Shopzilla © Mulberry

When we were planning our trip in a 4WD campervan around Australia I was more anxious about what bag to take than any King Brown snake or Red Back spider bite. I realise that makes me sound like Paris Hilton, even though I did manage to live in a campervan and shower in campsites for a year in my own version of The Simple Life. Not that I have countless pieces of women’s clothing and accessories to choose from, but how do you choose one bag for a whole entire year’s worth of activities?

I settled on the Mulberry Baywater in Darwin Oak, and as Darwin’s the northernmost city in Australia it was a patriotic choice I think you’ll agree.

When you know that the leather, natural and vegetable tanned, is marked by the scrape of a fingernail, it is possibly the most impractical brown leather handbag you can take travelling. It needs waterproofing with a special spray and protecting like a child from the elements. My husband would look pitifully at me as I buffed and smoothed it and kept it in special places in our van. One night his wetsuit dripped all over it and I thought it was a gonner. Then the best thing happened. Suddenly it grew up. The leather aged and softened and my brown leather handbag darkened to a light conker brown. It travelled the whole country with me, from the bars of Sydney to the lakes of Fraser Island and got better the more I used it.

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