• 

• 

It’s surreal and absolutely, totally so hard to believe it’s actually happening.

The house settled yesterday without hiccups and after a lovely home cooked meal and sleep over in the driveway at Marg and Johns (thanks so much), WE WERE ON OUR WAY. Our travelling adventure had finally begun. Our original plans of heading to Halls Gap were put on hold and we decided to spend more time there later, on our way back. Much to see and do there and we didn’t think we had left ourselves enough time to thoroughly enjoy it.

We headed off through the city of Melbourne, (saw lots of poor people on their way to work) and hit the Calder Hwy. Caleb started asking to stop for lunch at 11:00am, round about the same time his portable DS device ran out of charge. Lunch was beside the road in a truck stop, slightly stale ham and cheese sandwiches and a tank water coffee. We know we will eventually get used to the plastic taste of the water as it runs out of the caravan tank, but we miss fresh Melbourne water already. Melbourne is known for it’s incredible tasting water so we will just have to be the judges of that as we travel far and wide around our country.

Ray announced that Maldon has a great lolly shop so we did a detour and found both it and the “Chocolade” store. Umm…as if the van isn’t already full to overflowing with chocolates. My departure from full time work as a classroom teacher saw my grade load me up with enough supplies to keep me very comfortable indeed for the many months ahead! (Thanks 6B) We bought a few extra essentials and set back on the road happily sucking a raspberry umbrella lollipop. Got my first taste of the real life on the road when I needed the “office”, AKA the toilet. We stopped at the railway yard and I had to use the men’s. Empty toilet rolls galore but no paper, luckily hand towel will suffice and there was some of that. Ray minded the door as it wouldn’t close and I seriously considered not washing my hands wondering whether it would be safer not to touch the tap. Not a pleasant experience, but I’m sure it won’t be my last. I decided that I needed to stock up on hand sanitiser and carry some for these situations. Lesson one, day one.

We decided to drive on past what we had been told was “wine o’clock” (4:00pm) and keep heading north to Sea Lake. Our Garmin (GPS) took us to the caravan and camping ground owned by the Department of Sustainability and Environment. It is run by a committee and very well looked after by “Norm” who pulled up a chair while coming past to collect our $29 fee. Not bad for 3 adults and 1 child per night on a powered site with hot showers. On towards Renmark tomorrow and a reunion with Chris, Vicki, Hannah and Harry. It’s a public holiday on Monday in South Australia so we will sit tight there for a few days. Brother Chris and his family have taken a hiatus from ‘normal’ life and school to travel on the first part of our journey with us for 3 months. They got a head start to shake out any “twisties” in their van life before meeting up with us. We are all so excited to be sharing this adventure together.