Halloween in the Caravan

Last year we were in America for Halloween.  The kids were beside themselves.  We went to some community event first, then to a friend’s neighbourhood for more trick or treating, complete with a visit from a headless horseman.  Since trick-or-treating isn’t really a thing here in Australia, I’d told the kids we’d dress up and do our own thing.  Then we found out that several of the other families staying in the caravan park were planning to trick-or-treat.  So then I had some excited kids again!  We had to come up with costumes so I printed off some masks for the kids to colour.  SkeeterBug (11) was a zombie, with orange stripes in his hair (because we had orange hair chalk and we just had to use it), and fake blood running down his arms and legs.  Lovely.

There’s that hair chalk.  Much easier to apply when they’ve had a haircut!  We were all in a rush as we thought the trick-or-treating was going to start at a certain time so we went for a quick swim, then discovered everyone was starting while we were in the pool!


TurboBug had to have hair chalk too.  Because he has to keep up with his siblings.  See the freckles?  That’s because of LadyBug.


LadyBug (6) was the only one with a proper costume since she has her Elsa costume along on our trip.  She wanted freckles on her cheeks and we printed out a crown for her to wear.  She was Elsa last year too, I’ll have to find a picture and see how long this costume was on her back then.  Her hair is wet because of that quick swim we’d had to cool down after our camel ride.


My camera lens fogged up when I took it outside.  JitterBug (8) is wearing the Boba Fett mask, or maybe it’s Jango Fett, I can never remember.  He’s got nerf guns tucked in his pants for weapons.  TurboBug (2) was supposed to be Sven, the reindeer from Frozen, but he ended up a combination of everyone else’s.  He’s got his reindeer ears, freckles, orange stripes in his hair, and fake blood on his arms and legs.  So he’s a reindeer/zombie/princess/bounty hunter.  Who had no clue what was going on.  :)


I tried to get some better pictures of them after all was said and done.  Here’s my zombie.


My princess, with freckles.  She already has adorable freckles but wanted more.


My bounty hunter, sans mask.  So basically just with blood and stripes in his hair.


And my reindeer.  The older kids were horrified when I let TurboBug colour his reindeer ears because he was scribbling all over them.  They’re his ears, aren’t they?  I coloured proper colours right over the top of it but made sure his scribbles still showed through.  He still had no idea what was going on, but people were giving him lollies so what’s there to complain about?


Trick or treating is not something I’d do in a neighbourhood here in Australia unless it was all arranged with the neighbours before hand.  Otherwise you’d end up knocking on people’s doors who wouldn’t want anything to do with Halloween.  They don’t know that trick of leaving the porch light on if you want to participate.  :)

A Quick Tour of Our Caravan

So now that we’ve been on the road for many months, maybe it’s time for a tour of the inside of our caravan!  We have a Bailey Pegasus Ancona, it’s a European six-berth on-road van.  It’s lightweight, we could tow it with the car we already owned.  It was made in the UK to be sold in Australia which means it is made to Aussie standards.  So yes, we even have Aussie plugs inside!  Those who buy their European vans and import them do not, this is a question we get sometimes.  We’re happy with our van, we bought it new here in Australia through a place in Melbourne after seeing it at a caravan show.

When you come in the van you are greeted by our map of Australia.  It looks so fresh and clean here!  We had to trim it to make it fit this space and all the edges are curling up now.  We also (finally) traced our route on it, I’ll have to post an updated picture.  I think I’ll eventually purchase a new copy of this poster and trace our route on it so that we can hang it up when we are in a house again.

Looking straight ahead as you come in the door are the triple bunk beds.  Each bed has a window and a light at the head of the bed.  The kids all have toy bins and book baskets at the foot of the bed and pockets at the head of the bed to store all their goodies in.  They’ve hung pictures and glow-in-the-dark stars and made these their bedrooms.  On the left you can see the curtain thingy that we close at night.  Those are their towels hanging on the right which will make more sense in the next picture.

This is looking toward the back of the van with the door to the van on the right, just out of the picture.  Their robes and jackets hang on hooks next to the bunk beds, their towels hang on the ensuite door.  LadyBug’s necklaces are there too because a certain toddler kept getting into them and we had to move them out of his reach.

Next to the triple bunks is a large cupboard for hanging clothes.  We found some drawers that fit perfectly and use those for all the kids’ clothes.  The bottom cupboard holds shoes.  We keep thongs and crocs outside in a basket, but runners and any others go inside.

There’s a tiny bit of hanging space at either side, we hang up our church clothes and that’s it.  The adult jackets have a home in here too.  Once upon a time I printed some cute labels for these drawers but that must have been after I took this picture.  That middle small drawer holds hats, bike gloves, and mismatched socks.  Because somehow even living in a caravan we end up with orphan socks.  The top small drawer has extra towels and wipes and miscellaneous things.  That leaves us four big drawers, one for each kid.  They needed clothing for all seasons and this was the best way for us to do it.  We were so pleased to find those drawers that fit these cupboards so perfectly!

I seem to be moving counter-clockwise, so next is our spacious kitchen!  The oven is large enough to cook a roast in and has a broiler, many caravans only have a half oven.  We wanted the full oven, but later we bought a Weber BabyQ so that isn’t as important as we thought it would be.  Anything you’d cook in an oven you can do on a BabyQ, even birthday cake!  My biggest gripe about this van is the size of the fridge- this is a six-berth van and a bar fridge is inadequate.  We’ve survived, we don’t have an extra fridge that’s kept in the car as so many travellers do.  We just have to do our shopping every few days or we end up with too much to fit in the fridge.  In the cupboards above the sink we store dishes, tea towels, small pantry items, and cooking utensils.  Pans go in a storage compartment under the stove.

After the kitchen we move into the lounge.  This was one of the features that sold us on this van.  We have room to gather here as a family, there’s room for all of us to sit.  We can set up the folding table for meals or schoolwork, we can put it away to make a comfortable area for watching a movie or playing.  We have windows all around and a skylight above making this van very light-filled, it’s wonderful to have so much natural light in a caravan.  The shades and curtains fully block out the light and the van, being made in Europe, is very well insulated since it’s made for those European winters.  The insulation makes a huge difference, keeping the van cooler in the heat and warmer in the cold weather.  We even have central heating, which has come in very handy in some of the places we’ve been! (cough, Canberra, cough)

Behind that back cushion is a ledge where we store toys and books for TurboBug so that he can easily reach them.  The other end of the ledge has a plug which we use as our main charging station.  Books and other things find their way here, too.

Next to the lounge, again moving counter-clockwise around the van is another large cupboard.  It’s a really deep cupboard, it holds school work and games.  The TV is right at the end of the lounge which works well, we just have to put it down on a cushion when we travel.  Believe it or not, this is the first microwave we’ve had since moving to Australia more than five years ago.  We do use it some, mostly for quick oatmeal or frozen vegies.  :)  That little cupboard above the microwave holds our small printer.  It’s certainly not as convenient to have to pull the thing down and set it up every time you want to print, but our printing needs have reduced drastically since we’ve been on the road!  (You can see the printer in the next picture.)  See the Lego?  JitterBug saw me taking pictures and hurried to give his Lego a prominent spot in the pic!

To the left of the TV is the dinette.  This means that when our lounge table is stowed away we still have a table to sit at.  All of us don’t fit around it, but the kids can all fit at once.  It’s a perfect place to do some work if we can just keep it clean.  It easily becomes a dumping ground because it’s just inside the door.  Under these seats we’ve stored books, art supplies, and some other odds and ends.  The cabinets above the dinette serve as our pantry.  (Pretend that mirror isn’t covered in fingerprints, okay?)

This dinette even converts into a bed.  We’ve only used it that way when the kids have been sick, it’s an easier way to reach them, they can feel pampered, plus we can turn the TV around and they can occupy themselves watching movies while their tummy hurts.  If we needed a bed for TurboBug this would work but either we’d lose our dinette or we’d have to make up the bed for him.  For now he just sleeps with us, our bed is a king-size and there’s plenty of room.  Did I mention that lovely lounge up above is also our bed?  We have to make it up each night but it works for us.

Now we’ve come all the way around to the back of the van again, so I may as well show you the ensuite!  It’s a full ensuite with a toilet and shower.  There’s a tall corner cabinet and another cupboard under the sink.  Those white poles with the black knobs are the anti-flap kit for the awning, we store them in here (they are velcro’d to the wall) when we are not using them.

Believe it or not this shower is big enough to fit inside and even turn around in!  Unfortunately we don’t use it a lot since it’s also where we store our washing machine.  If we are in a caravan park it’s often easier to just use the amenities.

There’s seriously no bench space in this bathroom.  They fixed that in the next year’s model but that doesn’t help us!  See that cutting board above the window?  I place that across the sink when I need to deal with my contact lenses or so I have a spot to put my makeup.  The mirror is also in a crazy spot so we put a small, unbreakable mirror above the window. 

Of course the van is always completely spotless as it is in the above pictures.  Right.  Bombs, otherwise known as children, seem to set themselves off in here on a regular basis.  I couldn’t believe it when I walked in and saw this, I had to take a picture of the crazy mess.  At least it’s easy to clean up, since the kitchen and the lounge and the kids’ bedrooms are just steps apart.  :)

I took these pictures ages and ages ago, I’d nearly forgot I had them.  Maybe one of these days I’ll post some pictures of the insides of the cupboards so you can see how we keep ourselves somewhat organised.  It’s hard to believe we’ve been living in our van for a year now.  We’ve fully adjusted to it although there are days when the van feels very, very small with six of us in it!

Welcome to the Northern Territory!

Since leaving the coast we’ve had many long drives with not much in between.  That means road trains are more common, and some of them are huge!

The terrain has been unchanging for the most part.  Flat, very flat.

On our last night in Queensland was spent in Cloncurry.  We had intended to go to the John Flynn museum but heard it was expensive, so we decided to save it for a Royal Flying Doctor Service museum later in our travels instead.  The next day we drove through McKinlay, home of the Walkabout Creek Hotel from the Crocodile Dundee movie.  We stopped at the playground in this tiny town (population: 20!) for lunch before continuing on.

We started seeing heaps and heaps of termite mounds.  It’s amazing to see hundreds of them, as far back from the road as you can see.

Finally we were here!  We were officially in the Northern Territory!

I’d never seen a speed limit sign with this high of a number!  We had no hope of going that fast while towing the caravan, so that means we get passed a lot.  Occasionally by other caravans!  (If you’re interested, 130km per hour is 80 miles per hour.)

Did I mention the road trains?  TurboBug says ‘big truck’!

We spent a few nights in Tennant Creek and while we were there the kids changed beds.  They’ve had a turn on each bunk now and they’ve gone back to their original beds with LadyBug on the bottom, JitterBug in the middle, and SkeeterBug at the top.  It’s quite the process to switch everything around but the kids love feeling like they have a whole new bedroom.  I took this picture right before we took everything apart.

We also ran into another travelling family we’d first met in Mulambin.  We are all headed in the same general direction around Australia so we are sure to see them again.  One of their kids shared the hair chalk and suddenly I had kids with multi-coloured hair!

Once again, this feels like a momentous point in our trip.  We’ve reached the NT!

Age of Dinosaurs Museum

Look!  Airplane crossing!  This was outside of Winton.  I’ve seen a few of these and finally managed a picture of one.  The most memorable one we saw was on the Queensland coast.  We stopped at a rest area just after the plane sign and while we were there a plane came in for a very low landing right over the top of us.  It was at a crazy angle and I was sure it was crashing!  (It wasn’t!) I’m told the look on my face was quite hilarious.  That particular rest area was also memorable because of the random rooster we found there.  He was chasing the kids but we soon discovered he was playing with them, not trying to hurt them.  Anyway, back to the subject of this post…

While we were in Winton we visited the Age of Dinosaurs museum.  There are heaps of dinosaur things to see in this part of Australia, there are at least four museums I can think of, but this was the only one we made it to.  They are all spread pretty far apart and the entrance fees add up, so we picked what looked like the most suited to us and we are so glad we visited here.  The museum is about 20 km from Winton, a good portion of it is on a dirt road.

Look, dinosaur crossing!!  The museum is located at what they call a Jump-Up.  If you wanted to call it a mesa you wouldn’t be wrong. :)

A museum tour has two parts to it: a tour of both the lab and the museum.

Outside the museum you are greeted by Banjo.  Doesn’t seem to friendly, does he?  He’s the most complete theropod skeleton found in Australia, his bones are on display inside.

Tickets include scheduled guided tours, so we headed to the laboratory first.  It was hot and dry but we survived that short walk, even though some of the kids wished we had driven it instead! 

Just inside the door is a replica of Matilda’s leg.  That’s one very large dinosaur.  Matilda’s bones are on display in the museum, which we would tour later.

A small waiting room contained some interesting things to look at, as well as a video playing and some kids’ activities (thank you!).

The tour through the laboratory was amazing, the tour guide was so full of information and communicated it so engagingly.  She told us that this part of Australia was covered in rainforest at one time.  This huge length of petrified wood they dug up is actually a branch.  Imagine how big that tree must have been!

The museum only sponsors digs for a few weeks each year.  (And regular non-palaeontologist people can join them!) From those digs they have over thirteen years’ worth of work ahead of them.  The area is so rich with fossils that they won’t be done anytime soon.  All of these boulder-looking things on shelves are rocks encased in plaster, all of them have fossils in them.  There are notes written on the plaster of what sort of fossil they think is inside.

To protect the fossils they dig up the whole area, wrap it in alfoil, newspaper, burlap, and then plaster the whole thing.

Here’s one they have set aside for people to get a good look at and even touch.

You could see the layers and layers surrounding the rock to protect the fossils.

The tour guide told us the fascinating story of this meteorite.  In March 2004 there was a huge meteor that lit up the sky over Winton.  David Elliott, the founder of the museum, quizzed local residents about what they’d seen and where it was in the sky.  He made himself a map and a fancy tool to figure out the proper angle and narrowed it down to a certain section of his property.  It took two years but he finally stumbled across the large piece, I think she said his son found the smaller piece about a week later.

By the time she was done with the story I was wondering how they could keep this here, wasn’t it valuable, didn’t it need better security?  Then she told us that these are replicas.  Phew.  I thought I heard her say one of the rocks was in the Queensland Museum, I can’t remember the story on the other.  I found this old news article that tells the story of the discovery.

Here’s an illustration of that prehistoric rainforest.  See the dinosaur in the middle of the picture?  See how giant those trees are next to him?  Hard to imagine.

There were all kinds of interesting things in the cases, including fossils and petrified items.  This first one compares a dinosaur vertebra to a whale vertebra.

They took us around to the lab side of the building where we could see people at work.  The really cool thing about this place is that you can come work with them.  Our tour guide showed us how the various tools worked.  They have to be so careful not to damage the fossils, it’s slow going.

Here’s one of those plaster-covered rocks waiting over in the lab area.  ‘Big rock with bone!!’ 

After we were done with our fabulous tour of the lab we headed back out into the sun for the walk back to the museum.  I took a detour along the way for a look at the view.  If you look closely you can see some tiny bits of colour at the top middle of this picture, those are the kids waving at me from the trail. 

Wouldn’t you know my camera battery died after this last picture?  I usually have an extra one with me, but that one was flat too.  Bad planning, camera lady!  So disappointing, I would have loved some pictures in the museum.

The tour of the museum was unique in that it contained actual dinosaur bones.  Not replicas.  They were laid out on tables and you could see exactly what bones were missing from the skeletons.  I was surprised at how complete the dinosaur skeletons were.   The first dinosaur they found is named Elliott, after the founder of the museum.  Mr. Elliott came across the fossils on his property and thus the dinosaur is named after him.  They have not yet published their work on this dinosaur, so although we could see its bones she couldn’t tell us much about it.  He’s the one in their logo, though, it seems they are very proud of him!  They did have both Banjo and Matilda on display, along with some fascinating animation of what those dinosaurs may have looked like in motion.

When we returned to our caravan we found we’d been invaded by ants.  Teeny, tiny ants.  We’ve been lucky so far, but it finally happened in Winton.  They were everywhere.  Everywhere.  These particular ants are so tiny that they fit between the cabinet and the wall, so they can go anywhere in the van.  We spent quite a bit of time vacuuming up ants in every little corner.  We put talcum powder around the legs of the van and that kept them from coming in again.  Since then if we find ants near where we are parked we make sure to put down the talcum powder and we’ve been lucky not to have another invasion.  So far, anyway!

[Side note: as I was trying to find information on the meteorite mentioned above I came across some news articles talking about a meteorite being stolen from the Crystal Caves in Atherton.  I don’t remember seeing a meteorite while we were there and the news mentions it being recently acquired.  The thieves broke the store window and went straight for it.  Ergh.]