Travelling Home

Emma, Tiarre, Kate

We enjoyed 3 wonderful days in Adelaide with James, Kellie and Tiarre. We did manage to have a look at the City of Adelaide, an old looking city with very modern trams. And of course they have an Ikea, so we just had to spend a number of hours at Ikea so I could get my Ikea fix. Lunch at the Ikea cafe, the girls loved kids club and Darrin and I enjoyed spending time without the girls refurbishing our home Ikea style (lucky we were 1500km's from home and unable to transport it all home, but dreaming is fun!).

Adelaide Trams

I just love Ikea

With only six days before we have to return to work we wanted to enjoy them and drive only short distances each day. Leaving Adelaide we travelled East towards Tailem Bend where we found a rest area amoungst the trees to camp for the night. After the late night's we had at James and Kelli's we were all feeling quite tired so it was early to bed and we slept in until 9am the next morning. A nice easy morning we finally left camp around 11am. We travelled along the Mallee Highway and found it interesting visiting all the  towns along the way. Some of the small towns had a lot of the shops which had closed down, which I guess is an indication of the effect of the hardships during the drought and also the result of the increased buying from overseas countries. We did not get far when we stopped at a park for a play, some lunch and a cuppa. As we had only entered Victoria today we thought it would be nice to stay at least one night in Victoria, so we found a nice bush camp on the banks of the Murray River near the locality of Nyah. Having been spoilt over the last 6 months with crystal clear beautiful swimming the girls were not impressed with the caramel colour of the Murray River water so opted not to have a swim. We enjoyed this place to ourselves the green grass and a fire to toast our marshmellows.

Camping on the Murray River

Today is 12th October and my birthday. I could think of no better way to spend a birthday than living the dream of travelling this great country with my family. Darrin and the girls spoilt me with flowers and I had breakfast around the fire. I was nice to be in the peace and tranquility of the bush as well as still connected to the world of telephone - thank you everyone for the well wishes and thoughts.
After we had packed up camp we headed across the Murray River into NSW. As we entered NSW we were in the town of Tooleybuc, "wow look at that park, can we stop?". I must admit there are some awesome playgrounds in these outback towns, so we had to stop to try this park out.
When we reached Balranald we turned east onto the Sturt Highway and it was not long before we were in Hay. We found a park to stop for lunch, it was nice to stop and relax on the green grass of the park for the afternoon. After a number of hours enjoying the park it was time to look for a camp spot, we decided to camp on the banks of the Murrumbdigee River. We found a top spot to set up overlooking the river and plenty of firewood. Happy hour around the fire and another perfect night sharing our stories around the fire.


Camping on the Murrimbigee River

We are getting closer to home, we seemed to take our time today travelling only about 200km. We stopped at Narrandera for lunch, a good size town which seemed to have all the facilities you would need. An awesome playground which we enjoyed. I had a stroll down the main street to check out all the different shops. Further on we drove into Wagga Wagga, this place is only a few hours from home, but we had never been here. It was huge every shop you could think of except Ikea. But we were there for only 5 minutes and the traffic was getting too much for us so we kept going, leave exploring Wagga for another time.

Wagga Wagga

Dog on a tuckerbox near Gundagai

From here we could have made it back home for the night, but we were not ready for our adventure to end. We found a spot at Jugiong on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River for our last night. A locality with an awesome upmarket style cafe. The girls had been busting to give Darrin a haircut for a few weeks now so they gave Darrin a trim the next morning before we left camp and headed home.

The girls giving dad a haircut

It was Friday 14th October and time to go home, at this stage I was sad that our Aussie adventure ever had to end. But having been in touch with family and friends over the past week I was really looking forward to seeing everyone again. Life is not about where you live or what things you own, its about the efforts you make to get the most out of life and the people you have around you to enjoy life with. After spending 6 months with just Darrin, Emma and Kate we have grown so much as a family and we value each other more. The experiences we had together were just amazing. The friendship and the bond that the girls now have is something they will have forever, they understand each other better and the experience of the last 6 months will be something they will share forever. Darrin and I had a dream to take our children on a trip around Australia one day and that dream is now a real story we can share with everyone. I look forward to making our next dream a reality, but for the time being I will enjoy our life as we make it, the wonderful friendships we have and the family we have around us.

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