Erin and I went to Byron Bay for our babymoon, a couple of months before Katie arrived and changed our lives forever. I remember it as a lovely place, with lots of nice little cafes, bars, and an unbelievably gorgeous beach with a picturesque lighthouse on Cape Byron at the end, which is also the Eastern most part of this vast country.

Turn right at the Big Banana. That was the directions to get to our friends’ house. Anyone who has been to Australia will understand, that’s not as ridiculous as it sounds. There are innumerable ‘big’ things that various, usually rural, towns have built in order to attract a bit of interest to their local.

A few different people along the way told us that Bellingen was worth visiting, so when we left Crescent Head we put it in our sights. Not before a pack up that almost finished me off though.

Now we knew we could survive on the solar panels it was off into our first little bit of wilderness. The longboard surfers’ paradise of Crescent Head. Three hours up the coast to the village, then 15 minutes down a dirt road and we landed at Waves, a bush camp site I visited on a surfing trip about five years ago.

We stayed in a tiny wee motel room in Moss Vale, but you’d swear it was the Ritz Carlton from our reaction. One week in a tent and you’d think we’d never seen running water before.

Our next stop was back towards the coast, and south to visit a friend in Moss Vale who had just had a baby. Getting there turned out to be a more of an ordeal than we thought it would be though. We should have examined the route before setting off, and I should have left with two full tanks of diesel…

I don’t think it’s a mid-life crisis. Well, maybe it is, but hey, when a mate said taking off round Australia in a Landcruiser with my family was better than having an affair, or leaving my wife, I had to agree with him.