With the year coming to a close, I thought it would be a good time to look back at the travels and achievements for the year and thank everyone who has supported, followed, bought the magazines, or visited some of the places we’ve been to.

It was a relatively quiet year of caravan travels for Harry and I, mainly because the focus of this year has been on a family wedding, but more on that later.

Most of our caravan travels this year were within South Australia, but we did sneak over the border a couple of times to visit Mildura and western Victoria for a few days, and to have a long weekend in Melbourne (without caravan).

In South Australia we spread our journeys around, spending time in the Barossa Valley, the Yorke, Fleurieu and Eyre Peninsulas, Langhorne Creek, Brighton, McLaren Vale, as well as the Flinders Ranges and outback.  All the trips were tied in with catching up with friends, because caravanning is always a great way to spend quality time together, enjoy others company and spend a few hours together.

As always I’ve turned some of our travels into stories for magazines, and my highlights with this work in 2024 are:

• Having work published in print or online for the first time with SA Move – the magazine of the RAA.
• Stories and recipes in The Wanderer magazine – Caravan & Motorhome Club of Australia.  
• Content writing for the Broken Heel Priscilla Festival.
• Recipes and stories with Fishing SA.
• Stories in On The Road magazine.   
• And having my website named as one of Australia’s 60 best Caravan Blogs on Feedspot. (as at the time of writing it’s in 17^th position)

I’ve had a few big photography highlights this year including having some photographs accepted for display at the arts festival, SALA at the silos in Karoonda. That was a huge thrill and the opening evening was so much fun too. The Karoonda silos then went on to win the Venue Award by a judging panel, for exceeding expectations in supporting and exhibiting artists during the festival.

The other highlight was winning a photography competition with the agribusiness, Elders, which means a photo of mine is included in the company’s 2025 calendar. The calendar is available from any Elders business and my photo appears for the month of July.

I was also approached by an Australian film director during the year, to ask if they could use one of my photos of an old caravan we used to own, as a backdrop in an upcoming short film about body surfing. This documentary will be entered into the Ocean Film Festival as well as other local and international festivals early next year.

The Ocean Film Festival has several screening across the county so hopefully I will get a chance to see it and will post the details on my website when I know more. The name of the film is ‘Whomp – The froth and fraternity’. My name may just pop up in the film credits at the end.

The most exciting thing to happen this year by far, on a personal note was our son’s wedding to his beautiful fiancée, and her family coming from Bengaluru in southern India and other parts of the world, for the celebrations.  We were thrilled to be able to host Mehendi and Sangeet at our house, with traditional food, and fabulous Bollywood dancing which really got the party started! A second day of celebrations saw the wedding held at a winery in McLaren Vale in SA. Another night of joy and love, despite the rain.

A few weeks after the wedding we travelled to India for even more celebrations and to spend time in Bengaluru, a whole new world of experiences for us and the absolute highlight of the year.

As for everyone who has been reading the blogs throughout this year, I sincerely thank every one of you who have followed our journeys and my little successes. Some of you are friends (in real life) and others have grown to be friends via the blogging world. I absolutely appreciate all the words of encouragement and the congratulations extended when I’ve had success and it’s wonderful to read others journeys and learn from you all.

It’s still always exciting to have an article and photographs published and even though the rewards aren’t always financial, it’s a terrific feeling to contribute to the lifestyle of others.

This year’s stats included 88 nights away in the van, 3 stories and 8 recipes published in CMCA – The Wanderer magazine, 2 stories and 6 recipes in Fishing SA magazine, and 2 stories in On The Road magazine.

Thank you one and all, and here’s to more travels in 2025.

Cheers,

Glenys