I’ve never loved the Australian outback. While the harsh landscape draws tourists, the monotonous drives and lifeless country towns fail to excite me. Nonetheless, the Nullarbor had a certain appeal and remained a bucket list item. So, my partner and I tackled this head-on with a 6-week-old baby and a misbehaving Kelpie. What’s the worst that could happen?
The decision to go was made long before our daughter was born. My partner had signed up for an Ironman. Is it fair to blame baby brain for agreeing to this absurd journey, or was it my deep desire to cling onto my endless pursuit of adventure? Or was I subconsciously avoiding becoming someone I wasn’t ready to be - a Mum?
Preparing for the venture across what felt like the entire world was harder than childbirth. Everything, including the kitchen sink, found its place in our 5-berth campervan. The one essential that didn’t involve Tetris-level thinking was our daughter’s food—my breasts, luckily, already included in carry-on.
28 hours and 13 minutes, Adelaide to Busselton—the time Google Maps was estimating our journey would take. With no option to add “allow for newborn stops” into the search criteria, we erred on the side of caution, giving ourselves 3 days to make the 2,684km drive.
My partner, who was about to compete in a 12-hour gruelling physical event, took the driver’s seat for the entirety of the journey. I offered to drive, but he politely declined, 'You’ve just given birth, Hannah”. I knew he didn’t trust my driving. After a year of training, he was desperate to arrive alive to compete in this event. Fair call.
We stopped at multiple country towns and tried multiple country cafés. Grimy plastic strip curtains that slapped you in the face as you walked in the door, along with A-frame signs featuring “Pies, Pasties, Coffee” written in Comic Sans, were common relics—perfectly on-brand for cafés that haven’t updated since the ‘90s. Admittedly, coffee snobs, we found the sense of disappointment remained constant after sampling our country’s best country coffee—invariably too milky, lukewarm, and reminiscent of International Roast. The feeling of despair when coffee is disappointing triples when you’re new mother.
Meanwhile, our daughter hadn’t a bloody clue where we were. Enriching her life early, we’d hoped this trip would be… character-building? As she cried and cried at a truck stop roadside, the internal battle raging in my mind was deafening. I hate this, what am I doing wrong? In hindsight, I knew introducing the dummy was not as catastrophic as my brain was suggesting, but in that moment, it felt like a pivotal turning point in her development. Finally, the affirmative side won the debate in my mind. The dummy was introduced. Meanwhile, our kelpie was unable to be tamed - barking, yelping and making life with a newborn unbelievably more challenging.
The most memorable overnight stop was the border town of Eucla, where we found ourselves in a strange time warp. Operating on a time zone 45 minutes in between both WA and SA, this quirky anomaly was all that was interesting in this town. If you didn’t make the stopover, you’d likely miss this unusual, and mostly unknown, time peculiarity. Eucla was empty, mirroring how I felt – where was my fu*king newborn bliss bubble?
We had an amazing time in Busselton. Joining the crew that cleverly chose to fly, we took advantage of the bustling and electric atmosphere. However, beneath the general buzz of it all, something inside me had started to dull. I smiled and played the part, but unease was creeping quickly to the surface.
Despite the joy and fun-filled days I had, an unsettling dread took hold. Dread for the upcoming sleepless nights and dread for the piercing cries. There was growing hatred for the perceived role of a mother and growing despair for my previous identity. An anxious edge became a predominant feature of my personality. Life with a newborn wasn’t as it seemed.
This adventure was not the catalyst for my ultimate descent into postnatal depression. However, the drive along the Nullarbor Plains mirrors what would become a monotonous, isolated, and unfamiliar motherhood journey. The longest stretch in Australia perfectly encapsulates my experience as a first-time mother. My partner, now an Ironman, took the driver’s seat on the journey home—with a now struggling mother beside him.
