Life in a house truck: A grand adventure
Life on the road is a circus for the Ashton family, who travel New Zealand working at fairs on weekends in summer, writes Bess Manson.
Anna Ashton wears blue glitter on her cheeks and a broad smile. Barefoot and artfully inked, she wears content like a giant pullover.
‘‘The other day someone was going into town and asked me if I needed anything.
‘‘I know they meant it literally but it got me thinking; I don’t want for anything. I have everything I need.’’
She has her kids – 14 year-old Dylan Daisy and twin 7-year-old boys, Jaz and Dallas. She has her husband Royce – a clown and magician – and she has her three lapdogs, Pixie, Jema and Racoon.
The latter three are true to their name and spend most of their time on someone’s knee. They quiver and lick.
The Ashton clan is a travelling family circus. They live on their housetruck, Mim. They are citizens of the road.
A battered map of Aotearoa is stuck to the wall in their galley kitchen. Ablack line snaking this way and that goes from top to bottom.
‘‘That’s wherewe’ve been,’’ says Dallas. ‘‘We’ve been everywhere!’’
They’ve climbed mountains, kayaked rivers, hiked trails. They’ve walked the Tongariro Crossing, swum with the dolphins in Oamaru, and lolled in natural hot springs all over the country. They like a hotpool.
Once, in Hamilton, they woke up in a field of frogs.
They went canoeing down the Whanganui River just before Covid hit and came back to find they had a day to get sorted before level 4 lockdown.
But living on a housetruck, being in their own sort of bubble, homeschooling – that’s just another day on the road for them.
They homeschool the kids using their own curriculum.
‘‘The other day I asked them to write about their surroundings: ‘This iswhat I see, this iswhat I feel, this iswhat I smell,’’’ says Anna.
‘‘They do not learn geography, they live it every day. The kids are always outside playing. Nature is a daily lesson, looking at creatures, playing in the forests, in the mountains, on the beaches.’’
Their education is amoveable feast. They visit museums at every town they visit.
While driving from town to town, the kids ride with Royce in the truck doing times tables, talking about the places they have been and the ones they are travelling to. They listen to podcasts.
Sounds dreamy. But it takes a lot of work to make life on the road work, Anna says.
‘‘You have to be organised. We have to make surewe take time to rest because it’s so tempting to gallivant all over the show. You don’t want to burn out because even a free and adventurous life like this has its pitfalls.
‘‘You do have to live by your wits. You have to have faith that things are going to work out.
‘‘Living a normal life, you generally knowwhat’s going to happen and when. On the road you don’t always know what’s going to unfold. In this lifestyle, unexpected things happen all the time. The trick is to remain calm. You get quite good at it after awhile.’’
Anna and Royce, both 47, met on Anna’s family orchard when they were 20. Royce was working in the packhouse. Anna was cooking for the staff.
One day she emptied the pasta into the sink and served up Royce spaghetti bolognese with the sink plug. It was love at first bite.
After 10 years travelling abroad together, they settled in Queenstownwhere Anna ran a pole dancing yoga studio and Royce worked on the jet boats.
Their daughter Dylan Daisy was a toddler. Royce worked all day and Anna worked all evening.
‘‘We never saw each other,’’ says Royce.
When Anna got pregnantwith twins they both decided they’d rather raise their family together as a unit.
‘‘We wanted to be together and raise our kids together and have a good time doing it, he says.
He bought Mim, their 13-metre truck, seven years ago and drove away from their house-bound life.
They can’t imagine life lived any other way. They started out at Ma¯ra¯hau by the Abel Tasman where Royce worked on the taxi boats.
A year later they discovered the travelling Extravaganza Fair community.
They’ve travelled with the fair running a crystal store as well as performing their family circus acts for six seasons.
Dylan Daisy and Anna do their aerial and whip cracking show – as
bonkers and brilliant as it sounds. Royce and the boys do theirmagic act.
Their routine is different to most Kiwi families.
‘‘We arrive at a fairground on a Friday, set up, do the fair for two days, pack down, go to the dump station, supermarket, get rid of our black and grey water then hit the road again,’’ says Royce.
The truck is a series of nests – the back is Anna and Royce’s alcove. No standing up here but plenty of snuggle room and a constantly changing vista.
‘‘Every week we have different views – forests, oceans, rivers. Sometimes they are not so special. One day we woke up in a carpark outside Mitre 10,’’ says Royce.
The boys share a bunk space with bookshelves and room for their toys. Fairy lights dangle above their pillows.
Dylan Daisy’s room is above the cab and a more magical nook you may never find.
Awall of ornamental ponies on one shelf, school books on another, a dreamcatcher, driftwood art.
She’s planning on painting some clouds and stars on the wall at some point.
Box upon box of sequined clothes and top hats, juggling sticks and magic kit jostle for space in the picturebook shingled truck.
Fishing rods, scooters, a washing line hang from the ceiling making maximum use of every inch of space.
Cupboards secrete stock for their crystal store and costumes for their act.
Tiny drawers in each step up to the kids’ bedrooms contain miniature dresses for Pixie, Jema and Racoon. Everyone in this family gets to wear sequins, even the pooches.
We can’t hang on to too much stuff, says Anna.
Most things have to have a purpose, a function. There’s no room for clutter.
‘‘I do have too many clothes but I’m never going to give them up. That’s not up for negotiation.’’
The kids spendmost of their days playing outside.
They are partial to slingshots and stick fights.
Their travels often take them back to familiar spots where they catch upwith local kids. And the games are restarted like they never stopped.
They play in the forest, rehearse their magic and circus acts, they hammer and saw stuff, they bake and make art.
Their daily rituals are simple pleasures, Anna says.
‘‘Every morning the kids come up to our room and we have a hot drink together looking out at whatever view we have that day.
‘‘We always eat together at the table.’’
They live cheaply but well. They earn enough to have a good life. They never run out of money.
The kids earn their own crust working at the weekend fairs during the summer.
Dylan Daisy does the aerial act with hermumand moonlights at a fair’s cafe. The boys have a sideline in crystals.
‘‘We hope they grow up to be courageous and adventurous and fun,’’ says Royce.
‘‘We know they’ll have a good work ethic. They have seen how hardwework and what we do to make a living.
‘‘ We don’t mysteriously disappear each day and get a pay cheque at the end of the week. They are involved in how we make money to live.’’
They don’t have a lot of stress in their lives. They only feel it if they have to rush somewhere.
‘‘We have to have a lot of faith that things are going to work out. They normally do but sometimes it’s in a rather roundabout way.’’