Our family drove from Adelaide to Brisbane, with only one spew (8 year old beside the Great Ocean Road) and one screaming row (between self and husband) outside a bakery. Apologies the good people of Berry, NSW.
This was the first big driving holiday our family has done, our first Christmas away from home and (aside from the barf and the barney) it was fab. And yes, we did it without the aid of on-board DVD or iDevices. The kids did have Nintendo DSs but the rule was no headphones and they could only be used after 3 hours driving. Motherhood, thy name is compromise.
These were the highlights:
Houseboat on the Murray River. If there’s a better family holiday, I’d like to know what it is. It was like camping but with air-conditioning and a flushing loo. It was about swimming, gum trees, yabbies, board games and sunsets.
Visiting family: I’m serious. I reckon the old-fashioned drop-in-on-cousins-you-haven’t-seen-in-years-and-sleep-on-their-rumpus-room-couch is a blast. It was for us anyway. I’m hoping our visitees feel similarly.
Motels: I love a country motel. I love an ugly bedspread and enjoy my toast being served in a white paper packet. The strip of paper diagonally across the toilet lid makes me feel nothing less than confident.
Audio books. It was either stories or test cricket on the radio. Hmmmm. Highly recommended for kids between 6 and 10 are the books by David Walliams (you might know him from Little Britain). The Boy In The Dress, Gangsta Granny and Billionaire Boy. Intelligent, touching, hilarious. Each book will take you 800km and wishing you had further to go. Okay, not quite, but they are seriously good.
Conversations. Normal life means Jim and I are like relay team members, except not athletic. We exchange bits of information like batons and keep running. A long drive gave us a chance to talk properly. We made some big decisions. Gulp. Perhaps we were inhaling fumes.
What did you get up to over your holidays?
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Loved this story, thank you. Our family (me, hubby and 3 kids 9 yrs, 7 yrs and 5 yrs) went on a two week road trip from Sydney thru to Victoria and back up the NSW south coast during these last school holidays. We camped every night staying 3 nights in each place to limit the pack up and setup time. We did a gaol tour, walked through caves, spotted koalas, kangaroos, rode bikes along the rail trail from Bright, rode our surf mat down rivers, boogy boarded at the beaches and whilst driving through Mt Hotham it snowed on us. It was the BEST family holiday we have ever had - the kids loved it! Sure there were moments where we could have left 1 or 2 of the kids on the side of he road, but overall the fun we had and the lifelong memories created were worth it. And all of it without technology to distract the kids. The simplicity of life was so relaxing. Highly recommend it and we are already planning the next one, trouble is there are too many places to visit. Do it!
We actually cheated a bit on our driving holiday - we needed to save time so our car went ahead of us on a truck and we flew to Adelaide and drove home to Bris. It was a great way to do it. I think in Sept we'll send the car ahead and meet it in Cairns. We are Queenslanders but have never seen the Great Barrier Reef! Our littlest is excited - we showed her the map and she said, 'That's good, because Cairns to Brisbane is all downhill' :-)
We live in Hawaii so last week I first went with mum to San Francisco for 4 days and then the day after I came back, I went with dad to the Big Island of Hawaii. In San Francisco, we went to Alcatraz, went to the museum of Modern Art, saw a wonderful play in Berkeley called 'Ghost Light', caught the BART transport and ate some great food. I'm going to do a gay travel tour next time I go to Frisco.
In Hawaii, we saw an active volcano and then went to the other side to Kona. Was great fun. Stayed at a hotel which had a big slide and dad (in his words) "cannon balled" into the water as he exited the slide! Ha.
I love road trips. One of my best memories of a road trip wasn't a holiday...it was actually my grandfather's funeral. We drove from Canberra to Nimbin and back for the funeral. Yes, Nimbin. He was well known in the community and there was a peace flag near his grave. We sang Janis Joplin and African American spirituals like Michael, Row the Boat Ashore. He was a total hippie, my grandad. On the way there and the way back we had some great family conversations and made mix cds. Grandad wouldv'e been very happy about that, I'm sure. It wasn't a 'holiday' but we had a nice drive.