How on earth did I get here?

"Bugger." 

The engine warning light lit up like a 2-cent pokie jackpot. 

Then our 4WD shuddered and lurched – kind of lurch you get when a barefoot dad stomps on Lego during a midnight dunny run. 

"Daddy, I'm scared!" wailed my daughter from the back seat. 

"We'll be fine," I lied, summoning my bravest Dad voice.

We were deep in the Never Never. The dash said 35 degrees.

My phone said no reception. 

As we crawled along the red dirt track, the only signs of civilisation were wrecked cars, abandoned and left for dead.

How did I get us here? 

Well, a few months earlier, my brother-in-law rang from a remote Indigenous community where he’d scored a teaching gig. “You should come visit,” he said. 

I punched it into Google Maps: 3,720 kilometres. Forty-five hours. 

"Driving? Hell no," said Liz – the handbrake in our household. 

And yet here we were. Two adults. Four kids. A camper trailer built for two. 

What was I thinking? 

I was thinking my kids live in a bubble – and sometimes it’s good to pop it. 

Eventually we limped into town – my diesel filter dirtier than my conscience for dragging the family out here – and our collective silence said more than words. 

The kids went to the local school for the week. They made friends. My footy-mad son reckons he saw some of the best players of his life. My daughter came home barefoot… because that’s what all the girls did. Kids are kids. 

Except these kids live in houses with up to twenty people. Often no beds. No fridge. Sometimes no front door. A place where hardly any adults work, black-market bottles of rum go for a grand, and the only shop sells frozen bread for fifteen bucks and milk for ten. 

None of this is their fault. Like my kids, they were born in one of the richest countries on earth – but their futures will be shaped by forces they never chose. 

Same sun. Same soil. Different worlds. 

Tread Your Own Path!