High expectations are always attached to the anticipation of reliving precious memories.

They are always accompanied by seeds of doubt that such special times cannot be replicated.

At their worst, they are plagued with fear that those memories have been romanticised with the passing of time in our imagination.

They are also always anchored in hope that we will return to those deep places of ourselves with those who we love to times that have filled us with abundant joy.

So here we are. Six years later in our beloved caravan.

The catalyst for this adventure was my big 4-0.  While Dave had less than enthusiastically agreed to a romantic getaway to Europe, our thirteen, ten and six-year-old daughters had a different idea.    Looking through old trip photos together in stitches of laughter, and the realisation that Alice at the time was too small to have shared our last trip memories combined with the reality that the time our teenager would want to spend 24/7 in a tin can with us was limited made my dream of celebrating four decades under the lights of the Eifel tower as Tay Tay would say in Midnights ‘Would’ve, Could’ve Should’ve.’

They say that each child is born into a different family due to the passage of time, change of life circumstances and birth order.  This is especially true for Alice whose free spirit zest for life and cheek, was perhaps shaped by her infancy spent in our beloved van in arm’s length proximity to her entire family three of the first six months of her life. Despite such engrained confidence for adventure, as our trip begins Dave and I eagerly await the travel memories she begins to create for herself experiencing our ‘WA highlight reel.’

So here we are. Six thousand kilometres away from our house in our beloved caravan in a place and with the people we all call home.  For the next three weeks we have traded in the complexity of our abundant middle age life (a term defined as a period of life defined by an exhausting list of extra-curricular activities within the time constraints of school terms, serious grown-up career ambition topped with a big mortgage) for the simplicity of van life.

Here are to those days ahead filled with the simple joys of swimming together in the warm ocean, snorkelling in crystal clear waters, having time to play uno at the dinner table, watching the sunset each day and simply basking in the presence of being with each other.