Melbourne

Thank you, Grandad!

On our last day we drove from Canberra to Melbourne, our biggest day of driving by a long way. Around Albury we discovered the bucket of M&Ms Grandad had given us for the journey. We had stored it and forgotten about it. It was quite a moment when it came to light again.

Duct tape

On the last few days of the trip the van slowly fell apart. If you look closely in this pic you can see a portion of the side panelling hanging off. We taped it up and drove on. As we went, duct tape became crucial to the success of the enterprise.

Canberra

We drove up to Richard and Claire-Mary's place with enormous relief. It was great to be there, especially to see Josie and Izzy become best mates within 15 minutes. We had a lovely time and were sorry to leave so soon. Thanks, Thomsetts!

This is Living

Life on the road was great, but reality sometimes reared its head. This is Rich emptying the toilet cassette. His exact words as he did so were, "This is living!"

Bushwalk in Sydney

We are kicking ourselves that we did not get the camera out in Grafton and Tamworth! We really enjoyed both places, particularly Tamworth, where we caught up with Rich's Uncle Barry, and Dot, Susan, Geoff and Zachary. We had a barbeque together and a lovely chat.
Here are some pics from our bushwalk in Sydney before we made the trip to Canberra. It is supposedly 3 1/2 hours to Canberra, but in some weird twilight zone experience, it took us all day to get there.

Lennox Head

Our first stop was at Lennox Head, where we ate brownies and paddled in the Lake. The water is stained by all the tea trees growing around its edge.

On the Road

After a wonderful few days at Grandma and Grandad's place, we set off on our grand adventure, a campervan trip from Brisbane to Melbourne. As we drove off, I started making a list of the kid's comments, thinking it would later provide an interesting reflection of the mood of the journey/mental health of the passengers. The first few comments were, "This is so AWESOME!" and "I'm going backwards!" I was expecting a slow deterioration to boredom, crankiness and meltdowns. Surprisingly, though, my list showed no pattern at all - there was no crankiness or whingeing THE WHOLE TRIP! It was fantastic! We all agreed that it was the best holiday ever.

Family

It was so wonderful to be in Brisbane again and to see so many of our lovely family. The kids had a fantastic time unlocking the secrets of the toy cupboard at Grandma and Grandad's place, and every other spare minute was filled up with crafty and artistic endeavors. With Grandma as their mentor, the girls sewed, painted, drew and dipped stawberries in chocolate (with disastrous results). Charlie agreed to be part of the chocolate dipping, but otherwise opted for the new PSP game Grandad bought him. Thank you to everyone who made time for us - it was so great to catch up with you all! Jane is still asking about when she can play with Tom again.