Well, gosh, I haven’t written anything in over a year – what the devil has been going on?!? Was I kidnapped by aliens, forced to wear a pink tutu whilst they performed exotic experiments on my body? Did I forsake technology and disappear into the Tibetan mountains to find my spirituality? Or perhaps I was struck blind, deaf, and dumb for angering the travelling gods by not performing the annual sacred nude travelling dance around my bus on a full moon? 

As fun as all these options sound, unfortunately the real reason is not anywhere near as exotic.

Remember back when… 

If you will remember from this article we were semi stranded due to the restrictions, put in place because of the corona virus COVID-19. The country was shutting down, travelling was prohibited everywhere and there was an overarching feeling of being unwelcome and helpless. 

Cue our shining saviour. 

To our great fortune, I happen to be related to (and really great friends with) some awesome people and their families. Before I even considered asking for help my cousin Justin reached out to me asking if we were alright and offering a place to stay and ride out the craziness. Initially I was hesitant – I hate feeling like a dead weight – but then after some small craziness at a campsite we accepted his offer and parked the bus at his house. Whilst we were there, I managed to do some renovating and upgrading to the bus, and catch up with friends and family. 

From Bad to Worse 

It was around July 2020. We are still parked at my cousin’s house and I’m wrapping up some renovations on the bus so we can get on the road again. The COVID travel restrictions have been relaxed and we’re excited to get going again. But then, we get the phone call that no-one ever wants to get: 

“It’s cancer.”

Chiara had a lump on her tongue that developed in March, and we got it biopsied to be on the safe side a week before that phone call. The lump was cancerous and had started to spread into her lymph nodes at her neck. 

It felt like the world had stopped spinning. But it isn’t something that can be ignored or put off, so we had to deal with it right away. We drove 4 hrs to get to Brisbane to see the Maxillofacial Team (Head and Neck Specialists) at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, and to do more tests and scans and develop a treatment plan. 

To cut a long and painful story short, it involved surgery, radiation, and 3-weekly treatments at the Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital all over the course of a year. But the upshot: Chiara is officially in remission, which means that no cancer can be seen on her scans. She still has follow-up visits in Brisbane every 3 months to check, but everything looks great. 

Which means 

All-in-all, 2020 was a horrible year all around. We had bushfires and floods, a pandemic and cancer. And about a thousand other things that went bad along the way. The first half of 2021 wasn’t that much better, with COVID still hanging around – bringing with it lockdowns, mandatory masking, check-ins, and vaccination troubles. 

However… 

In the beginning of October we were (finally) able to hit the road again! There’s so much more that’s happened in the last year, and most of it won’t fit into one little article. Just rest assured that we hung in, we survived and now we’re looking forward to travelling again. 

Stay Wild and Free, 

-Aaron and Chiara.