Van Life with a Big Family - What I Found Hardest Living on the Road with Five Kids

Today. The water, melted pewter. My hand instinctively reached out to stop the feet of seagulls from touching the molten surface, smooth as glass. The sky, apricots and peaches with violet cream.

Transcending all colour palettes that I had ever seen.

It’s glowing aura gently blew a new wave of thinking through my mind; how could I not be moved by such splendour?

If only I had wound down the window and breathed her in.

Cleansed my mind, bathed my skin.

A new glory settles every night, and here I am, tucked away in the four walls of our tiny home, fake light, distractions, no seasons. In 2021 the urge became too strong and the call of the wild beckoned us with such force that we packed up our five boys, sold our house and set off to travel full-time around Australia. We wanted to experience something new, see something new, feel something new, immerse ourselves in the milky way and forget about the four walls of domestic living.

People either thought that we were brave or insane. “I couldn’t do it!” “I wish I was doing it!” But we were following the call and had no choice but to try. Our prayers were answered with many open doors so we sold our house and set off.

Looking back on our year of travel, it seems idealistic and romantically beautiful. My photos capture all the things that we had hoped to capture in our hearts. We lived outside, watched the lightning storms roll past, ran on wild beaches, saw native animals and the wildflowers of Western Australia. We met people and cooked over fires and played car cricket and fished and saw turtles on the Great Barrier Reef.

Our hearts were open to living indefinitely on the road, for as long as we wanted/needed to, until the call of putting down our roots rose within us.

That call came a lot more quickly than we expected and after about 10months we felt that the boys needed the stability of a home and network and we began to tire of the constant changing of toilet cassettes, searching for water refills and the price of diesel.

As privileged as it feels to say this, it was really hard to live as a family of seven on the road.

Things we didn’t anticipate…

The price of wikicamps and caravan parks. They looked cheap but once you add on each child it gets expensive very quickly! And a lot of places happened to double their fees in the year that we set off. No more free camping!

The amount of water needed and the lack of caravan water refills when they are needed. As a family of seven, we went through water quickly and had to either be connected to a source, or carry big water containers to fill up our tanks. These are heavy and take a lot of space.

The number of toilet cassettes needed. We fill a toilet cassette so quickly that they need to be swapped out daily, meaning we need access to a dumping point daily, and so we can’t go ‘out bush’ unless there is a drop loo provided. This means we needed to be close to caravan parks, services and national parks (another cost) for hygiene.

The price of diesel was huge. I will say no more.

All this being said, it was a magnificent time of growth for us as a family and also individually. Although it was harder than we originally thought, I believe that the memories we made together, doing it all together, were absolutely worth it. The laughs we share, the animals we remember seeing, the families we met, the stars, the waves, the pools, the oceans.

I’m not sure why the pewter sea today reminded me of our travels…I think the glory of it whispered to me that this was what my heart had been calling me to all those years ago and it was reaching out to me again. Maybe in a different way. It always calls to me, whether in a house on the road.

I don’t need to live on the road in this season, but I desperately crave the quiet of the dunes and the song in the air, the patterns of the petals and the wildness of not knowing what I will see.

When was the last time you experienced a taste or sight so incredible that you were inspired to go and create something?

When did you feel the air so refreshingly that you were compelled to think in a new way?

I still yearn for these experiences.

I still crave a creative inspiration that will stretch and surprise my soul so that I can’t help but grow as a person and an artist.

This is my reminder, your reminder too, to check the stars tonight and breathe in the glow of the moon, before heading off to bed.