Riding along in a campervan

When we realize that everyone has a unique life and many stories to tell, we can be attentive to friends, strangers, and those we know a little. On Saturday I went 40 minutes drive out of Geelong down the Great Ocean Road to a beautiful home set in garden and tall trees for a birthday. Peceli couldn't go so I needed a ride and asked a senior lady who I don't know well, a lady who dressed in bright colours, was animated, but I had never had much of a conversation with. Her name is Glad. I will be the navigator I decided, and will help direct this elderly lady as she timidly negotiated the way to near Anglesea. 'I'll pick you up in the van,' she had said.

Well, it certainly was a van - a campervan so I was tucked in the front near a two-way radio, and in the back was a kitchen a bed and everything needed for months away from home. Well, Glad took off in the van as if she'd been driving since she was a ten-year old! We headed for the Anglesea Road past dreadful road works and the end of the unfinished ring road. I would just have to look out for a number on the roadside. When the traffic was too heavy we drove past it so at the next turn-off she decided we could get back by driving down a rough fire authority track. Yes, we got there.

Her stories on the way going and back were marvellous, four times and more around Australia, being part of a network of people who camp in Winnebagos and home made campervans. She and her husband had totally renovated one van as the sprightly ones just won't negotiate some bush tracks. He died seven years ago but that did not stop her going off in the campervan, named Small Bees Knees. She just loved Australian outback. Going off the beaten track and finding an extraordinary canyon and river, she said, was like God telling me what a beautiful world we have. Oh, and I did ask her how old she was. Her reply was 'Eighty-seven!'
from w