Hello Creative QB’s,

By our guest blogger, Kristy McLoughlin (nee O’Bryan)
2 minute read

We would love to introduce you to someone special today. We have another sister her name is Kristy. She is the middle child of the family and by her own admission is always organised and practical but we know she has good creative bones. Kristy is the wanderlust of the family. Since she was nineteen she has travelled the world, through Europe, UK, USA, Canada and Asia. She has trekked Nepal to Mt Everest Basecamp, from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa to the bottom of Antarctica. We think her lust for travel and adventure is inspiring.

Now Kristy, her husband and their two curious, inquisitive boys aged 5 and 7 are on a two month family adventure to the Northern Territory. This week Kristy shares with us how she finds her creative space in travel.

Before I left on our adventures my incredibly creative and gifted sisters asked me to write a guest blog for them. I thought what could I possible write? I don’t paint, sew, sing or do much in the ‘traditional’ creative way. It’s taken me four weeks to de-clutter my mind to feel inspired, find a topic and write. After much reflection and thinking I’d like to share with you my creative space, it might be different from yours, but it’s where I live in a place of possibility and dreams.

Perhaps it’s the location of where we are today that has fed my inspiration. Today we are in the West MacDonnell Ranges, west of Alice Springs, and it’s nine years since I hiked the Larapinta Trail that runs along these majestic and ragged ranges. Back then I had just met my husband and my thoughts were of a possible future with him. Now nine years later I am here again, with my little family and the same red rock walls of gorges looking down on me, changing in colour and definition with the light as the sun makes its journey across the Northern Territories endless blue sky. This place is truly my favourite place in the world.

I’ve always loved travelling, as a girl in the Kombi Van with our family, as a backpacker in the 90’s on a shoestring budget. As I got older the budget got bigger and I travelled to more exotic places and my love of hiking has taken me up and down mountains around the world. Now I’m in a caravan with my adventurous boys and husband, I couldn’t be happier.

Kristy and the boys hiking

For me travelling has always been my creative space, it’s just taken me until now to recognise it and articulate what it looks like. Travelling takes me beyond the constraints of my normal life, my routine and my self imposed limitations. It gives me the space to breathe, to think, to rest anxiety and just be in the moment of wherever I am, with the people I am with and the people I meet. Travelling gives me the space to be the best version of myself and to be grateful for all that I have. My mind is calmed and rested and I finally have the space to dream and think of what’s possible.

This is a space where ideas are generated, dreams are dreamed and thoughts about the future are clearer. On this trip I’ve made crazy notes everywhere, taken pictures of what’s inspired me, like the lizard tracks in the red sand (in case I ever wanted to paint something!) or an information board at a museum. I’ve also invented a shower basin for my camping shower that folds up (means the red dirt doesn’t turn into red mud). I may never do anything with these ideas, just being in the space is enough to bring a feeling of possibility and happiness. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t paint, sew or sing, my creativity is ideas.

As our trip is soon drawing to an end over the coming few weeks I know that getting back into work and school will eventually drain away my calm and my creative space will again be cluttered with the competing demands of life, yet the ideas I’ve generated, the possibilities I’ve thought about will linger and allow me to be creative and express ideas into something tangible, what ever that may be, for many months and years to come. Or at least until my next trip, hopefully it’s not in another nine years.

Kristy  🙂