Why go travlling if it’s just a quick trip to sit on a beach, spew out tons of carbon and rip home again wondering what the heck that blip of time just was? Sure it can be fun, and often that’s all the chance you get. We’d been planning on a big trip for years, knowing grandparents were missing out on seeing their little people not-so-gradually become big people, and if we were there for a decent amount of time we could really bank some decent memories.

There’s this, plus we were feeling a need to scratch some itchy travel feet and experience some different parts of the world. I mean we love the Northern Rivers, but… you know. So we did a whole heap of preparation, a bit of saving and maybe too much dreaming and decided we’d go for a good while.

Four months for some things is quite quick, whilst for others it’s an eternity.

Four months of travel, visiting friends and families, volunteering on organic farms, and chasing the snow all the way to the arctic circle has felt like years. Each month divided into people and places. The whole family being thrown in to all kinds of new and interesting learning environments, inspiring situations and growth opportunities.

In the first month or so we travelled with our extended family to the Isles of Scilly, via a gorgeous tipi campsite, King Arthur’s castle ruins, and the enthralling Museum of Withcraft and Wizardry. Along the way having the chance to do a spot of fishing, some lovely coastal hikes, and have our first taste of real West Country Cider. Whilst an overnight stay in Glastonbury saw us running up the Tor, and into the Abbey, getting our King Arthur fix with wooden swords in one hand and umbrellas in the other.

When we finally arrived upon the Scillys we kayaked, paddle boarded and spent most days cycling around the island of Tresco like a gang of giggling, mostlly harmless, delinquents.

Whilst on the Scilly’s we were told our sweet Terrier, Zita had been found with a large paralysis tick, and wasn’t looking too well. Unfortunetly, this being the third time she had been knocked down by the wee beasts, she didn’t make it. With sore red eyes and heavy hearts we made her a little shrine on one of the islands lookouts, and sang her praises knowing she crossed the rainbow bridge with flair.

From the Scilly’s we ventured into a new realm of WWOOFing as a family. Whilst we’ve had many WWOOFers at Djaning, we’ve never been WOOFing as a family. Between two farms – Woodland Valley Farm and Middle Ruckham Farm – we spent just over a month chopping wood, tending a herd, harvesting and processing apples and having an all round interesting and fun time as a family. With us being constantly in awe of just how resilient and adaptable our children really are.

There’s a little video of us creating some cider and apple juice at Woodland Valley Farm below:

From being warmly welcomed and put to work on these wonderful and productive farms, spending a couple of days at the Lost Gardens of Heligan and the Eden Project, We had a few dreamy days in the Cornish fishing vilage of Looe. We’d visited Looe many years ago when there was only one very small child in tow and found it a tourist mecca and hard to navigate through all the people. This time we arrived out of season and it very much seemed like a small fishing vilage should. Besides eating some of the world’s best pasties, we spent many hours dropping our nets in the river mouth, catching crabs, examining them and placing them back. This seemingly banal activity was honestly so much fun, cheap, and engaging for all of us it’s hard not to include it in our travel scroll.

Once we’d caught and released well over one hundred crabs, packed up our things from our little cottage, we were all excited to head up to Wales to meet up with Laura’s brother, his wife and their two boys. We had an unscheduled stop on the way with our old family camper van experiencing major engine troubles. Which saw us entertaining kids on the edge of a major motorway. Yay!

After some “faffing’, we made it to the hills and valleys of old South Wales. We gladly offered our newly honed family working skills. Yet besides a brief morning of concreting and another prepping a couple of veg beds, we were mostly wined, dined and entertained with true British, familial hospitality.

It’s around this part of the trip we began to feel a little beleaguered. With children beginning to flat out refuse to do any of the “three R’s” they had assured us they would happily undertake, and a general feeling of homesickness, we decided to stack functions and reinvigorate ourselves with study of the places and cultures which the next part of our trip would take us to; an epic train trip to, The Arctic Circle!

Train hopping our way from London all the way to Rovaniemi in northern Finland was, and has been one of the most exciting trips our wee family has ever undertaken. We stopped along the way at a few cities, the first being Amsterdam, where we gawked at some Van Gogh, and disturbed an otherwise peaceful canal cruise. In Hamburg we got giddy with excitement at Miniature Wonderland – which is surprisingly better than it sounds – and experienced our first snow fall.

The train ride from Hamburg to Copenhagen was like a dream. It left us with the complete comprehension that planes suck and trains rule. The kids built cubbies between the super spacious chairs, the customs officials made jokes with us, and it began to snow like a christmas card. Laura said, and says, “The best and most memorable train ride I’ve ever been on!”

Copenhagen. What a city! On a short bus tour we were told that in the 17th century, King Christian IV inherited a wealthy country, only to spend it all and leave the country in financial ruin due in large part to him splashing out on public works. It shows. What a picturesque and fairy tale laden city! We spent our big boy’s 8th birthday here and had no where else to go (not) except for one the oldest (and classiest) theme parks in the world: Tivoli Gardens.

We had to peel the kids away from the National Museum of Denmark with all of its hands-on activities and exhibits, so we could get another sweet train ride. This time to Stockholm. We stayed in the old town Gamla Stan, which is super pretty, but like most super pretty parts of old cities it was packed with people like us, over priced Bubble Tea, and shop upon shop of “I am a Swedish Viking” t-shirts. We did however visit the Vasa Museum which is super interesting, if not quite bizarely funny. An enourmous building on the harbour dedicated to a ship that was as poorly designed as it was expensive, which sank 15 minutes into it’s maiden voyage, though because it’s from the 17th century it was a real time travelling treat.

An overnight ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki sounds like a non event of sorts. Well that’s what we thought. The Silja Line, or The Ferry, is a cruise ship. We mean, some people were all ready and pumped to go on their cruise ship, but we had no idea. It’s like seeing an epic film for the first time without even seeing the trailer; hard not to be excited once you get going. Cruise’s have never been our ‘thing’ and we would probably never book one, but unexpected ball pits, free video games, dance shows, kids disco, restaurants, you know, the works! It was ridiculous, exciting and likely too much fun. Everyone was up way past bed time.

Arriving in Helsinki we could see the Russification project of the 1800s in effect. Cool art neveau buildings and trams, rubbing shoulders with Russian inspired monuments made it feel like we were finally somewhere really different. We were no longer in Western Europe. And it felt great.

Funnily enough in such a cultural epicentre, pre-kids we may have gone to the UNESCO World Heritage Island Suomenlinna (which apparently also teems with Russian presence), or gotten another boat over to Estonia’s picturesque Tallinn. But no. We just had to go to Leikkiluola, which litterly translates as Play Cave. Yep, Play Cave. And we were there for hours.

Mind you we did get to hang out at some more Christmas markets, look at some trinkets, ride a tram or two and Fi ate a lot of pickled herring. All before we got to jump on another overnight trip aboard the Santa Claus Express. Yep. “Buy the ticket and take the ride.” And once again children were too excited to sleep, so when we got into Rovaniemi at 7 am, it was fun trying to dress half asleep children for minus ten.

Rovaniemi is just geared for snow tourism, like Byron Bay is for Surfie-Hipster tourism. Can you blame us? We went full tourist, and didn’t go home empty handed. Huski rides, cross-country skiing, sledging, ski-dos, snow balls, late night Northern Lights and one little monkey hang out with the big bearded guru himself, Saint Nick, Sinterklaas, Santa Claus.

So, yeah. Now we’re back in the UK, decorating the grandparents house with gaudy, christmassy spledour, awaiting a holiday season with our British contingent and knowing there’s a 35 degree heat January waiting for us, with a creek running around it, with friends recovering from cheese comas, chickens laying in the coop and veges that won’t plant themselves.