02/09/2026
DAY 7–10 DIARY ENTRY 🇻🇳❤️
Liverpool House, Lam binh, Vietnam..
Just… WOW.
I'm incredibly grateful. Humbled. Amazed. And honestly, a little bit speechless. I keep having these moments where I have to pinch myself and think, how the hell is this actually our life right now?
Take away the mountains. Take away the waterfalls, the scenery and everything beautiful we've been surrounded by. The people alone have made this trip. They have been so genuinely kind, accommodating and welcoming to me and my kids that I already know we've made friendships here that will last well beyond the day we get back on that plane.
But before all the beautiful emotional s**t… let's talk about the mural. 😂🎨
DAY SEVEN was probably my first proper this is sh****ng me painting day. Something wasn't flowing and because I'm me, I couldn't just look at it and think, eh, she'll be right. My perfectionist brain had to obsess over it until I was ready to throw the paintbrush into the bloody mountains. 😂
So I did something I'm not always very good at doing. I stopped. I put the brushes down, went swimming with the kids and decided tomorrow was another day. The mural is huge and I've still got SO much wall ahead of me. I can't beat myself up every time one section doesn't immediately work the way I see it in my head. Although I'm sure I'll continue to do exactly that. 😂
Later that day we decided to head down to the shops for ice cream. Simple enough, right? Except somehow we ended up being inundated with people wanting photos with us.
And there I was in my full painting glory, paint covered clothes, probably paint in my hair, looking like I'd just crawled out from behind the mural. suddenly posing for photos with people I'd never met. 😂 Anyone who knows me knows I'm usually pretty bloody comfortable in front of a camera. Apparently that's only when I'm the one deciding we're taking the photo or holding the camera, because the usually outgoing, photogenic Australian lass suddenly became awkward and SHY. I didn't know where to stand, what to do with my hands or where the hell I was supposed to look. 😂
It was actually really sweet though. People kept coming over smiling and wanting photos with us and we were all laughing despite barely being able to communicate. Meanwhile my children perfectly demonstrated the two possible reactions. Casey tried to disappear and wanted absolutely no part of it. Elaina, on the other hand, was basically like, "YES. THESE ARE MY PEOPLE." 😂📸 She bloody loved it.
So there I was, covered in mural paint, awkwardly smiling my way through our unexpected little Lâm Bình meet and greet… all because we wanted an ice cream. 😂🍦
DAY EIGHT, I got up with one rule: DO NOT START ANYTHING NEW. Instead, I went back over what I'd already painted, reassessed the flow, changed what wasn't working and started connecting everything together properly. And by the end of the day? I bloody loved it again.
I added the butterflies, worked more around the waterfall and suddenly it started feeling like me again. Sometimes being an artist isn't knowing how to fix something immediately. Sometimes it's just knowing when to stop staring at the bloody thing. 😂
Somewhere amongst all of this, our evenings have become just as memorable as our days. One night Casey and I sat out on the grass watching another storm roll across the mountains. Lightning lighting up the sky, thunder rolling through the valley and the two of us just sitting there completely mesmerised by it.
Then came the neighbours. 😂
That night we're peacefully sitting downstairs and suddenly there are FACES BEHIND US. Nearly scared the living s**t out of us. 😂 It was some of the local women and children coming over to see us, carrying pomegranates, melon and fruit to share.
What started as a few women somehow became five, then six, then eventually about nine women plus all of our children and before we knew it we were walking kilometres through Lâm Bình together. We talked, laughed and asked each other questions. Google Translate worked overtime and thankfully one of the ladies spoke a bit of English.
I got to hear about their lives, their families and their work. A lot of the women are teachers, and hearing that a qualified teacher can earn around $700 a month certainly gives you some perspective. Meanwhile, THEY were fascinated by me, a single mum who somehow decided taking two children halfway around the world to paint a giant mural sounded like a perfectly reasonable life choice. 😂 They kept telling me how amazing they thought it was, while I'm standing there thinking exactly the same thing about them.
That's something this trip keeps showing me. You can look at someone else's life and think wow, while they're looking straight back at yours thinking exactly the same thing.
There have been confronting moments too. While we were walking, some territorial dogs got into a pretty horrible fight and it frightened Elaina. Before I could even really react, the women were around her making sure she was okay. Thankfully the whole situation diffused pretty quickly and the dogs were okay, but it was certainly an eye-opener. That's travelling though. You don't get to select only the beautiful bits. You take the confronting moments with the incredible ones, learn from them and keep going.
And then came DAY TEN.
I genuinely don't know how I'm going to beat this day.
We were taken to a local waterfall hidden away behind where we're staying, not some polished tourist attraction with signs and pathways. Nope. We went full King Kong expedition. 😂 We walked through jungle with grass and shrubbery taller than us, trees that seemed to disappear into the sky and greenery absolutely EVERYWHERE.
And apparently everything in Vietnam comes in XL. We've seen centipedes nearly as long as my forearm, spiders in every shape and colour, bigger bees, bigger flies… bigger bloody everything. Before coming here I pictured myself walking through this environment thinking something was going to leap out of the jungle and eat me. 😂 But strangely, that fear just isn't there. You're too busy looking around thinking, holy s**t… look where I am.
We eventually reached the river and started walking upstream, sliding over rocks, dancing around, laughing and being absolute children ourselves. And once again I realised just how safe we've been made to feel here. John and Josh were with us and everyone naturally watches out for everyone. Someone slips, there's a hand. The water gets deeper near one of the kids, someone's already watching. The boys have gone above and beyond to make sure the three of us are safe, included and getting to experience this place properly and I'll forever be grateful for that.
Then we reached the waterfall and my GOD. Possibly the clearest water I've ever seen. Water from these mountains actually feeds down through pipes into the resort and surrounding areas and there we were swimming right where it was coming from.
Meanwhile John and Josh have hiked through the jungle carrying backpacks with POTS AND PANS DANGLING OFF THEM. 😂 Because apparently we're not just going swimming. We're opening a restaurant.
We'd stopped at the local market beforehand for vegetables and food, so next minute I'm standing IN this crystal clear mountain water holding a bloody enormous knife, peeling potatoes and carrots and washing them in the stream. As you do. 😂
The boys built a little fire beside the waterfall. Everything around us was wet, so it took a couple of attempts, but eventually they got it going. I found some dry bamboo, so naturally I feel like I contributed significantly to the entire operation. 😂 They cooked this beautiful curry over the fire while we swam. Banana leaves were picked, washed in the waterfall and steamed over the fire before becoming our plates.
And there we sat, in the middle of the mountains in Vietnam, eating freshly cooked curry from banana leaves beside a waterfall. You couldn't have paid me to create a better moment.
Storm (dog) came with us too, swimming around with Casey, and watching the relationship those two have already developed was beautiful. Then apparently simply swimming at the waterfall wasn't enough for us… so we started climbing it. 😂
Me, Elaina, Casey and John headed farther up, and eventually Elaina and I just kept going. Up the rocks, through the water, up another section and then another, carefully working our way farther upstream until we were seeing parts of this place even John said he hadn't ventured as far into before.
And somewhere up there with my daughter, something really hit me.
We weren't just looking at the waterfall anymore. We were living it.
I've spent the last few years pushing myself physically and mentally. Running farther. Walking farther. Getting stronger and healthier. Going out in the rain instead of using it as an excuse. I wasn't specifically training for this, but maybe subconsciously I was preparing myself to be able to say YES when opportunities like this appeared.
Painting in pi***ng down rain doesn't bother me. Painting in ridiculous heat doesn't bother me. Climbing through a waterfall with my daughter doesn't intimidate me in the way I once thought it might. Obviously my children's safety will ALWAYS come first, we're not launching ourselves blindly off waterfalls for Facebook content. 😂 We know our abilities, we climb and hike at home, we help each other and I won't put my children somewhere I don't believe we can safely handle.
But I also don't want fear to stop them from living.
I looked at Elaina's face up there and she was absolutely BEAMING and I had this moment of thinking, we did this. Not just physically. We got ourselves here. To Vietnam. Into these mountains. Up this waterfall. Together.
The videos are shaky as s**t because my phone was hanging around me in a waterproof case and having two free hands to climb and look after my children was slightly more important than my cinematography career. 😂 But I wouldn't change them. They're real.
That entire day may honestly be the highlight of this trip so far. The waterfall, the climbing, curry on banana leaves, Storm swimming with Casey, watching my kids completely in their element and watching John and Josh once again go out of their way to give us an experience we'll remember forever.
We eventually got back to the resort absolutely EXHAUSTED. There was not a chance in hell I was painting. Official day off. 😂
And then our quiet little resort suddenly EXPLODED.
For most of our stay it's basically been our little Aussie family rattling around this massive place on our own. Suddenly there were people EVERYWHERE. Grandparents, parents, children, bags and rooms filling up. An entire family from Hanoi had arrived.
And they were bloody beautiful. Full of life, warm, kind, funny and immediately welcoming. The mum had the most beautiful energy, and somehow within hours it felt like we'd known them much longer than we had.
That night ended with us all sitting cross legged together on mats in one of the rooms, food and fruit spread between us, doing each other's makeup, laughing, trying different foods and attempting to have full conversations despite the language barrier. Google Translate once again earned its keep, and their daughter speaks really good English, so the poor thing was quickly promoted to Official International Relations Officer. 😂
There was nothing extravagant about that night. No expensive restaurant. No big event. Just families sitting together, sharing food, doing makeup, talking and laughing.
And it was perfect.
We've now got friends in Hanoi who we can visit, people who've told us we have somewhere to stay, and kids who I genuinely think will still be video calling each other long after we've returned to Australia. I LOVE that for my children. And I love it for me too.
We started that morning walking through a jungle with people who weren't part of our lives a couple of weeks ago. We climbed a hidden waterfall, cooked over a fire, ate curry from banana leaves and came home absolutely wrecked. Then we ended the night sitting crosslegged on the floor sharing food and doing makeup with another family we'd never met before.
And somehow, none of it felt strange.
It felt comfortable. It felt safe. It felt like we belonged.
Every night I seem to climb into bed thinking surely this trip can't possibly give us much more than it already has. Then we wake up the next morning…
And somehow it does.
So yeah.
Just… wow.
Grateful. Humbled. Amazed. And still pinching myself that we actually get to call this our life right now. ❤️🇻🇳
Desire To Sketch & Co
Day 11-14 coming tomorrow.
Its taken 4 days to write this 😄 🤣
Thank you to my sponsors!!! This is the most amazing opportunity!.. Tramel Melissa.. Nippon Paint Vietnam .. Dulux Dulux Australia .. Innov8n .. Sean Field Painting Brisbane
