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We have now reached the half way point of this trip (in time and most probably distance as well). We are currently in Moree visiting a cousin of mine who has just had a baby – so Liz is also getting her baby-fix at the same time.

This seems a good time to reflect on the first half of the journey, which has included many highs and a few lows, as well as an opportunity to really explore who we are as a family. There are not many families who get to spend 6 months together night and day in this manner and I expect it will only prove to keep us closer for the rest of our lives.

One major realisation for me is that many of the towns and places we visit, which are well-known as tourism mecca’s, have not really impressed us all that much. I think this is largely due to our comparison points now being Australia-wide whilethe reputation each of these places has forged has largely being in comparison with it’s surrounding region.

The highlights include:

• the Great Australian Bight
• swimming with Sea Lions in Baird Bay
• Yacka 
• the night spent at the Thredbo Diggings campsite in the Snowy Mountains, especially waking up to a caravan covered in ice ad the looks on the kids faces when they found their bikes had turned white.
• the Lane Cover River Caravan Park in Sydney, which had a fantastic feel and was well run by NSW Parks and Wildlife.
• the Australian Reptile Park, found by accident and unknown to us before we visited.
• Port Macquarie foreshore and the Coopernook Forest Camp
• Bellingen and surrounds
• and visiting family and friends in Melbourne, Koonoomoo, Canberra, Sydney and now Moree.

While the lowlights definitely include the number of caravan parks that seem to think they can try to double (or close to) their fees due to us having two kids with us. We have no problem with paying a little extra as there is 4 rather than 2 of us having showers, but given that most of the rest of the costs will not change with the addition of two people in the van, doubling the costs just seems unconscionable to me.

The attempted theft of gear from the car in Melbourne also mounts as a negative, as does being told by Liz’s Mum tonight that a speeding fine had come through for while we were descending into Sydney, coming down out of the mountains. I never imagined we would receive one of these while the caravan was hitched up, but obviously wasn’t riding the brakes quite hard enough at the time.

The set-up we decided on for the trip has, for the most part worked well and there are not many changes I would make to either the car or the van if I was doing it again – certainly nothing major, so it is nice to think that we nutted this out pretty well before leaving.

It has been interesting to view the changes in each individual member of the family, and the family as a whole over the past three months and I am anticipating further changes as we complete the second part of the journey. Liz certainly seems to have settled into the trip in the last few weeks after a fairly shaky start while Max seems to grow by the day (as a person really, but probably physically as well looking at him). Harry hasn’t settled as well as Max but for the most part is getting an amazing amount out of the trip – it is just a pity that his down periods are virulent enough to detract from his majority, luckily these sorts of reflective moments help to better identify this.

One thing that I have really noticed is that SA, Vic and NSW all have a more significant sense of history in the majority of their towns, however WA just feels more vibrant. NSW has certainly had the poorest roads, while the Great Ocean Road – even though the coastline was certainly rugged and beautiful – didn’t quite live up to expectations, probably due to being viewed soon after we traversed the Great Australian Bight.

Camping sites have been variable as is expected. We have come to love showgrounds when we are looking for powered sites as they are generally relaxed, friendly, uncrowded and reasonably priced with plenty of room for the kids to run around, while the interest in the major style caravan parks has definitely waned even though we didn’t intend using them much on this trip anyway. I have also been very impressed with Liz's ability to weed through the free camping sites and pick out the good ones as we are heading into new areas.

For all that it’s roads has been poorer than other states, NSW has probably had the better quality free camping sites so far on the trip. Whether this is because they are generally better, or due to us becoming more adept at identifying good ones from descriptions and the occasional photo I am unsure.

Finally, the family has also become much more hirsute, albeit in different places. While the kids and Liz are showing off ever increasing heads of hair, most of my growth see\ms to be facial!

Thanks to those of you that have kept in touch, we look forward to seeing you all soon and conversing often.