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I love a good caravan. There's one driving around our neighbourhood that's the mobile performance venue of a Gypsy Music group and it gets parked randomly around town Lolo The Gypsy Caravan Stage - I get a kick out of it's carefully placed bright red spots every time I come across it:
Our family used to go on caravaning holidays when we were kids. I suppose it was cheaper than putting up 4 kids in motels all the way to Brisbane or Melbourne and back, visiting family for weeks at a time.... and more fun! I remember "bagsing" beds in excitement when the van first pulled up in the cul de sac out the front of our house, Mum taking a whole day to pack the clothes, food, toys and lives of 6 people inside, ready for our big adventure.
We'd stop at roadside parks, pull up in country parks, overnight in caravan parks along the way, Mum preparing our meals from the cute little kitchen (pumping the water - such fun, we thought!). Now that I'm a Mum I can appreciate just how much work it was - all that packing, moving and pumping...
Isn't it the journey that counts? The road along the way - who doesn't still talk about fighting on the back seat with siblings?! Playing "Ping!" counting white horses, I Spy! and the alphabet sign game.
We play all these games in the car with our own kids now - still such good family fun to pass the time (although on a recent trip to Adelaide, Stephen Fry got us across the State with his reading of Harry Potter books - love that man!). We take a bit of Spike Jones for laughs, we all contribute to the music selection and occasionally just chat and look out the window. So relaxing!
Is it simply like how washing up someone else's dishes is always more fun than doing your own? Does a mini mobile kitchen give more appeal than the real thing, simply because of it's novelty? Same as camping - lots of planning to keep things simple, but doesn't it pay off?
We're still just a family hanging out together but it seems more fun on the road, with a different backdrop every day and new horizons each morning....
Do you love a road trip? Have you got or used a caravan for a trip away?
Photos via Design Sponge
