Here we are half way through February and we are still in East Arnhem Land, and enjoying every minute. When we set out on this trip last May, we thought we would be slowly making our way back home towards Western Australia by now. We live in an unpredictable world at the moment and covid19 has impacted our trip – mostly in a good way. We made the decision to hunker down in Nhulunbuy for the wet season and it was a good decision having so much time with family. Tayler finally got home last week. We were all very grateful for the extra time we had with her, especially Tommy who had lots of fun with her planting seeds, making a worm farm and collecting tadpoles amongst other things. I think she was sad to leave us but happy to return to her own life and her studies. As she said ‘when could I ever take a two month holiday in real life?’ Mind you when her flight home was delayed by over an hour, we all wondered if she would ever get back home.

A few days before Tayler left, a group of us planned a trip to the Granite Islands for a barbecue. It would be an ‘au revoir’ to Tayler. There were four boatloads of us but no Tayler; she woke up that morning with a sore throat. She missed out on a lovely afternoon but Kyran was good enough to take her back out there in the boat when she recovered.

We did, however, manage to have lunch at Latitude with Tayler the day before she left. Vanessa, myself and the children joined her for some cocktails and a meal, and Tommy swam in the pool. It was lovely.

We are currently in our third housesit and we move into another next week. We thought that might be the last and, if the track out was driveable, we would move on to Far North Queensland. However, someone we recently house-sat for asked us again for ten days over Easter. I’m happy to delay leaving Tommy and Joey for as long as possible but we decided to stay because I’m getting so much relief work at school here. With covid rife in town and spreading quickly through school, I should continue to get lots of work. Providing I stay well of course. Things change almost daily but our new plan is to leave Nhulunbuy around 20th April. Kyran, Vanessa and the boys are going to drive the track with us and try out their new camper trailer which should be fun. We will head to Far North Queensland. We’d like to go as far north as Cape York (which I did in 1989) but we will see how brave we are nearer the time.

I’ve always said I’d never have another dog, the main reason being it’s devastating when they die. The other reason is that I’ve never wanted the responsibility and I’ve always wanted to be free to travel. During our time of housesitting, we’ve had to look after some dogs. So far there have been a cavoodle named Harry, two bull mastiffs called Remy and Jayda, and we looked after a beautiful Cavalier King Charles/Cocker Spaniel pup, Sunny, for a few hours. We’ve also spent quite a bit of time with Tommy’s dog, Skylar. We take her to the beach often and she usually accompanies on day trips and camping expeditions . When I worked in the special education class of the high school here, one of the teachers brought in Nala and Max, his Golden Labrador and German Shepherd for the day. The day turned into a week because the students loved them. So did we adults. For once the kids were calm, only fighting over whose turn it was to walk the dogs!

We have some more housesits with dogs coming up and one with a dog and a cat. I have to say I have really enjoyed the dogs. They have all been great company and mostly well behaved. We were both a little hesitant about our ten days with the bull mastiffs (Remy and Jayda) but they were well trained and not at all aggressive. John has always agreed with me about not having a pet, however, after spending so much time looking after dogs, I think both of us could be open to the idea when we return home to WA. We can’t see ourselves doing any more long trips, and John has said his days of travelling overseas are over. So who knows? We won’t rule it out.