Catriona Rowntree returns to Getaway this week. But as she tells Clare Rigden, while travelling the world with baby Andrew tucked into her backpack was fabulous, it made filming a little difficult.
She’d looked forward to returning to work for months, counting the days until she’d pack her son Andrew in the BabyBjörn and hit the road.
But Getaway’s Catriona Rowntree soon learned that juggling a baby and a job as a travel reporter isn’t easy. So, after a tough three days trying to manage a sick bub on top of a 12-hour work day, she had to admit defeat.
“I never thought it would be this hard,” Catriona, 38, admits. “I actually ended up taking him home after a few days.
“It’s strange – I’d been pressuring the producers to let me bring Andrew along, and include him in one of the stories. But, when push came to shove, it was just too difficult.
“There were vast distances between each story we filmed, no sleep times were scheduled and, to make matters worse, Andrew had his first cold. After I finished filming the one story he was in, it was only fair to take him home.”
The experience came as a crushing blow to Catriona, who had romanticised the idea of travelling with Andrew, now nine months old, nestled in her backpack.
“It’s a bit of a wake-up call, when you’ve come from a life where you’ve been in control to realising, ‘Oh, it’s not all about me anymore. I don’t come first,’” she says.
“I had wanted it to go really well, because I wanted to prove that [having Andrew] wouldn’t be a drama. But I don’t know how many trips we’ll be doing together.”
Determined to honour her commitment to the Getaway producers, Catriona soldiered on with Andrew through a story about Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.
Despite the fact he had a cold and was feeling under the weather, Andrew turned on the charm for the cameras.
“Whenever he was on camera, he was absolutely perfect,” says Catriona, who filmed with Andrew for two days. “But I have never had a sick child, and I’m not an expert – I didn’t know what to do.”
To read the full story see this week’s Woman’s Day, on sale May 17, 2010.
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