt’s hideout with the girls when they’re older (and the weather is more mild) — it’s one worth passing on!

While we’re in the Gold Coast, we’re making the time to re-visit some of the best children’s attractions in town. Despite all our playground experiences, the girls hadn’t experienced a bouncing pillow before this weekend, and after I parked the bus alongside the attraction at the popular Broadwater Parklands, it didn’t take long for the girls to spill out and run down to try it for themselves.

Under shade-sails, the bouncing pillow is surrounded by sand to provide a soft-fall surface for children who may jump off the edge.

The joy of jumping together is in the unpredictability of the rebounding bounce.

The Washington Waters Children’s Playground is only a small part of the great attraction of Southport’s Broadwater Parklands, but today it was enough for us. With the weather still a bit too chilly for a good play at the The Rockpools further to the north in the same leisure precinct, we stuck to the novelty of the bouncing pillow and its surrounding playground equipment.

Once they figure out how to get two bodies on it at the same time, the rotating tire pendulum swing is a favourite with our kids.

Calista alternates between being terrified and being delighted with the ride.

Lana loves to swing and the dish makes it easy for others to push her or join her.

A small beach area is protected from sharks and boaters by a netted swimming enclosure. Although we're not interested in entering the water today, the prospect of treasures in the sand keeps luring Lana back to the beach.

The tangible sight of the net attached to the floating barrier around the swimming enclosure gives Lana a lot to think about as she tries to imagine what is kept out of the water ... and why.

Because we lived on the Gold Coat for a year and a half and remained settled in southeast Queensland for another ten years, many of these locations hold memories for me. One summer’s morning in 2009, David and I bundled our (then) three daughters into the car to drive to this beach for a swim at sunrise. At the height of summer in southeast Queensland, the days are so hot that a morning’s outing can end before 8am when the sun’s rays become unpleasant.

A single rail for pedal cars encircles another set of playground equipment and a flying fox.

Calista receives a boost in her acceleration down the flying-fox line.

During the hours we spent at this playground, the girls tested all possible pedalling/riding configurations on the pedal cars.

Sometimes other, stronger riders come up behind the girls and give them a free ride.

Because it’s a landmark with great access to parking, the newly-running tram network and shopping, the Broadwater playground is a natural place to meet up with friends for a big day out. Two other families joined us in the fun, and — while I made cups of tea for the parents with the kitchen facilities in our bus — we watched our collective brood explore all the equipment.

Colourful picnic benches and tables are protected from the harsh sun by shade-sails, and free electric barbecues attract patrons to the park year-round.

Sometimes the most fun comes from improvising games on the playground equipment that changes its purpose altogether.

The Broadwater playground can be very busy, so it’s wise to choose non-peak times to park and settle in. The bouncing pillow is open from 8am to 5pm, with a natural lull in its use around nap-time in the early afternoon. Other out-of-towners like us can easily cross the road to the big shopping centre to buy food and snacks, and if you’re coming on a hot day, don’t forget to explore The Rockpools further north in the parkland.

After being in the city for a while, we love to return to the bush, and many Gold Coasters may be looking for a pleasant day out in a natural enviornment — like what we found at Clarrie Hall Dam just south of Murwillumbah. Earlier this year, the dam’s public facilities were reopened after upgrades, and although access to the water is restricted, the surrounding park welcomes day-visitors year-round.

Clarrie Hall Dam is set in a beautiful location, just 15 km from Murwillumbah, which makes it a great day-trip from the Gold Coast.

A lower parking area offers visitors new — if somewhat soggy — picnic facilities. The lawn here is poorly drained, and after rain, puddles collect around the picnic tables.

A second, lower picnic area is accessible by car, and it has steps that lead to the creek below.

An extremely healthy rooster struts around the picnic grounds. We frequently see small flocks of roosters at picnic areas in rural parts. I suspect they come from backyard chook-owners who want to cull the number of their roosters without actually executing them.

The spillway wall is dry when we visit today. All this section of the dam is fenced off, so we can only observe the infrastructure from a distance.

Although the girls could hear the sound of running water as soon as we parked, when they chased the sound they were disappointed by the lack of an impressive waterfall. We had a terrific time playing at the No. 7 dam outside Mount Morgan in Queensland several years ago, and I think the girls expected a similar experience here.

This small allowance keeps Doon Doon Creek flowing into the Tweed River, preserving the life and health of the waterway.

Throughout the park, signs tell the stories of the the Bundjalung People who maintain a connection to this area. Before the dam was filled, a survey was made of the area to identify areas of Indigenous cultural significance, and several artifacts were retrieved before they could be flooded.

From the main toilet block, a formed path leads from the picnic areas and lower parking lots to the upper viewing area and lake access.

Adjacent to the lake, a small parking lot allows room for vehicles bring watercraft down the boat ramp. Because it's a water supply, the lake's permitted recreational activities are limited to vessels without engines.

The top water level of the dam rests at 61.5 metres, still 7 metres below the embankment level.

A concrete tower houses the intake for the Tweed Shire Council's water supply. The dam is named after an Australian rules footballer who played in the VFL between 1912 and 1922.

So this dam is a water supply for the city of Tweed, and it's not safe enough for contact with humans and animals?

The Council may actually be providing updates on the actual algae alerts on this page, but when we visited the webpage’s last update was recorded in April, which may mean that current algae levels are safe … or not.

The walking tracks around Clarrie Hall Dam are fun to explore with the family — although we carried our own (pristine) water for refreshment!

It’s easy to find Clarrie Hall Dam in northern NSW. The road is fully paved and accessible year-round, and the council maintains extra facilities at Crams Farm nearby which can be booked for functions.

I love to encourage my children in their individual interests by introducing them to inspirational, satisfied adults who may — in time — morph into role models or mentors. As soon as I saw the paintings of Jo Frederiks featured in the compelling opinion-piece Confessions of a Vegan by Sam De Brito, I knew that here was a woman with whom Brioni could relate.

When she greets us at the door, I immediately feel Jo Frederiks' warmth. She has been a vegan for twenty years and retains the fresh-faced beauty common among those who eat a plant-based, whole-food diet.

With a desire to use her artworks to raise awareness of animal suffering and inspire others to change to a cruelty-free lifestyle, Frederiks has ruffled more than a few feathers as her pictures reach a larger audience through social media. Complaints on her Facebook page have meant that Frederiks has been forced to censor her own publicity in order to keep her FB account active.

Some of Frederiks' paintings draw parallels between the treatment of the Jewish people by the Nazi regime and the exploitation and oppression of animals. Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz, a Holocaust survivor who was sent to Dachau, wrote in his memoirs: "I believe as long as man tortures and kill animals, he will torture and kill humans as well — and wars will be waged — for killing must be practiced and learned on a small scale."

In today’s loose society of gross images, near-universal misrepresentation of truth and violence-saturated media, are her pictures so offensive? Art is supposed to elicit an emotional response, and Frederiks’ works certainly do that. She portrays the roles of multi-national corporations in food supply, the raw realism of animal cruelty, the symbolism of the mass slaughter of millions of animals and the sentience of animals who are conscious beings.

Live-animal exports from Australia have led to thousands of animals dying in transport, with no guarantee of cruelty-free processing for those still alive when they reach their destination.

Animal activists and vegans may understand the concepts, but I needed an explanation of some of Frederiks’ symbolic pieces. As we looked through the works, Jo shared her passion for animal-activism and her stories of growing up on a working cattle station in rural Queensland and how that affected her relationship towards animals.

As part of a working cattle-ranch family, Jo was expected to help with mustering, branding, de-horning and chopping off chunks of their ears (for identification and ear tags). At thirteen, she witnessed the terror of a steer after its execution was botched by an axe-wielding man. "The sad thing was," she explained, "he had a loaded gun next to him but preferred to use the axe to finish the job. He wanted to save the cost of a single bullet."

After initially assessing Jo's paintings, Brioni ran back outside to our bus to retrieve a book of her own pictures and one on endangered animals. She wanted to show Jo a picture she's drawn that depicts "animals with feelings".

Many of Frederiks’ paintings were drying from a coat of laquer or a belated signature, and her most valuable pieces are currently being framed off-site, but she kindly let us look through the paintings and drawings that were still sitting around her home.

The art supplies are packed away tidily as Frederiks concentrates on other, less creative tasks at the moment.

Frederiks' paintings are stacked against the wall of the storeroom adjacent to her sunlit studio, awaiting packaging and transport to the art gallery.

Entitled "The Lies Begin Early", this painting symbolises the aggressive marketing that faces even the youngest Australian.

As consumers continue to purchase products from companies that use palm oil from unsustainable sources, the habitats of jungle animals — such as orang-utans — are irreversibly destroyed.

Chicks that have been identified as male are an automatic casualty in the poultry industry, and we who purchase any chicken products are complicit in their mass slaughter.

Lady Justice hangs from a wire reading "violent ideology" alongside slaughtered animals for whom "justice" is often completely disregarded.

This painting of a cracked and bleeding Earth particularly catches Brioni's attention and imagination, so we discuss the possible meanings and how it makes her feel.

In others of Frederiks' paintings, the imagery is more obvious.

Haute couture — when manufactured from the carcasses of small animals — doesn't look as good as that made from their skins, although the outcome for the animals remains the same.

This painting was based on a photo taken at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Double-Trouble — this cat — was subjected to experiments which required surgeries on her ears, skull and brain, some of which happened without proper anesthetic.

It’s a horrible story, and this is only one account that has been publicly exposed. If interested, you can read the details here on PETA’s site.

A woman is branded and earmarked as 269 — the number signifying she is destined for slaughter. In June 2013, animal activists in Israel rescued Calf 269 from its pen and later publicly branded themselves with "269" in solidarity with the re-homed animal. The 269 movement has spread around the world as others have used the number to identify themselves as animal activists.

The photographs of Jo-Anne McArthur are an enormous inspiration to Jo Frederiks. She takes McArthur's photos — shot on site at slaughtering houses — and draws or paints the images, capturing the realism of the animals' suffering.

Based on another of Jo-Anne McArthur's photographs, this elongated painting is simply realistic, but no less devastating.

More compelling photographs by Jo-Anne McArthur supporting animal activism are viewable online. Browsing through them is an education in itself.

Fredericks' drawing "When will it stop?" pleads for humanity to change the way we think about animals and our disregard for their suffering and deaths.

Frederik has translated this sketch into a full-sized painting. It highlights the hypocrisy of animal-welfare groups that openly sacrifice one group of animals in preference for another.

"When will humans get it?" Is the chimpanzee asking the question, or is it Jo Frederiks? And if we decide who is asking the question, does it change our answer to it?

Many of Frederiks' earlier pieces are stunning images of animals, showcasing their inherent beauty. Some of these will be on display at the exhibition too. All the artworks will be for sale.

Two brilliant birds escape their cage.

Frederiks’ exhibition The Animal Holocaust will be at the Gold Coast’s RQAS Art Gallery from September 19-26. Her favourite quote from Gary Smith summarises the ethical vegan’s position as portrayed intensely in Frederiks’ body of work:

“When you share what you have learned with your friends and family members — who you deeply respect and love — they show indifference at best. You feel like you have come upon a genocide everyone is trying to hide and ignore. And you can no longer participate and no longer keep quiet. And then you are painted as militant, extreme, judgmental.”

As part of a family that incorporates a passionate vegan, I hear a variation of this message often. Brioni avoids contact with leather, fastidiously reads the labels on new foods and keeps her food utensils separate from those of her non-vegan siblings.

Although a vegetarian, I don’t feel the same passion for animals that Brioni displays, but I still find veganism compelling for ethical, environmental and economical reasons. After recently watching Forks over Knives, rather than asking myself “why is Brioni vegan?” my question has become “why aren’t I a vegan?”. The health benefits of whole-food veganism are impossible to deny.

Artists like Jo Frederiks and independent souls like Brioni allow themselves to feel such compassion for animals that they simply cannot consider eating or using their products. I wonder if one day I will be brave enough to make such a bold, loving move, too.

On the second Sunday of the month, a sleepy village in northern NSW comes alive with an extraordinary selection of hand-made or home-grown artisan items. The Channon craft market is legendary for the eclectic range or products on show and makes a terrific weekend outing for anyone living within a two-hour radius (which includes the Gold Coast and Brisbane).

First established in 1978 as a "Make it, Bake it, Grow it" market, the stallholders are still predominantly those with hand-made or home-grown items.

I’ve been hearing about The Channon markets ever since we first started fulltime travelling in 2010. We haven’t been in the region at the right time until today, and I was interested to see how such a long-standing affair is operated, especially in contrast to other, smaller markets the one like at Nimbin.

By noon, the adjoining paddocks are filled with visitors' cars. A $2 parking fee covers the cost of leasing the privately-owned parking space from the neighbours and pays for over a dozen local workers who keep the market tidy and well-run.

The stalls are situated around the perimeter of the oval of Coronation Park.

Pony rides take children across the oval and back again.

Each market-day, a different local charity sells food from the official concession stand.

The busy playground precinct is ringed by families sitting on blankets, resting from the shopping and catching up with friends.

Visitors to the markets are both local residents and out-of-towners. It takes about an hour and a half to travel to The Channon from the Gold Coast, making it a great outing for city-folk.

Many of the stallholders have been participating in these markets for years. The non-profit market organisation held to a strict “Make, Bake or Grow It” policy until 2012 when they started allowing stall-holders to sell some goods other than what they had made, providing that the non-handmade/home-grown component was less than 25% of the stall’s stock on offer. A few stalls offer second-hand products, but the majority of them showcase the region’s wonderful artistic talent. Have a look.

Felted creations unlike any we've seen elsewhere.

Hand-made timber items.

Hand-spun wool (with more on the way).

Fresh juice while-you-wait.

Custom ceramics (orders taken for special requests).

Innovative, beautiful products — like these mosquito-coil holders.

Products on display from the tray of a custom Vee-Dub.

Hanging plants with a twist.

Handicrafts of all varieties.

Bags and hats made from recycled truck tarpaulins.

Food stalls set up in the shade.

An eclectic mix of music from buskers.

Face-painting for all ages.

A trailer-load of sugarcane is slowly mulched into sweet juice.

Bonsai for sale with the expert grower on hand for personal advice.

Spray-free fruit and vegies direct from the producers.

After 3pm, the market starts packing down, and the crowds subside. Those who’ve driven here from the city for the day get back in their cars and make their way home. And that’s when the locals come out to play, with a drum circle that sets a beat which entices others to dance until whole families are playing and dancing around the rainbow tent.

An informal drum circle provides the focal point for the free dancing.

A brass/wind trio adds random snatches of melody.

An improvised percussion set adds depth.

The drummers will continue until it gets too dark.

I knew that The Channon markets were exceptional with the quality and variety of hand-made goods, but I didn’t expect the atmosphere of the drum circle at the end. Children danced alongside their parents, drummers took turns on the skins, everyone was laughing and smiling. Perhaps a visit to The Channon markets is worth it just for this — free entertainment where your enjoyment is limited only by your own inhibitions!

As the Super Moon rises above the trees, the drumming dies off and the last players take their djembes home. The oval falls quiet — for another month at least — and the village returns to its slumber.

The Channon craft markets are next open on September 14, but you can keep track of the dates here. If you’re inclined to enjoy shopping for something different, it’s a great place to come. Otherwise come for the fun atmosphere and free dance-party in the afternoon — you won’t regret the experience!

Some places just feel so good! What all our campground-finder tools and detailed maps can’t tell us is the energy of a place and how we’ll be received. Each parking spot, campsite, caravan park or home has a different impact on us — some are repellant while others encourage us to linger longer.

At The Channon, our peaceful view in the morning is across the valley where a small herd of cattle are keeping the grass from growing out of control.

So when we drove into The Channon Village Campground on Saturday afternoon, I didn’t really know what to expect. Handily located adjacent to Coronation Park where the craft markets are held every second Sunday of the month, I saw little more than parking spaces adjacent to the tree-lined 30-metre-wide driveway that leads to a private residence. But it’s so much more than that!

We choose a site adjacent to an established fireplace and close to the amenities block. Later I move the bus to keep its solar panels charging.

At $10 per adult per night — including water, toilets and (cold) showers — this is an affordable campground for our family! Many other places charge for children and an unpowered site costs us around $50/night.

A camp-kitchen sink is out the back of the amenities block. I particularly appreciate the availability of a recycling bin which allows us to properly sort and dispose of our rubbish.

The campground is owned and operated by Hugh and Nan Nicholson who live at the residence on-site. The welcoming ambiance of this place is largely due to their friendly nature where every interaction is a pleasure!

The campground is an easy walk to into the village, and I often saw Hugh or Nan cycling past. They brought us vegies from their garden and stopped to share stories with us. I later heard from a friend that Nan was a significant force at the Bentley blockade, and she and Hugh have written books on local rainforest trees.

Brioni takes some fresh treats down to Solly the horse. Soon after we arrived, Nan informed us that the animals were friendly and invited us to interact with them.

The girls set up our tent as a playzone and spend hours playing with their small collection of lego — using head-torches to continue even after dark!

The girls love having a fire at night again! There's something so compelling about watching the flames dance.

One afternoon, while simply enjoying the scenery, I turn my head at a noise and discover a mama koala climbing a nearby tree!

It's very special to encounter a wild koala so close — and with such a cute baby!

The appearance of the koalas was exciting enough to notify everyone — Hugh, Nan, all my girls and the other Brisbane-based unschooling family camping nearby! We crowded around, taking pictures, until — after kindly posing for a decent length of the time — the mama koala climbed into the obscurity of the very top branches.

Later, Calista was buoyed by her visit with the horse and asked politely if she could ride her. I passed on Calista’s request to Nan and later was called out of the bus by the girls excitedly calling that Delaney was riding the horse! Solly is an old, placid horse and was an excellent introduction to horse-riding for my girls. (I’m still wondering if I’m going to get away without having at least one horse fanatic among my daughters…)

Delaney — being the most enthusiastically vocal — receives the first ride. After that, the girls reasonably take turns in order of age — an example of effortless self-organisation.

With Nan to talk her through the feel of the horse under her legs, Calista soon relaxed into the ride.

After Brioni mounts, Nan explains that she can hold onto the reins or onto Solly's mane. Even the short lesson in mounting the horse was valuable, and I appreciate how effortlessly our children gain a range of experiences while we travel.

The Channon Village Campground has a lot to offer travellers, and appropriate off-road parking for big rigs is only a fraction of its attraction. When we drive back to camp at The Channon again, it’s hard to say what will be the greater draw — the peaceful campground, the handy location to the markets or the effervescent company of our hosts!

We’re only travelling with our pet rats, but it’s fun to encounter a composite menagerie of animals at the different homes we visit. The girls learn new facts about the animals and quietly store up ideas about what kind of pets they would like in the future. Friends of ours have new kittens — rabbit kits, and the girls squealed with delight at the cuteness of the little creatures.

Delaney greets Mama Bunny before we carefully open the hutch door to spy on the kits from a distance.

We avoid touching the kits — there’s no need to handle them at this age, and it may be detrimental to their health — and so this is one clear case of look-but-don’t-touch.

Two weeks after they were born, they still have their eyes closed.

Today, only one is adventurous enough to explore away from its warm siblings.

The picturesque location at Tooloom Falls is often touted as one of the best free-camps within an easy drive of the southeast Queensland metropolis. It’s quietly set at the end of a no-through-road and designated fireplaces, picnic tables, a shelter and a clean, long-drop toilet complement the natural beauty of the peaceful waterway.

From the vantage of the pool below, the waterfall looks more spectacular, but it's really little more than a creek.

Tooloom Falls definitely isn’t a grand waterfall — especially in this part of the world! — as it starts under a causeway and down a ten-metre rocky cliff. It’s surrounded by flat granite rocks that stair-step down to the water below, and I’m sure more adventurous souls have climbed up the face of it before jumping back into the pool below.

The roadway that once traversed Tooloom Creek is closed to traffic and only one plank is left of the short bridge-section that covers over the shallow ditch which allows water to keep flowing downstream.

The top of the waterfall is shallow with flat rocks on either side. The creek is directed into a shallow ditch (under the old causeway) before it drops over the rock bed to the pool below.

While we’re here, we see numerous day-visitors — some vehicles drive in, look at the water and quickly drive off. A canoeist brings his craft on the roof of his little car and paddles around in the top river for several hours. Others take the time to pick their way over the falls to explore the other side. We discover numerous tracks that take us to the pool below, where we find evidence that this is a favourite swimming hole for locals in summertime.

From the far side of Tooloom Creek, the view is much more beautiful.

We like being here at Tooloom Falls. There is plenty of room for many different campsites — some are more secluded than others, and rather than parking directly next to the water, I choose a spot near the picnic shelter. The girls can run freely, the waterway is sluggish and even the waterfall is fully accessible, the surrounding rocks are flat enough, making a moderately safe playspace for older, daring children. We don’t see any native mammals or reptiles, but the birdlife is abundant and interesting.

With acres of camping spaces to choose from, we opt to park next to a picnic table and close to the long-drop toilet.

Another beautiful camping spot is directly adjacent to the slow-moving creek, with improvised steps leading into the water.

Located 5 km south of Urbenville, NSW (the Tooloom Falls Road turn-off is on the way to Tenterfield), the only downside for us is that the location is completely devoid of any mobile network signal. Still, that could mean the perfect getaway from city life for another visitor! As a free-camp with water views, swimming, small bush-walks and lots of room to play, Tooloom Falls gets our approval!

What does unschooling really look like? How does a homeschooling family run smoothly without schedules, learning structures and curriculum? Join our family — for just one day.

Introduction

For the past several years, I’ve documented the details of a whole day in the life of our family as part of a homeschooling link-up. (I don’t believe the link-up is running this year, so I’m doing it alone.) A couple years on, I find it fascinating to look back at a typical day at home in our house in 2010, on the road in New Zealand in 2011, while based in the shed in Queensland and visiting friends in Australia’s Red Centre to see how things have changed for us!

I’m an Australian single mama, living fulltime on the road in a housebus with four daughters and unschooling quite intentionally. Aisha is nine years old, Brioni turns eight soon, Calista is six and a half. Delaney (who also goes by the name of “Lana”) will be five at the end of the year.

This weekend, we’re free-camping at the natural reserve of Tooloom Falls after spending several days with another unschooling family in the northern NSW area of Australia. I appreciate the time for us to be alone again as a family, and we experience an average kind of day in our unschooling, nomadic, housebus-based life — camping off-grid in a beautiful location, exploring wilderness and appreciating the creatures that inhabit it, sleeping and eating to our individual needs and learning through play in an organic, natural fashion.

Here we are with our little housebus and pop-up tent. This is our home — wherever we're parked!

Pre-dawn

I wake and debate whether to get up out of bed and make myself a cup of tea. The time before the girls get up is when I usually blog and check social media sites. However, I know that we’ve driven so thoroughly out of range of any internet access that it’s not even worth opening the laptop. The rain that was falling for most of yesterday and last night appears to have stopped, so I know that I can take the kettle outside the bus and sit in the rising sun for a bit of warmth. We’re experiencing early spring, which means that although we may wear long sleeves when the sun goes down, the day-time temperatures are in the early 20s. Living in a bus means that we’re very adapted to the outside temperatures and can live comfortably within a wider variation of temperatures. In the end, I doze lightly, waiting for someone else to stir before I get up.

7ish

Aisha wakes and we talk in whispers about snatched remembrances of dreams. She’s been lying next to me all night. I always sleep with Lana on my left at the edge of the bed, and the other three girls take turns to be at my right side. Delaney still needs help to toilet herself in the middle of the night, so that’s why she doesn’t rotate with the others. Aisha asks me to check on a sore that’s just on the top of her ear. We removed a tick from that location two days ago, and it’s still a bit sore. I can reach our tea-tree oil and so Aisha dabs a drop onto the scab to prevent an infection. Our discussion about the tick — and the scary possibility that it could have crawled all the way into Aisha’s ear — leads naturally into questions about the anatomy of the ear.

Lana’s kipi (our family’s generic name for an electronic tablet) is laying nearby on the bed, so I grab it, and Aisha browses through DK’s Human Body app which provides detailed cross-sections of the ear’s construction.

Our whispered conversation continues through many different parts of the body — the nervous system (and the effects on our friend Johnny whose spinal cord was damaged), the skeletal system (and our friends who have recently broken their bones), the eye (and how it’s possible to wear glasses that flip the image upside down until your brain switches and flips it back the right way around) and, of course, the reproductive system. Aisha’s been following the progression of my current pregnancy periodically with a manual given to her by a friend. That, in conjunction with numerous episodes of Call the Midwife, means she’s quite informed regarding pregnancy and childbirth.

Together we climb out of bed, reposition ourselves outside with the whistling kettle and start looking through her manual together. I notice that in browsing through the book, Aisha very carefully holds two pages together. When I ask her about that, she explains that she’s not really comfortable looking at the childbirth photographs on the previous pages. So she skips them! Clever girl. We drink cups of tea and I start playing with Aisha’s hair. First, I’m just intent on looking for evidence of lice, but upon Aisha’s request I start braiding it. I love these special one-on-one times with my daughters, and today’s early-morning interactions with Aisha feel really special.

We make tea in the morning sun and continue our reading and discussion.

9ish

Lana is the next to wake up. She calls a greeting through the open door and I go inside for a cuddle and kiss.

In deference to her two still-sleeping sisters, Lana automatically puts on her earphones before she turns on her kipi. One of the benefits of living together in such a small space is seeing how children naturally adopt consistently-modelled considerate behaviour that keeps our family-life peaceful.

It’s another half hour before Calista and Brioni wake up. Brioni’s first order of business is always rat runaway time. Calista moves down to the animals’ cage at the back to open the door so the two rats can run free. The girls lay on the bed and play with them for a while. The individual rats will be brought out of the cage several more times today for small interactions with the girls.

Delaney soon announces that she wants to play with Lego. Her location options are in the bus, on the concrete of the picnic area or inside our pop-up tent. When I make those offers, she chooses the tent. It’s easy to pull out the tent and set it up in the sun.

While I have the comb out, I invite each of the girls to come and sit on my lap while I comb their hair for nits or lice. We all enjoy this — I like picking through their hair and talking with them, and they enjoy the individual attention and head massage. Today I discover that Brioni’s favourite colour has changed (again) and is now simply black.

As the girls have long become accustomed to grazing when they’re hungry, my main responsibility with meals is to make sure that I keep our fridge and pantry stocked with healthy choices. I’m the only one today who has breakfast cereal. Aisha and Calista each choose a cheese and bacon bun, Lana has already eaten a bread roll and Brioni says she’s happy with an apple.

10.30ish

With everyone out of bed, it’s time for me to pack it away. I use an electric pump to suck the air out of the inflatable mattresses and then roll up the canvas above one side of the front seats. With my main chore completed, I want to have another look around our camping ground. Calista and Lana accompany me to the waterfall. Brioni’s already run to check if the overnight rain raised the level significantly — the report is negative — and so we head down to the waterway to explore for ourselves.

The shallow waterfall slips over the flat rocks to the pond below.

The girls skip on the flat rocks that line the upper creek.

A plank leads us across the broken causeway. This must have once been a road, and together we speculate on its construction and demise.

On the other side, Delaney examines some small green and white spheres that are spilled in a small pile on the ground. Perhaps they were fertiliser granules — we couldn't be sure.

Mica sparkles in the sun and offers the girls dreams of finding gold.

The water is very shallow and Lana enjoys splashing in the sun as we make our way back over to our own side.

A fairy glade on the downstream side of the waterfall catches our eyes, and so we resolve to find a path down to the water’s edge. The first obvious path is assessed as too steep and slippery for our family to tackle, so we walk around a bit more until a trodden grass pathway becomes obvious and we make our winding way down the steep bank. There’s a beach and still water and grassy knolls — it’s a perfect playground for the girls’ toys, and so we return to the bus to invite the two older girls to come play with us.

From below, the view of waterfall is beautiful.

A sandy beach is easily accessible with a plank bridge.

This grassy glade would be perfect for picnics in the summer.

11.30ish

Everyone chooses a toy and we return to the base of the waterfall. The water’s still too cold to encourage swimming, and I’m thankful the girls stay out of it. My girls aren’t inclined to take risks beyond their perceived levels of comfort. They won’t try climbing down (or up) the cliff face, they aren’t inclined to jump off tree-branches into the murky water, and they’ll only wander as far as they feel comfortable. Their own vast range of experiences in the outdoors has fostered knowledge and sensibilities, and that — as well as their usual habit of exploring with at least one other sibling — means that I feel comfortable with letting them explore the natural playground. When they split up in different directions, I stay close to Delaney who hasn’t yet grown out of needing my close presence.

Delaney has buried her platypus toy, (“She asked me bury her!”) and — despite all the help from her sisters and me — for a while I think it may be forever lost to the sand.

When we explore, I take our bird book as well as the camera.

I stalk the shrubs with my lens on the ready, and when I capture a photo of a bird we can’t name, we use the photo’s display on the back of the camera as a reference while we look through the book.

Using the bird manual takes an understanding of indices (are we looking up the Latin or common name?), sequential numbers (pages and bird-reference-codes), legends and glyphs (male, female), cartography (does the bird’s habitat match our current location?), reading (including commonly-used abbreviations) and comprehension (scarlet? — a synonym for red). We’ve been referencing our bird book for years so the girls already know a range of birds. This location — especially as it’s close to water — has so many different types of birds on offer, Aisha calls it “a bird paradise”.

A chattering blue superb fairy-wren is one of the first birds to catch my eye.

At the picnic shelter, a swallow’s nest captures our attention, and it takes several stealthy, long-armed phone-photos before we can determine that there are no eggs in the nest.

Brioni reads through the bird descriptions.

I cut up a watermelon and we all snack on the sweet pieces throughout the morning.

When Aisha next comes outside from playing in the bus, I ask her if she would like to read with me. She enjoys doing the emotive voices in graphic novels, and I provide the voice of the narrator. This continues for about an hour until she loses interest, and I let her go easily.

Brioni has made her own little movie. Using Hungry Shark, she’s narrated the shark’s voice with subtle humour as it tears through schools of fish and the occasional swimmer. We record it carefully to share with others later on, especially our good friend Ben who originally created the fish graphics on the app. It joins the files of her elaborate cartoons and plays. I may not have a pile of paperwork to demonstrate the girls’ learning progress, but by default I’m keeping a thorough digital record!

1.30ish

The girls start sorting the Lego by colours and with a self-restricted number of pieces, their creations become more ingenious.

With the Lego games, I’m close enough to hear them discussing the items they’re making from their imaginations. An inherent understanding of mathematics is naturally demonstrated as one girl choose two 2x pieces as a symmetrical solution to one 4x piece. Although I don’t ask the girls to fill in math worksheets, I know they can read and answer mathematical equations because they’ve each progressed through multiple levels on their kipi apps such as Springbird Maths.

Brioni goes into the bus and makes herself a wrap — flat spinach bread spread with refried beans, lettuce, cucumber and tomato.

As soon as she takes her plate into the tent, Calista is reminded she’s hungry and upon request I end up making us all similar wraps. Each girl has their particular preferences and so I take individual orders — one at a time — and serve each one before starting to make another.

About forty-five minutes after eating, the new energy has kicked in and all the girls spill out of the tent in a raucous game of chase, tickle and cuddle.

They run around in the sunshine, and if we hadn’t already done our exploring earlier this morning, I would deliberately try to entice them on a walk. However, the older two soon return to the tent to continue with their constructions and interactions while the younger two continue with an energetic game of “egg” which entails covering their knees with their shirts and hopping or waddling around the campsite while waiting to “hatch”.

I use this time to sit at the computer and start typing down the day’s events. Soon the washing up beckons — this means collecting water from the river. We have water on-board but while we’re parked at a natural water source, I’ll keep our tank water for drinking. While cleaning up the bus’ little kitchen bench, I can also asses what else has been eaten during the day — the girls can prepare food for themselves but rarely clean up thoroughly. I use this knowledge — along with my personal understanding of healthy eating — to make suggestions for something to eat later in the day. I cut up strawberries and put them out on the picnic table for the girls to discover and snack on when they’re hungry.

The girls have unrestricted access to electronic devices and can choose to interact with them whenever they want. Calista perches above Lana’s seat so she can watch the movie with her.

3ish

The mood has shifted and the girls have gone their separate ways. Brioni is still playing with Lego in the tent, voicing different characters as they interact with each other. Delaney is playing on her kipi. Calista is still hopping around the grounds with her knees tucked under her shirt and Aisha has wrapped herself in a blanket while she sits and eats yoghurt. Now that I’ve cleaned up the kitchen, the bus remains mostly tidy — everything has a place of belonging and we all know where that is — and if I had gotten up earlier to blog and was more tired, I know I could take a nap. It’s enough for me today to go down to the river’s edge and watch the water slip by. I’m within sight and sound of the bus, and I let each girl know individually where I’m headed. There’s only one other camping vehicle here today, and they’ve parked at the far edge of the reserve, behind bushes and trees, so it still feels like we’re the only inhabitants on Earth.

It only takes a couple of minutes before the girls follow me, with Calista eagerly leading Aisha all the way across the river on the path we discovered this morning. I watch them play on the flat rocks adjacent to the waterfall until I feel nervous about their proximity to the edge and invite them to come with me and explore the wooded areas instead. We find a felled paperbark tree and I tear off a wide strip of bark for Aisha to write on. At some point Delaney scratches her toe on a stick and requests a band-aid. As the sun drops behind the trees, the day cools and I think about shutting the bus door so our bus interior retains its warmth.

Aisha writes notes on the scraps of paperbark.

5ish

Back in the bus, when I offer to prepare a burger for Brioni, she gladly accepts. The other girls place their orders and I cook the veggie patties and arrange the toppings on the buns. Three girls are watching a movie together, one is playing on her sister’s kipi. The bus is closed up and the cooker’s small flame warms the air. We’re all winding down in anticipation of crawling into bed.

Vegie-burgers are a favourite meal when we have the opportunity to stock up on the ingredients. During our travels, our diet varies according to what is available in each region.

6.30ish

We’ve all finished eating and the plates are in the sink. I’ve made the bed and three of us are already on it. Aisha is lying down at the back — she likes to spend some time alone each day, and because she and I spent our early morning together, she’s needing to take the time now. Four of us have brushed our teeth, with three separate toothpastes to suit our palates. The girls have started talking about the diary of Anne Frank and have asked me for a chapter or two. I’ve already told them we can visit Anne Frank’s house when we drive through Europe next month, so they’re particularly interested in her account.

8ish

We’ve collectively tired of Anne Frank’s story, and I put on the Japanese animated science-fiction film Origin: Spirits of the Past. Throughout the movie, the girls discuss aspects of asteroid formation, physics of water motion, plot subtleties and anatomical anomalies.

9.30ish

The movie has finished — including the karaoke at the end — Brioni appears to be already asleep with Aisha not far behind. Lana is finishing a snack while Calista plays on her kipi. The bus is dark and quiet — those who talk do so in whispers, and as I prepare to sleep I start thinking about everything I want to do tomorrow. These thoughts aren’t conducive to resting, so I switch to listening to music through my earphones. It’s easier to fall asleep that way. I curl up around Lana’s little body with Brioni pressed up against my back. Tomorrow will take care of itself.

One of the challenges of living on the road is locating the freshest food sources. Thankfully, in an area like the Northern Rivers, organic food markets are a regular event. We’ve been enjoying weekly visits to the Tuesday morning Lismore Organic Famers Market at the Lismore showground.

It’s an early market — operating from 7.30 to 11.30, which means that we plan our Monday night camping location in proximity so we can be sure to arrive in time for a variety of produce. Today, we arrived relatively late — 10am — which meant that some produce had already been sold out.

Most of the produce is laid out on fabric-covered tables.

Homemade products are also on offer alongside the vegetables and fruit.

This is the first place that I’ve seen edible flowers for sale as well as the usual collection of salad greens.

Local musicians add to the happy ambiance and earn a few dollars from the appreciative audience.

A couple of fresh meal options are for sale — along with coffee and other hot beverages — and tables in the middle of the shelters give purveyors a chance to sit down and enjoy the fare.

Tasters are offered of vegan homemade treats.

I love the way that visiting a farmers market allows us to connect with the people who have actually grown the produce. In establishing relationships with the primary producers, we can give direct feedback and talk about what we’re purchasing.

Our favourite buys at the Lismore Organic Farmers Markets have been the macadamia-nut butter and the sweet, organic apples that are sold here for $2/kg less than their price at the Rainbow Food Co-op on Terania Street.

The markets are also a great way to connect with others who value organic produce. Locals sit around chatting, and today we bumped into a local homeschooling family that we’re acquainted with, scoring an invitation to their home for when we finished our chores. I know that if we lived locally, this would be a special place for us to come every week, and while we’re in the area, we’ll keep on stopping by!

Today it was time to say good-bye to our dear rats as we leave them with friends before heading for more adventures overseas. When we first acquired our pets last year I had no idea that I would become as attached to our little companions as much as the girls are! Today I found myself choking up as I said good-bye and then watched the girls as they also shared their last special moments with their friends.

We move the cage out of the bus in anticipation of leaving them with at our friends' house.

Sita comes out of the cage for one last cuddle while Shadow waits for her turn.

As we drive away without our pets on board, this feels like the unraveling of our current life — but only temporarily so. We know we’re leaving our rats in good hands, and I’m also thankful for friends who are willing to add two more animals to their already burgeoning menagerie!

Today we’ve moved out of our bus and into our suitcases as we start our big trip to the other side of the globe. Although we already manage to live with a minimal number of possessions in our housebus, it still feels radical to pare our accessories down to an even smaller pile!

The bus is now empty of all our belongings. Friends will be using it while we're out of the country.

This little pile of hand-luggage and one suitcase comprises the sum of our belongings that we'll be living with for the next little while. I wonder if this experience in an even greater level of minimal living will affect the way we reapproach our gypsy life on our return to Australia!

When thinking about our trip to Europe, it’s hard to predict everything that we’ll need for life, learning and adventures. However, as I considered the practicalities of travelling on my own with four dependents, I traded off the possibility of needing to buy something in the next country versus lugging its weight through airports, taxis and hotels.

The girls have been extremely cooperative with the idea of light-packing, and I know that their experiences over the next couple of months will more than replace the temporary loss of toys! Essential items for the girls include their sleeping blankets, one favourite toy, swimming things, a few drawing/writing/reading materials and their kipis. Apart from that, we’re just packing clothes and some toiletries.

After anticipating our trip for so many months, its a relief to finally be on the plane!

With all the planning that has gone into our trip, I feel relieved to have finally started on our way. Especially over the last month, I’ve felt that we’ve been in a holding pattern — waiting for other things to happen — and that’s a terrible attitude! I’ve felt the stress of planning and packing on my own, budgeting and negotiating for accommodation and transport.

Even though we live full-time on the road, it’s within the parameters of a home — our housebus — and “moving house” can be stressful, especially when I’m not certain exactly what to expect! I am thankful that the girls are so adept at feeling at home within in a variety of circumstances. They’ve already mastered a very useful life-skill — the ability to sleep anywhere — and their general enthusiasm for life and contentedness despite a lack of routine encourages me that we’ll have an excellent adventure overseas with very few emotional challenges!