Transition of Seasons

For Australia’s Mid-West Coast, mid-October usually marks the end of winter. The town of Northampton celebrates it with the “Airing of the Quilt” fair, with the locals hanging out their colourful patchwork bedcovers, selling homemade cakes and craft, and also performing and sharing their traditions with songs and music.

Our little Jeannerat-tribe also had a yummy Swiss cheese fondue to celebrate the ending of the “good times on the road” and pray for the start of the windy season at Coronation Beach (right now, the seabreezes have picked up consistently between Exmouth and Carnarvon). We are still intending to practice our favourite outdoor sport as much as we can, but sadly in our minds, time has come to say goodbye to the extended holiday that lasted since beginning of May. We are to jump back into a less leisurely routine, with the first step finding some decent job positions both Patrick and me.

Over the past 165 days, our choice was to be “4wd Nomads” constantly on the move to discover new places Australia’s beautiful nature has to offer. I would recommend to anyone on Earth who can afford to leave home, family, friends and work for an extended period, to head out on a long journey and experience another way of freedom. The one where decisions are made day by day not only according to the weather forecast and the resources held by the car, but also the energy level and the mood of all us. We’d expected to meet more people of our generation also doing a similar trip through the continent.
In fact, we observed that most of the travellers were either backpackers in their mid-20’s sharing old cars and meeting up in the community kitchen of the caravan parks, or retired senior people with their fully furnished, perfectly set-up caravans. Those few couples in the mid-30’s that we met on the road very rarely had kids, and most of them had come over for an overseas vacation. Even the spring school holidays didn’t bring the masses of families into the few caravan parks of the Shire of Shark Bay. So, I really wonder what all the young Ozzie families do… Do they work so hard and not take the time off to better know their own country? Or are they all waiting for the longer summer holiday period?

Anyway, this once-in-a-lifetime journey has greatly enhanced our family-bond. I also realize how lucky we are to live in the 21st century and be part of its fast moving complexity, yet still be able to take a timeout and live something totally different. The more time we spent in the outback, the more we felt amazed by the macroscopic and the microscopic perspective of both its pristine wilderness and sheer vastness. To us, the opportunity to travel around rural Australia was to catch glimpses of its natural wonders, its unique indigenous and modern history, and its relatively high mineral and agricultural wealth. We enjoyed the privilege to discover of the countless marvels and the immense diversity of our Country (a propos: since a couple of weeks I’m now eligible to become an OZ citizen, too). I hope this refreshed view of the land and its people will give us a new perspective as we start a new life situation in Perth with both professional and cultural contributions to the local society.