Nine months on the road living out of a backpack has prompted some pretty major changes in Dave Monk's life.

"I have this great big beard now, it's marvellous," he says. "I look like someone has stapled a possum to my neck."

It's mid-summer in Scotland and anything that works as a midge repellent, even a voluptuous beard, is welcome.

Dave's facial growth is just one small sign of the much greater lifestyle change he made five years ago.

Along with his wife Rachel, he had been working as a nursing manager at a busy hospital in his home town of Blenheim in New Zealand while they brought up their two sons, Dylan and Lewis.

Although the couple had travelled the world together before their children came along, they had settled into a comfortable nest of parenthood, complete with family home, car and the boys' pet hamster.

"We've always had a thirst for travel but we thought we'd just have kids and that would be it," says Dave.

Until one day, Dave "popped the bubble".

The family said goodbye to their jobs, sold their house, flogged the car and shipped off Mr Hamster Monk to the grandparents.

Then, they got on their bikes and began to ride.

Since then they've criss-crossed the globe soaking up new travel experiences, meeting locals and bending their voices to unfamiliar words.

Thanks to the New Zealand Correspondence School, Dylan, nine, and Lewis, eight, receive ongoing education in their native curricula; though classrooms range from Kiwi mountain huts and French market squares, to the Scottish Highlands and Moroccan kasbahs - with many places in between.

"Rachel and I have thrived on seeing them grow," says Dave.

"The great thing about travelling with kids is that they really bring you into the moment.

"While us adults are on the tandem, head down concentrating on where we're going, the kids will have their eyes fixed on everything around us."

It is the boys who are the first to notice when the clouds change and rain is on its way.

Together, the family have camped wild across Europe and Britain, travelling slowly north from Morocco to Scotland.

After nine months on the road, this week they finally crossed the Scottish border and are now set for Edinburgh before they head to their final destination of Ballater.

"We had been working at a campsite in Ballater last year before we took our adventure to Morroco," says Dave.

"But while we were away, the really bad floods hit and we had no job to come back to.

"Instead we decided to stretch out our cycle journey from what was meant to be just four weeks."

Instead, months later, they decided to make the journey by bike, though always with Ballater as an end goal in mind.

"We thought we'd travel there and say goodbye to our friends," says Dave.

"We'll be moving on from Scotland after this final journey so it seemed fitting to stop by there and say a fond farewell to the lovely people we've met along the way."

The family say the warm welcome the people of Scotland have given them has made the journey that much easier, especially the famed Highland hospitality.

"The first night we got here we knocked on a farmhouse asking for a place to camp and they dragged us in for a cup of tea," says Dave.

"I think Scots and Kiwis tend to be an even keel as we both have big neighbours, we have Australia and you guys have England, but we both tend to be confident in our own quiet way."

While the nomadic lifestyle might not be to everyone's taste, Dave is confident anyone who wants to can try it for themselves, even on a local level first.

"Just start small, camp near your home and go from there," he says.

Though the real lesson, Dave hints, is not necessarily in how far away or how long you camp for, rather in the benefits you can get from taking time to be with those who matter most.

"It has been nice to have that time, unstructured with my family and absorb opportunities without being distracted by the world," says Dave.

"It is an ideal opportunity as a parent and a husband to be engaged with your family.

"The trip has been full of milestones, but each time we get up that difficult hill, or reach that next town, each achievement fills me with pride and I'm so proud of them."

You can follow the Monk's journey on the Popping the Bubble blog of their adventures.