March 21, 2025 • 30 mins
Join Leonie as she takes you on the journey of 1600km across Australia to move her family back to Canberra.
Find all the photos at:
www.leoniedawson.com/roadtrip25
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
La La la Leonie Dawson refuses to be categorized.
To be categorized. Oh my goodness, friends.
Happy New Year. I am back and I am speaking to
you from Canberra. Wow, I moved.
(00:21):
Look at me. Look at me today.
I want to share with you kind oflike my behind the scenes, my
diary, my road trip as we moved across the country.
So buckle up. It's probably going to be a
little bit longer of a podcast today.
And if you would like to see thecompanion photos from this, you
(00:46):
can go to leoniedawson.com/roadtrip 24 and
you'll find all the goodness there.
So I shared with you back in July that we were moving back to
Canberra and we had this really synchronous way that we found
our next home. And since that time, really our
days and weeks have been so full.
(01:09):
In September, we put our old house on the market.
We put half our furniture into storage so that we could like
stage it better. And I also had the blessing of
speaking at the Heart Centred Business Conference and seeing
so many beautiful business friends.
If you haven't seen already, youcan go to leoniedawson.com/heart
(01:30):
and get free access to the professional video recording of
the talk that I did there. It was one of the biggest and
most powerful things that I'd done in years.
It had me sobbing. It had most of the crowd sobbing
like it was huge. It was huge.
And at the same time as well, our youngest kid had her first
(01:52):
sleepaway camp and I was just soproud of her for taking that big
step and for loving it so much as well.
And while our girls were at school during those months, my
love and I just really busied ourselves with continuing to
pack and clean so that we're ready for house inspections.
(02:12):
We also knew we needed to stay healthy and connected during,
you know, all of that stress. So we went for walks most
mornings at the local duck pond and along Coolum Beach as well.
And we had so many miracle experience on those walks.
It just felt like such a blessing from meeting the most
beautiful humans and dogs and seeing whales and dolphins and
(02:37):
turtles and my goodness, just somuch, so much magic and say.
I also decided to take a leap and sign up for a new mentor and
a mastermind, even in the midst of moving.
And it really felt like such a huge step.
It's been years and years since I invested in something like
(02:58):
that, but I just had this reallydeep knowing that it was
something that I needed to do. And I felt so much trepidation
and worry going into it. But it's ended up just being one
of the best things I've ever invested in, and I've kind of
gone, Why did it take me so longto do this again?
But I'm here now, and I'm very, very grateful.
(03:20):
I've been just diving into my mentor's big library of
teachings and connecting with the mastermind, and it's just
been so powerful for me. And I really feel like I'm
healing and growing in so many ways and coming back into myself
more fully. And I've really got to trust in
(03:41):
the timing of it. As much as I wanted to wish that
I'd like found it years ago, I got to trust it like right here,
right now is the right time. And I'll probably talk more
about the process and you know who my mentor is in time, but
it's really just been such a potent part of this transition
time. And so I just wanted to share it
(04:02):
with you. I also did heaps, heaps and
heaps of teaching and creating to prep for moving as well.
I taught new programs for the Academy like graphic design for
your business, how to grow your business with affiliates, how to
create business systems, an annual business review.
Plus, we released new Academy templates like the standard, the
(04:24):
sample Business Standard, operating procedures, affiliate
onboarding, e-mail templates, 100 social media content ideas,
a daily essential business task template, like it's Just a lot.
We also had three Q&A webinars, our usual monthly group coaching
calls for the Academy, and we had eight guest expert workshops
(04:45):
in the Academy since September as well.
It's just been beautifully full and I'm really, really proud of
myself for that effort. And in the midst of all that
going on, life was happening as well.
And our girls were spending timewith their best friends before
and after the move, before the move happened and wrapping up
(05:07):
all their school assessments andtests for the year.
We had play dates and sleepovers.
And I took my girls and their two best friends Halloweening
together as well. And just so, so many precious
memories being made during that time of, of, of finishing up
really on the Sunshine Coast. And as a way to say goodbye as
(05:32):
well, one absolutely gorgeous Saturday afternoon, I rented a
pontoon boat. So I live near Noosa and Noosa
has a very flat river that goes out to the ocean, but the, it's
quite shallow and it's doesn't really have any waves or
anything like that. And so you can just hire these
(05:53):
very slow moving boats and you don't need a boat license for
them at all because it just goesso slowly.
And they have barbecues on boardthem and they've got like, it's,
they're so soft. It's like a couch really.
And so it was me and so many beautiful friends that came on
(06:13):
that boat with us. And my two daughters wanted to
come as well. And that was just so, so sweet
and gorgeous. And the sky was just like this
incredibly brilliant blue and the water was so warm and like,
I just felt so lucky. All I could think was like, I'm
(06:34):
so lucky to have been here. I'm so lucky to have lived this
and to love these people. Like dancing wildly and laughing
so hard I can barely breathe. Like, what a glorious adventure
and just the most perfect way tofinish it up.
What a blessing. I think I'm always just going to
(06:56):
remember that afternoon. And then by the time early
November came around, it was time for us to move out.
So we moved into a really gorgeous Airbnb for all for a
week just down the road from us while we finished cleaning our
house and for our girls to finish school.
And it was this grand old house on acres of land, and it was
(07:17):
just filled with Kangaroos and this lake teeming with fish and
dragonflies and the most gorgeous, buttery soft couches
surrounded by bookshelves. And so my husband and I would
sift through the library together because this library of
(07:37):
books was the most bad shit, crazy collection of books I've
ever seen. Like, obviously they'd staged
the house. It was a gorgeous house, but
they'd staged it. And they're like, all right,
well, we need some books. Let's go get the cheapest books
at the op shop. Some truly unhinged stuff in
there. So we would just like sink
(07:59):
through and see if we could likewhat was the oldest book we
could find? What was the weirdest book we
could find? What was the one like, how that
end up there, you know, like themaps of some small town in
London, like a very unhelpful for where we are right now, you
know, books from the 1960s, books that were just so very
(08:21):
odd. And it was brilliant.
And I'm so grateful for that laughter that we shared, and
that after all that work, my husband and I could just have
moments where we were just on the couch together, looking out
over the pool and the lake and the Kangaroos and just softening
together at last. And my darling friend Maddie
(08:44):
came over for gourmet pizza one night and a twilight swim in the
pool. And my eldest best friend stayed
over night as well. And it was just over and over.
I just kept thinking, we're so lucky for all of this and for
what's next too. I think of all the adventures
I've had over the years, and I can't bring myself to regret any
(09:07):
of them. Sure, I've moved around a lot,
but my goodness, the adventures we've had, the amazing memories
and the wonderful, wonderful times we've had.
And it was there as well that the US election results came
through. And I just remember staring
(09:27):
dumbfounded and just aghast. And I sat for hours under gum
trees just grieving and journaling and getting clear and
deciding how I wanted to lead myself.
And I feel like I'm still in that process and I'm still
getting clarity. But it really all began there by
(09:48):
that billabong with those dragonflies.
So amidst all of that, the last day of school, our girls said
goodbye to their teachers and their friends, and we stood
together in this dirt car park at the school as my eldest
(10:09):
daughter, who's 14, hugs her darling best friend goodbye.
And they're not crying, but her mom is.
And she's crying because she knows how much this means to
them both. And they're not going to cry in
this moment, but she'll cry for them.
And I feel that. I feel that so much.
(10:30):
And both of those beautiful girls are moving on to new
schools. And you know, all of us know
that a new beginning's what all of us need.
But endings and goodbyes are hard, especially when there's so
much love. So the next day we set off as
(10:53):
the sun rose into the sky and wewound our way through the
hinterland. And it's not long before we're
out of the bubble of the wealthykind of coastal enclave we've
been sequestered in for six years.
We didn't mean to be so sequestered in there for six
years, but we had a pandemic andthere we were, sequestered away.
(11:15):
And I remember stopping in this small town to get some bakery
food and went to a little marketon the way.
And it was that was selling metal signs.
And it said we don't call 000 around here.
And it had like a gun emblazonedover the top.
And I remember my looking at my daughters and they were just
(11:37):
sort of stupefied, like, what does this mean?
What does this mean? And the local bakery certainly
makes like delicious sandwiches.And I just can't stop laughing
at the duality of all of it. And then we follow the mountains
up into the granite Belt of Queensland.
(11:59):
It's a way we haven't been before.
Usually we go out West to a border town on the river.
And I won't say the name becauseI don't want it's like this
might be years in the future when you listen to this or and
things may have changed by the time you ever think about
driving through that way. But we decided not to go through
(12:22):
that way because we even though we'd loved staying there before
because it had hopes debate of like violent invasions of motels
and even called like the the locals police station to ask,
you know, is it safe to come through?
And they were like, we can't tell you that We can't promise
anything. We just we can tell you that
we're here 24/7, though if you do need us, you need to lock up.
(12:45):
And we're like, oh, OK, All right, it might be time for us
to make a slight shift in our plans.
So and I remember like we were kind of upset for a few days
thinking Oh no, we can't go our usual route down South.
And instead we had to plan a newway that we hadn't gone before.
(13:06):
And even though it like felt like a stick in our spokes to
change that well worn travel path of ours, it feels like it
was such an unexpected blessing.I always feel like there's
something precious about the gift of seeing land for the
first time, getting to meet new country and being astonished at
(13:27):
how it's this view that my eyes have never seen before.
For years I wondered what my homeland was, and I know now
that it just happens to be a really large one.
I belong to Australia and all ofher beauty, and maybe I belong
to the whole world too. Maybe the whole earth is my
(13:48):
home. But Australia and her Eucalypse
and her mountains and her magic,they have my heart.
So truly we end up on a back Rd.somewhere in granite country.
So aptly naive. These bold outcrops of rocks and
the hills are precarious and theroad became gravel and we have
(14:10):
to stop to let a horse float. Cross A1 Lane bridge.
Isn't it amazing how I can spendthe whole day in complete
silence with no phone calls, andthen as soon as I record,
everybody wants me and you can'thave me, I'm gonna record a
(14:32):
podcast. OK, So where were we?
The road became gravel. There's like rocks and hills and
it's just wild country. And I just could not stop
smiling. I love it.
I love adventure and I love seeing new land.
(14:54):
And eventually we crossed the border into NSW and it is wild
how the wilderness changes from state to state.
The palm trees slowly become poplars, wooden houses become
brick and cattle become sheep. We drive through the historic
town of Tenterfield listening toPeter Allen's song for the town.
(15:18):
I read the Wikipedia entry for every small town that we go
through, each page and each towna rabbit hole of fascination.
Did you know, for example, there's like the famous
Tenterfield oration by Sir HenryParks and it was part of the way
that Australia became a nation? Did you know that Captain
(15:39):
Thunderbolt was a Bush Ranger near Tenterfield?
That is so cool and listening tothat song and driving through
all these old Australian towns, it brought me to tears with
nostalgia, brimming with a sentiment that's not quite my
own, you know, belonging to all the ones who've come before me
(16:03):
of the times and the places lostand found.
By mid afternoon we drive into the stunning Old Town of Glen
Innes. It's the ancient homeland of the
Negarable people. Then the indigenous name for
Glen Innes means plenty of big round stones on clear plains.
(16:29):
And that is the most perfect description of the place.
Like, I can report it's stunningly accurate.
Therefore it the whole region isnow known as New England, and
it's one of the highest and the coldest parts of Australia.
And in this really odd turn of events, the region's first white
(16:50):
settlers were Scottish, and manyof the surrounding towns are
named after Scottish ones, like Glencoe, Ben Lamond, Armadale.
And there's just something aboutthis cold Highland place that's
oddly mystical. And did you know that Australia
has its own standing stones? I did not.
(17:13):
It's basically like a a testament to the Celtic standing
stones. And it is this wild and
wonderful thing to be in the midst of this very distinctly
Celtic rock formation, but surrounded by gum trees and this
heat of an Australian summer. And there's this wall of stones
(17:36):
brought from all over England toplace there.
I've never been to England, but it is the homeland of most of my
ancestors. And as I touch midlife, there's
this real homing instinct in me wanting to return my genes into
the mist and the fog. And so it is of such a divine
(18:02):
and sacred blessing to be there in that space, in that odd
mystical space of the Australianstanding stones.
Then we find our motel for the night.
And gosh, I love synchronicity. The lovely, lovely receptionist
says, are you the online Leonie Dawson?
(18:23):
And it makes me laugh like, yes,I am the online Leonie Dawson.
And she'd taken one of my E courses and I was just giddy
with it, like, oh, we've changeddirection to come here.
And it felt like a kerfuffle. We'd lost money on the other
motel we're going to go through and decided not to go through.
(18:44):
But it was all a blessing. And across from the motel, there
was these stunning historic buildings and we ordered room
service. And it's the most delicious room
service of our lives. I'm not even joking.
I still like think fondly of this deconstructed cheesecake
(19:04):
that we all shared between US. And it was like this cream
cheese substance with all this fruit and crackers to eat with
it. And it was crazy good.
Not sponsored at all, but if youever are going through New
England, we sat at the New England Motor Lodge and we
really loved the the room service.
Freaking delicious. And of course the receptionist
(19:26):
was amazingly lovely. Yeah, I feel really grateful.
We stopped there. And the next day we headed off
in at first light and we followed this spine of the
mountain range down down down toTamworth.
And we've never been there before.
We've always wanted to. It's Australia's icon of country
(19:48):
music. So of course we'll get the
customary photo in front of the towering golden guitar statue.
And then we spend the most merryhour in the visitor centre and
the museum behind it, and we take photos in front of statues
of our favorite musicians. And I want to cry.
With gladness when I see a statue of my beloved Jimmy
(20:12):
Little and I hung his song underthe Milky Way under my breath
the rest of the time walking through.
If you haven't listened to that miraculous song, please do.
What a gorgeously inspiring time.
My love was so thrilled to wander through this maze of
(20:35):
guitars played by musicians fromall over the world.
I was giddy to stand to a like with a next to a guitar played
by Willie Nelson. It was just this intoxic kind of
inspiration to be surrounded by so many tools of creativity.
Then, of course, back in the caragain, winding our way through
(20:57):
wide farm lands and small country towns.
And in one, as we're driving through, we see this sign pop up
for a monument to Dorothy and McKellar, and we're at last
trying to find it until my husband decides to double back.
And I'm so, so glad he does, because it is worth it.
It is these enormous grain silospainted with a stanza of
(21:20):
Dorothea's most famous poem. Of course it goes like this.
I love a sunburned country, a land of sweeping plains, of
ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons. I love her jewel sea, her beauty
(21:43):
and her terror. The wide brown land.
For me, it's the ultimate fangirl poem of Australia, and
as a fellow fangirl of this land, I feel it so deep in my
bones. And I love that we're still a
day's drive from Canberra and yet there too is this beautiful
(22:06):
link. Because there in the National
Arboretum there is an enormous statue that says wide brown land
and it goes across the Crest of a mountain and it is divine.
So from there on we head and after a while we are about to
(22:30):
wet our pants and we just panic stop at the first sign of toilet
that we see in a tiny town and it ends up being the most
delicious serendipitous side adventure.
I love when that happens. The sign said toilet.
We pulled over and there we wereat Crystal Kingdom in Coonabarra
brand, which is this quaint crystal store with a brilliant
(22:53):
little museum attached to it. And it's got enormous dinosaur
statue and fossils and crystals from all over the region.
And we had no idea that we were actually in the Warumbungle
region, which is the site of theancient volcanic eruptions that
have transformed the area into, yes, really fertile farming
(23:15):
soils, but it also left behind this crazy range of mineral
formations along the way. How magical.
And of course, I celebrate by buying myself a crystal ring.
It's also almost my birthday, sowhy not?
That really was the greatest toilet break ever.
(23:37):
Kunabar riots. Crystal Kingdom 10 out of 10.
Amazing. And finally, by late afternoon,
we find ourselves pulling into Dubbo.
We've stopped so many times hereon our Rd. trips between
Queensland and Canberra through the decades.
It's this glorious overgrown country town full of trucks and
travellers, with an enormous zooand old brick cottages in lovely
(24:02):
gardens. And when we arrive in November,
the streets are festooned with purple because jacarandas are in
full bloom lining the roads. And it's just something about
those incandescent flowers that make happiness rise up unbidden
within me. It's a kind of visual euphoria.
(24:25):
We decide to take the next day off from travelling.
Like what are we going to do, goto Dubbo and not go to the Open
plan zoo? I don't think so.
Especially when we have an absolutely animal besotted 10
year old at Javo Zoo. They it's open plains and you
can, you can walk around it or you can bicycle around or you
(24:46):
can take your car around it. But you can also hire a golf
cart. So of course we hired the golf
cart to drive around the zoo. And we had the most merry
morning there. There was this beautiful group
of giraffes. And do you know what a group of
giraffes is called? A tower of giraffes.
(25:08):
Is that not the best thing you've ever heard?
And even better, they'd obviously just all given birth
because there was these half a dozen tiny gangly baby giraffes
by their by their sides. Like I have never seen such a
group of baby giraffes. And they were just so delicious
and so divine. And our 10 year old discovered
(25:30):
this new found obsession of animal photography.
There was lions and elephants and ducks and fairy rains and
tortoises and echidnas and we let our 14 year old drive the
golf cart right on the back roads and she was just ecstatic
with the power of it. Just think about that when
you're a 14 year old. The power of driving a golf cart
(25:53):
for the first time. We eat lunch beside the meerkats
and it is the greatest way ever to spend my last day as a 41
year old. So the next day we head off
again. We stop at the deliciously kooky
(26:13):
Wellington Gateway sculpture. I remember when I first saw it
as a 20 year old, when I drove to Canberra the first time with
my husband. He wasn't my husband at that
point. I wasn't a child bride, but we
went. We were on a journey and moving
to Canberra and I was the most naive farm kid from North
Queensland and I was just stunned that you could have like
(26:35):
a statue in the middle of a paddock for no real reason.
It felt like this kind of decadent level of creativity and
culture that I hadn't seen before.
And now that 2020 year old and her lover are there with their
children, and their children arecloser to 20 year olds than they
are, and it's the most glorious kind of thing to show my
(26:57):
children the things that have brought me magic over the years.
And of course I wonder at what'sgoing to inspire them to and
make memories that glow inside them.
We also stop at the Wellington Caves Visitor Gallery to marvel
at the mega fauna statues they have there.
We will have to go back some time to go and see the caves
(27:19):
there, because they are apparently incredible.
But of course on width we're driving and the car stretches
over the roads, eating up the miles, drawing us closer to our
new old home. We pass platypus country and
sheep country. There are so few cars around us
(27:41):
on those back roads of Australia, just as there hasn't
been the whole way down through the inland route.
And then finally that quiet country Rd. merges with their
motorway and we slide our way down wide open paddocks into
Canberra. The kids are delighted when we
(28:01):
cross the border at last. Again my eldest sis family.
I really like the way the trees look here.
It really does feel surreal after all this time and all this
planning and all this driving that we're here at last.
And that is the day of my 42nd birthday.
(28:24):
Douglas Adams once wrote that 42is the answer to the ultimate
question of life, the universe and everything.
I wonder what I'll learn in the year ahead in this well loved
land of mine with new and old adventures that await.
We drive to one of my oldest anddearest of friends houses.
She has our new house keys for us because she's done all the
(28:46):
inspections for us. Thank goodness our youngest
beelines for the veranda calling.
I heard you have Guinea pigs outhere.
It's just such a blessing to be back with these people who love
us so well. We drive exhausted to a nearby
holiday house that we're stayingat for a few nights while
(29:09):
furniture arrives. We order bubble tea and DoorDash
and I sit on the front lawn as we wait for it to arrive.
I look at the gums in a wave of exhaustion and I speak to the
spirits of the land again. Hello beloved Canberra, we are
back. I'm so grateful to be with you
again. There is no answer apart from
(29:31):
the rustle of leaves and the bend of branches.
The children come out to join meand we lay back to look at the
distinct cornflower blue of Canberra skies.
This land is the land that I wasnot born into, but I belong to
it nonetheless. The one that I've chosen to move
to three Times Now. This land and her people that
(29:53):
have nurtured and supported and inspired me in ways that I can
barely articulate. I am more myself because of
Canberra. And now I am back again.
I'm grateful for every single adventure we've had along the
way. And I'm grateful to be here
right now. Which, between my giggling
(30:14):
children and that Immaculate sky, I think to myself, Canberra
is a love story. There's more to tell you.
There's more to tell you of our new house and all the adventures
we've had in Canberra since then.
All the wonders and the miraclesof it and all the hard parts
too. But that's going to have to be
for next time, I think. I can barely wait to tell you
(30:38):
all about it. I'm sending you so much love.
La La la Leonie Dawson refuses to be categorized.
To be categorized. Oh my goodness, friends.
Happy New Year. I am back and I am speaking to
you from Canberra. Wow, I moved.
(00:21):
Look at me. Look at me today.
I want to share with you kind oflike my behind the scenes, my
diary, my road trip as we moved across the country.
So buckle up. It's probably going to be a
little bit longer of a podcast today.
And if you would like to see thecompanion photos from this, you
(00:46):
can go to leoniedawson.com/roadtrip 24 and
you'll find all the goodness there.
So I shared with you back in July that we were moving back to
Canberra and we had this really synchronous way that we found
our next home. And since that time, really our
days and weeks have been so full.
(01:09):
In September, we put our old house on the market.
We put half our furniture into storage so that we could like
stage it better. And I also had the blessing of
speaking at the Heart Centred Business Conference and seeing
so many beautiful business friends.
If you haven't seen already, youcan go to leoniedawson.com/heart
(01:30):
and get free access to the professional video recording of
the talk that I did there. It was one of the biggest and
most powerful things that I'd done in years.
It had me sobbing. It had most of the crowd sobbing
like it was huge. It was huge.
And at the same time as well, our youngest kid had her first
(01:52):
sleepaway camp and I was just soproud of her for taking that big
step and for loving it so much as well.
And while our girls were at school during those months, my
love and I just really busied ourselves with continuing to
pack and clean so that we're ready for house inspections.
(02:12):
We also knew we needed to stay healthy and connected during,
you know, all of that stress. So we went for walks most
mornings at the local duck pond and along Coolum Beach as well.
And we had so many miracle experience on those walks.
It just felt like such a blessing from meeting the most
beautiful humans and dogs and seeing whales and dolphins and
(02:37):
turtles and my goodness, just somuch, so much magic and say.
I also decided to take a leap and sign up for a new mentor and
a mastermind, even in the midst of moving.
And it really felt like such a huge step.
It's been years and years since I invested in something like
(02:58):
that, but I just had this reallydeep knowing that it was
something that I needed to do. And I felt so much trepidation
and worry going into it. But it's ended up just being one
of the best things I've ever invested in, and I've kind of
gone, Why did it take me so longto do this again?
But I'm here now, and I'm very, very grateful.
(03:20):
I've been just diving into my mentor's big library of
teachings and connecting with the mastermind, and it's just
been so powerful for me. And I really feel like I'm
healing and growing in so many ways and coming back into myself
more fully. And I've really got to trust in
(03:41):
the timing of it. As much as I wanted to wish that
I'd like found it years ago, I got to trust it like right here,
right now is the right time. And I'll probably talk more
about the process and you know who my mentor is in time, but
it's really just been such a potent part of this transition
time. And so I just wanted to share it
(04:02):
with you. I also did heaps, heaps and
heaps of teaching and creating to prep for moving as well.
I taught new programs for the Academy like graphic design for
your business, how to grow your business with affiliates, how to
create business systems, an annual business review.
Plus, we released new Academy templates like the standard, the
(04:24):
sample Business Standard, operating procedures, affiliate
onboarding, e-mail templates, 100 social media content ideas,
a daily essential business task template, like it's Just a lot.
We also had three Q&A webinars, our usual monthly group coaching
calls for the Academy, and we had eight guest expert workshops
(04:45):
in the Academy since September as well.
It's just been beautifully full and I'm really, really proud of
myself for that effort. And in the midst of all that
going on, life was happening as well.
And our girls were spending timewith their best friends before
and after the move, before the move happened and wrapping up
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all their school assessments andtests for the year.
We had play dates and sleepovers.
And I took my girls and their two best friends Halloweening
together as well. And just so, so many precious
memories being made during that time of, of, of finishing up
really on the Sunshine Coast. And as a way to say goodbye as
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well, one absolutely gorgeous Saturday afternoon, I rented a
pontoon boat. So I live near Noosa and Noosa
has a very flat river that goes out to the ocean, but the, it's
quite shallow and it's doesn't really have any waves or
anything like that. And so you can just hire these
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very slow moving boats and you don't need a boat license for
them at all because it just goesso slowly.
And they have barbecues on boardthem and they've got like, it's,
they're so soft. It's like a couch really.
And so it was me and so many beautiful friends that came on
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that boat with us. And my two daughters wanted to
come as well. And that was just so, so sweet
and gorgeous. And the sky was just like this
incredibly brilliant blue and the water was so warm and like,
I just felt so lucky. All I could think was like, I'm
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so lucky to have been here. I'm so lucky to have lived this
and to love these people. Like dancing wildly and laughing
so hard I can barely breathe. Like, what a glorious adventure
and just the most perfect way tofinish it up.
What a blessing. I think I'm always just going to
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remember that afternoon. And then by the time early
November came around, it was time for us to move out.
So we moved into a really gorgeous Airbnb for all for a
week just down the road from us while we finished cleaning our
house and for our girls to finish school.
And it was this grand old house on acres of land, and it was
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just filled with Kangaroos and this lake teeming with fish and
dragonflies and the most gorgeous, buttery soft couches
surrounded by bookshelves. And so my husband and I would
sift through the library together because this library of
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books was the most bad shit, crazy collection of books I've
ever seen. Like, obviously they'd staged
the house. It was a gorgeous house, but
they'd staged it. And they're like, all right,
well, we need some books. Let's go get the cheapest books
at the op shop. Some truly unhinged stuff in
there. So we would just like sink
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through and see if we could likewhat was the oldest book we
could find? What was the weirdest book we
could find? What was the one like, how that
end up there, you know, like themaps of some small town in
London, like a very unhelpful for where we are right now, you
know, books from the 1960s, books that were just so very
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odd. And it was brilliant.
And I'm so grateful for that laughter that we shared, and
that after all that work, my husband and I could just have
moments where we were just on the couch together, looking out
over the pool and the lake and the Kangaroos and just softening
together at last. And my darling friend Maddie
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came over for gourmet pizza one night and a twilight swim in the
pool. And my eldest best friend stayed
over night as well. And it was just over and over.
I just kept thinking, we're so lucky for all of this and for
what's next too. I think of all the adventures
I've had over the years, and I can't bring myself to regret any
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of them. Sure, I've moved around a lot,
but my goodness, the adventures we've had, the amazing memories
and the wonderful, wonderful times we've had.
And it was there as well that the US election results came
through. And I just remember staring
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dumbfounded and just aghast. And I sat for hours under gum
trees just grieving and journaling and getting clear and
deciding how I wanted to lead myself.
And I feel like I'm still in that process and I'm still
getting clarity. But it really all began there by
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that billabong with those dragonflies.
So amidst all of that, the last day of school, our girls said
goodbye to their teachers and their friends, and we stood
together in this dirt car park at the school as my eldest
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daughter, who's 14, hugs her darling best friend goodbye.
And they're not crying, but her mom is.
And she's crying because she knows how much this means to
them both. And they're not going to cry in
this moment, but she'll cry for them.
And I feel that. I feel that so much.
(10:30):
And both of those beautiful girls are moving on to new
schools. And you know, all of us know
that a new beginning's what all of us need.
But endings and goodbyes are hard, especially when there's so
much love. So the next day we set off as
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the sun rose into the sky and wewound our way through the
hinterland. And it's not long before we're
out of the bubble of the wealthykind of coastal enclave we've
been sequestered in for six years.
We didn't mean to be so sequestered in there for six
years, but we had a pandemic andthere we were, sequestered away.
(11:15):
And I remember stopping in this small town to get some bakery
food and went to a little marketon the way.
And it was that was selling metal signs.
And it said we don't call 000 around here.
And it had like a gun emblazonedover the top.
And I remember my looking at my daughters and they were just
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sort of stupefied, like, what does this mean?
What does this mean? And the local bakery certainly
makes like delicious sandwiches.And I just can't stop laughing
at the duality of all of it. And then we follow the mountains
up into the granite Belt of Queensland.
(11:59):
It's a way we haven't been before.
Usually we go out West to a border town on the river.
And I won't say the name becauseI don't want it's like this
might be years in the future when you listen to this or and
things may have changed by the time you ever think about
driving through that way. But we decided not to go through
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that way because we even though we'd loved staying there before
because it had hopes debate of like violent invasions of motels
and even called like the the locals police station to ask,
you know, is it safe to come through?
And they were like, we can't tell you that We can't promise
anything. We just we can tell you that
we're here 24/7, though if you do need us, you need to lock up.
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And we're like, oh, OK, All right, it might be time for us
to make a slight shift in our plans.
So and I remember like we were kind of upset for a few days
thinking Oh no, we can't go our usual route down South.
And instead we had to plan a newway that we hadn't gone before.
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And even though it like felt like a stick in our spokes to
change that well worn travel path of ours, it feels like it
was such an unexpected blessing.I always feel like there's
something precious about the gift of seeing land for the
first time, getting to meet new country and being astonished at
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how it's this view that my eyes have never seen before.
For years I wondered what my homeland was, and I know now
that it just happens to be a really large one.
I belong to Australia and all ofher beauty, and maybe I belong
to the whole world too. Maybe the whole earth is my
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home. But Australia and her Eucalypse
and her mountains and her magic,they have my heart.
So truly we end up on a back Rd.somewhere in granite country.
So aptly naive. These bold outcrops of rocks and
the hills are precarious and theroad became gravel and we have
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to stop to let a horse float. Cross A1 Lane bridge.
Isn't it amazing how I can spendthe whole day in complete
silence with no phone calls, andthen as soon as I record,
everybody wants me and you can'thave me, I'm gonna record a
(14:32):
podcast. OK, So where were we?
The road became gravel. There's like rocks and hills and
it's just wild country. And I just could not stop
smiling. I love it.
I love adventure and I love seeing new land.
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And eventually we crossed the border into NSW and it is wild
how the wilderness changes from state to state.
The palm trees slowly become poplars, wooden houses become
brick and cattle become sheep. We drive through the historic
town of Tenterfield listening toPeter Allen's song for the town.
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I read the Wikipedia entry for every small town that we go
through, each page and each towna rabbit hole of fascination.
Did you know, for example, there's like the famous
Tenterfield oration by Sir HenryParks and it was part of the way
that Australia became a nation? Did you know that Captain
(15:39):
Thunderbolt was a Bush Ranger near Tenterfield?
That is so cool and listening tothat song and driving through
all these old Australian towns, it brought me to tears with
nostalgia, brimming with a sentiment that's not quite my
own, you know, belonging to all the ones who've come before me
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of the times and the places lostand found.
By mid afternoon we drive into the stunning Old Town of Glen
Innes. It's the ancient homeland of the
Negarable people. Then the indigenous name for
Glen Innes means plenty of big round stones on clear plains.
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And that is the most perfect description of the place.
Like, I can report it's stunningly accurate.
Therefore it the whole region isnow known as New England, and
it's one of the highest and the coldest parts of Australia.
And in this really odd turn of events, the region's first white
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settlers were Scottish, and manyof the surrounding towns are
named after Scottish ones, like Glencoe, Ben Lamond, Armadale.
And there's just something aboutthis cold Highland place that's
oddly mystical. And did you know that Australia
has its own standing stones? I did not.
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It's basically like a a testament to the Celtic standing
stones. And it is this wild and
wonderful thing to be in the midst of this very distinctly
Celtic rock formation, but surrounded by gum trees and this
heat of an Australian summer. And there's this wall of stones
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brought from all over England toplace there.
I've never been to England, but it is the homeland of most of my
ancestors. And as I touch midlife, there's
this real homing instinct in me wanting to return my genes into
the mist and the fog. And so it is of such a divine
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and sacred blessing to be there in that space, in that odd
mystical space of the Australianstanding stones.
Then we find our motel for the night.
And gosh, I love synchronicity. The lovely, lovely receptionist
says, are you the online Leonie Dawson?
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And it makes me laugh like, yes,I am the online Leonie Dawson.
And she'd taken one of my E courses and I was just giddy
with it, like, oh, we've changeddirection to come here.
And it felt like a kerfuffle. We'd lost money on the other
motel we're going to go through and decided not to go through.
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But it was all a blessing. And across from the motel, there
was these stunning historic buildings and we ordered room
service. And it's the most delicious room
service of our lives. I'm not even joking.
I still like think fondly of this deconstructed cheesecake
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that we all shared between US. And it was like this cream
cheese substance with all this fruit and crackers to eat with
it. And it was crazy good.
Not sponsored at all, but if youever are going through New
England, we sat at the New England Motor Lodge and we
really loved the the room service.
Freaking delicious. And of course the receptionist
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was amazingly lovely. Yeah, I feel really grateful.
We stopped there. And the next day we headed off
in at first light and we followed this spine of the
mountain range down down down toTamworth.
And we've never been there before.
We've always wanted to. It's Australia's icon of country
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music. So of course we'll get the
customary photo in front of the towering golden guitar statue.
And then we spend the most merryhour in the visitor centre and
the museum behind it, and we take photos in front of statues
of our favorite musicians. And I want to cry.
With gladness when I see a statue of my beloved Jimmy
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Little and I hung his song underthe Milky Way under my breath
the rest of the time walking through.
If you haven't listened to that miraculous song, please do.
What a gorgeously inspiring time.
My love was so thrilled to wander through this maze of
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guitars played by musicians fromall over the world.
I was giddy to stand to a like with a next to a guitar played
by Willie Nelson. It was just this intoxic kind of
inspiration to be surrounded by so many tools of creativity.
Then, of course, back in the caragain, winding our way through
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wide farm lands and small country towns.
And in one, as we're driving through, we see this sign pop up
for a monument to Dorothy and McKellar, and we're at last
trying to find it until my husband decides to double back.
And I'm so, so glad he does, because it is worth it.
It is these enormous grain silospainted with a stanza of
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Dorothea's most famous poem. Of course it goes like this.
I love a sunburned country, a land of sweeping plains, of
ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons. I love her jewel sea, her beauty
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and her terror. The wide brown land.
For me, it's the ultimate fangirl poem of Australia, and
as a fellow fangirl of this land, I feel it so deep in my
bones. And I love that we're still a
day's drive from Canberra and yet there too is this beautiful
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link. Because there in the National
Arboretum there is an enormous statue that says wide brown land
and it goes across the Crest of a mountain and it is divine.
So from there on we head and after a while we are about to
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wet our pants and we just panic stop at the first sign of toilet
that we see in a tiny town and it ends up being the most
delicious serendipitous side adventure.
I love when that happens. The sign said toilet.
We pulled over and there we wereat Crystal Kingdom in Coonabarra
brand, which is this quaint crystal store with a brilliant
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little museum attached to it. And it's got enormous dinosaur
statue and fossils and crystals from all over the region.
And we had no idea that we were actually in the Warumbungle
region, which is the site of theancient volcanic eruptions that
have transformed the area into, yes, really fertile farming
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soils, but it also left behind this crazy range of mineral
formations along the way. How magical.
And of course, I celebrate by buying myself a crystal ring.
It's also almost my birthday, sowhy not?
That really was the greatest toilet break ever.
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Kunabar riots. Crystal Kingdom 10 out of 10.
Amazing. And finally, by late afternoon,
we find ourselves pulling into Dubbo.
We've stopped so many times hereon our Rd. trips between
Queensland and Canberra through the decades.
It's this glorious overgrown country town full of trucks and
travellers, with an enormous zooand old brick cottages in lovely
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gardens. And when we arrive in November,
the streets are festooned with purple because jacarandas are in
full bloom lining the roads. And it's just something about
those incandescent flowers that make happiness rise up unbidden
within me. It's a kind of visual euphoria.
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We decide to take the next day off from travelling.
Like what are we going to do, goto Dubbo and not go to the Open
plan zoo? I don't think so.
Especially when we have an absolutely animal besotted 10
year old at Javo Zoo. They it's open plains and you
can, you can walk around it or you can bicycle around or you
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can take your car around it. But you can also hire a golf
cart. So of course we hired the golf
cart to drive around the zoo. And we had the most merry
morning there. There was this beautiful group
of giraffes. And do you know what a group of
giraffes is called? A tower of giraffes.
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Is that not the best thing you've ever heard?
And even better, they'd obviously just all given birth
because there was these half a dozen tiny gangly baby giraffes
by their by their sides. Like I have never seen such a
group of baby giraffes. And they were just so delicious
and so divine. And our 10 year old discovered
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this new found obsession of animal photography.
There was lions and elephants and ducks and fairy rains and
tortoises and echidnas and we let our 14 year old drive the
golf cart right on the back roads and she was just ecstatic
with the power of it. Just think about that when
you're a 14 year old. The power of driving a golf cart
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for the first time. We eat lunch beside the meerkats
and it is the greatest way ever to spend my last day as a 41
year old. So the next day we head off
again. We stop at the deliciously kooky
(26:13):
Wellington Gateway sculpture. I remember when I first saw it
as a 20 year old, when I drove to Canberra the first time with
my husband. He wasn't my husband at that
point. I wasn't a child bride, but we
went. We were on a journey and moving
to Canberra and I was the most naive farm kid from North
Queensland and I was just stunned that you could have like
(26:35):
a statue in the middle of a paddock for no real reason.
It felt like this kind of decadent level of creativity and
culture that I hadn't seen before.
And now that 2020 year old and her lover are there with their
children, and their children arecloser to 20 year olds than they
are, and it's the most glorious kind of thing to show my
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children the things that have brought me magic over the years.
And of course I wonder at what'sgoing to inspire them to and
make memories that glow inside them.
We also stop at the Wellington Caves Visitor Gallery to marvel
at the mega fauna statues they have there.
We will have to go back some time to go and see the caves
(27:19):
there, because they are apparently incredible.
But of course on width we're driving and the car stretches
over the roads, eating up the miles, drawing us closer to our
new old home. We pass platypus country and
sheep country. There are so few cars around us
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on those back roads of Australia, just as there hasn't
been the whole way down through the inland route.
And then finally that quiet country Rd. merges with their
motorway and we slide our way down wide open paddocks into
Canberra. The kids are delighted when we
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cross the border at last. Again my eldest sis family.
I really like the way the trees look here.
It really does feel surreal after all this time and all this
planning and all this driving that we're here at last.
And that is the day of my 42nd birthday.
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Douglas Adams once wrote that 42is the answer to the ultimate
question of life, the universe and everything.
I wonder what I'll learn in the year ahead in this well loved
land of mine with new and old adventures that await.
We drive to one of my oldest anddearest of friends houses.
She has our new house keys for us because she's done all the
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inspections for us. Thank goodness our youngest
beelines for the veranda calling.
I heard you have Guinea pigs outhere.
It's just such a blessing to be back with these people who love
us so well. We drive exhausted to a nearby
holiday house that we're stayingat for a few nights while
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furniture arrives. We order bubble tea and DoorDash
and I sit on the front lawn as we wait for it to arrive.
I look at the gums in a wave of exhaustion and I speak to the
spirits of the land again. Hello beloved Canberra, we are
back. I'm so grateful to be with you
again. There is no answer apart from
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the rustle of leaves and the bend of branches.
The children come out to join meand we lay back to look at the
distinct cornflower blue of Canberra skies.
This land is the land that I wasnot born into, but I belong to
it nonetheless. The one that I've chosen to move
to three Times Now. This land and her people that
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have nurtured and supported and inspired me in ways that I can
barely articulate. I am more myself because of
Canberra. And now I am back again.
I'm grateful for every single adventure we've had along the
way. And I'm grateful to be here
right now. Which, between my giggling
(30:14):
children and that Immaculate sky, I think to myself, Canberra
is a love story. There's more to tell you.
There's more to tell you of our new house and all the adventures
we've had in Canberra since then.
All the wonders and the miraclesof it and all the hard parts
too. But that's going to have to be
for next time, I think. I can barely wait to tell you
(30:38):
all about it. I'm sending you so much love.
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