A family’s 1400 kilometre roadtrip during the height of the pandemic

The nine-year-old rescue cocky can’t fly and instead hitches a ride on the shoulders of the nearest human. She finds many a willing chariot within the merry ranks of the Paine children: eight-year-old Dolly, Daisy, six, Trader, five, and two-year-old Hardy. As they march around the confines of the 27 foot caravan they’ve been calling home for three weeks, Kezz’s black-plumed head bobs with every step.

The Paine family has travelled 1400 kilometres to Longreach from their small mixed farm just outside Narromine, New South Wales; spinning through the dust of outback Queensland as they took advantage of COVID-19’s 2020 homeschooling. The family worked along the way, with dad Mat’s liquid waste business and a little mustering. It was a school term their mum Clancy, a photographer, is unlikely to forget. “Going away in the caravan is incredibly grounding for me. I’m normally like a bull at a gate. Stepping away from the pursuit of excellence reminds me, ‘How much do we need to be happy?’ ” Clancy says. “We have minimal stuff — a few outfits, a pair of boots and thongs in case we stumble across a public toilet or shower block.”

The Paines bought the off-road van from a bloke who fitted it out himself. With plenty of storage, a pull-out barbecue, two fridges and 440 litres of water, the family can go five days camping in the wild — provided everyone sticks to bird baths. Away from routine and the creature comforts of home, it’s all about family time.

The snap of the campfire, peeling the goo of blackened marshmallows from sticks, watched over by the emblazoned current of the Milky Way. Baths in washing tubs, hunting for interesting stones and trading pieces of petrified wood. Surrendering to feet going into beds dusted in red dirt thick as icing sugar.

“It’s so good to step away from the luxury of long, hot showers. In the van the kids turn on the tap, wet themselves, turn the tap off, do their soap, turn the tap on and rinse,” Clancy says. “They’re really diligent about where the water comes from and how to make it last. My grandmother’s generation had to understand how to be frugal and eat fruit and veggies in season and preserve them when they weren’t, and how to cart water. I want my kids to have the same appreciation.”