Patterson said Simon was keen for the family to resume the trip they had commenced before welcoming their son.
She said by April 2009, there son was settled and they decided to put everything into storage and travel around the country in their Nissan Patrol.
She said they didn’t have any time pressures, other than plans to meet Simon’s brother and his wife, and they headed north, through Alice Springs, up to Tenants Creek, then through Queensland up to Cairns.
She said they returned home around November 2009.
“It had been a good holiday, but I had had enough. I wanted to sleep in a real bed,” she said.
“It was getting harder to camp (with our son). When we left, he was three months old, and he slept a lot. By November, he was sitting up and crawling, and I had a gut full.”
Patterson said she and Simon spoke about her desire to return home and made the arrangement that she would fly home and he would drive home with their son, arriving around a week after her.
Patterson said she and her husband encountered their first marital separation when they returned back to Western Australia.
“When I got back to Perth, I rented a little cottage for me and (our son) to live in and Simon hired a caravan nearby,” she said.
Mandy: “And how long did you live like that? Separated?
Patterson: “Not very long, it was like one or two months. The separation was over by the end of January 2010.”
Patterson said while they lived in Perth they had “a lot” of visitors, including friends, Simon’s siblings, and Don and Gail who visited at least “once or twice a year”.