Day Twenty-Nine - July 8

Our last day. Today, when we get out of the car, we will be home.

We had bacon and eggs for breakfast, then packed up the car for the last time. We left Wandoan at 10am, paused briefly in Miles for fuel and  arrived home at 1.45pm.

All the road between Miles and home is familiar, and there was a mix of excitement and dread as we passed each familiar landmark. We have had such a grand adventure, and really loved being on the road and (surprisingly) loved spending every day together. None of us are overly keen to go back to regular life. Oh sure, I am looking forward to having a proper kitchen, and being able to do a load of washing without having to scrounge up a tower of $1 coins. We are all looking forward to catching up with our friends, and sleeping in our own beds, and having a few more clothing choices. Not so much looking forward to returning to work, and school, and it is with some trepidation that I realise that when we get home, I begin my own study at university.

10369km, 29 days on the road and still we want more. It has been a fun ride, and we are already dreaming about our next trip. The travel bug has bitten us hard.

Day Twenty-Eight - July 7

Today we are snuggled up in John & Jo's new house, having a "rest day" of sorts. They only moved in two weeks ago, so there is still lots of unpacking to do. So Jo and I unpacked, and processed a bunch of vege into the freezer. Tim went along to work with John, delivering 60 cows to Kilcoy abattoir.

It had rained nearly all night, and continued to rain until just after lunch, so the children were inside underfoot all day. We sent them out to play at afternoon tea time, figuring they would get cold and grubby then we would bring them in and wash them in time for dinner. Grubby is an understatement! They played in the mud and got filthy! It took ages to rinse all the mud out of their clothes, just to get them clean enough to go in the washing machine. They had a blast though, and they went to bed nice and easy.

Hopefully it won't rain any more tonight. We are planning to head home tomorrow. But we will be back next weekend.

Day Twenty-Seven - July 6

Today we had our first really disastrous drama. One of those big problems that can bring a holiday to a grinding halt. We are all safe, and no one was hurt, but we are very glad that we were so close to home before having a significant problem.

We were trucking along really well until 1pm when all of a sudden, while we were driving across a bridge, there was a bang, and then I could hear the trailers safety chain dragging on the road. Then we could smell rubber. We managed to pull over safely just after the bridge, and discovered that a leaf spring on the trailer had snapped. So the wheel arch on the passenger side was resting on the tyre.

Thankfully, we had phone signal and were able to call a tow truck. Our trailer got towed to Moura, where it will be repaired. We will have to come back and collect it next week sometime. Good thing Moura is only 7 hours from home.

It took an hour and a half for us to pull out all the non-essential-for-the-next-week things out of the car, and all the things we will need out of the trailer and swap them.

We made it to Wandoan by 6.30 instead of 4 like we planned. Now we have a really good reason to go back to visit John & Jo next weekend too.

Ah well, what is an adventure without a dramatic disaster story?

Wide load we had to pull over and wait for.

Our broken spring. :(

Day Twenty-Six - July 5

We left Mt Isa and Christie and Jed's house at 7.30 this morning and buckled up for a long day driving. 

It has been lovely seeing the places that have just been names of where Dad was at work. 

We stopped at Winton for fuel, and had to raid the kids wallets because their phone lines were down, so no eftpos. So now I owe Zane $20.

We enjoyed seeing all the old machinery parked along the side of the road in Ilfracombe.

Talked to Lauren this arvo, and she is home sick. Hoping we aren't to blame and that no one else is going to go down.

Somewhere between Barcaldine and Jericho we saw an echidna. Alive, which made a nice change from most of the animals we have seen in the last few days.

We finally made it to Jericho just after 5. We are in a lovely free camp, called Redbank Park. Lots of space and shade, and a small play area for the boys.

 

It's still quite warm, and we are all in t-shirts and shorts. Not sure that is going to last much longer. We should be in Wandoan tomorrow night.

We found this at Jericho. Looks like a nice scenic drive to note for next time.

Day Twenty-Five - July 4

Crossed the border into QLD this morning! Camooweal police and AFP were stopping every car coming in from the NT for breath tests and to search for fireworks. We had a lovely chat with the officer and an AFP officer took a family photo of us all in front of the "welcome to QLD" sign.

We arrived in Mt Isa by midday, and stopped for a few groceries before driving to Christie and Jed's house. They have three little people. Marty is the same age as Levi, Emma is nearly two and Harvey is 8 weeks. The boys played dress ups in Marty's superhero costumes and brummed cars, while I played dolls with Emma and had squishy baby cuddles.

Levi loved this ninja turtle costume and hasn't stopped talking about it since we got home.

We set up our trailer in their back yard, then set out on a tour of Mt Isa.
We went to the lookout, and it was just stunning to see how the mine has been incorporated into the centre of the city. We met another family there towing a camper trailer in a T5, same as us. 
We went for a close up look at the mine and got to peer into the "little" hole, and caught sight of some molten copper being poured.

Then Christie took us out to Lake Moondarra, the towns water supply and recreational area. It is an amazing amount of water for inland QLD.

Isaiah is up to Christie's ears.
Hard to fathom another 15 years of growth. 

We enjoyed curried sausages, toasted marshmallows, chocolate self saucing pudding and ice-cream, plus a small fire in the back yard before putting our very tired children to bed. And then to bed again. And again. I think maybe they have missed having other children around.
The grown ups stayed up way too late, catching up on nearly 6 years. It was really nice to spend time reminiscing and hearing about each others lives and adventures since we last saw each other. Some friendships are just easy to slide back into.

Day Twenty-Four - July 3

Today we drove from Dunmarra to Avon Downs. Mostly road we have driven once or twice before, but turning toward QLD gave us new energy, and we just wanted to keep going. We had planned to stop at the Barkly homestead, but we got there at 1, and just felt like we could push on.

Avon Downs is only 60km from the border. Its a free camp, across the road from the Avon Downs police station. Not very big, and quite busy when we were there. The toilet was foul. We were grateful we have boys. Tomorrows drive will only be a short one. Yay!

Day Twenty-Three - July 2

We all slept in this morning, with Levi being the last one up at 8.30. I actually had to wake him, because he had asked to feed Yanda breakfast and she was getting very hungry waiting for him.
We packed up and left Laurens by 10.30, and drove to Dunmarra. The long journey home has begun.

We have stopped for the night at Dunmarra. Dunmarra is a clean and tidy roadhouse about 7 hours from Darwin. Fun fact 1 - for a family our size, it was cheaper to stay in a powered site than an unpowered site. Powered sites are charged at a flat rate, but unpowered are charged per person. Fun fact 2 - there is a pool table in the dining room.

Trev at Dunmarra was lovely, and answered lots of questions. We saw an African Mahogany tree, which was really cool looking. Interesting seedpods. I didn't take a photo though. Oops.

Into bed early tonight. Tired travellers. Tomorrow we are heading East.

Day Twenty-Two - July 1

It's Territory Day!
Tim has been very excited about today. We went out on a boat to go fishing. We had to be at the wharf at 7.45, so we were up early getting organised with breakfast and sunscreen, etc.
We met our boat driver and fishing instructor, Paul, and set off for a spot of fishing. We zoomed out into the harbour, sending spray up everywhere. Thankfully we are all ok out on the water, no seasickness at all. Before we all had our lines in the water, Toby had a bite! He hooked it and was reeling it in, but the fish darted into the rocks. A battle ensued, which sadly the fish won, and after about 5 minutes of trying to reel and tug it out of the rocks, we had to admit defeat. No one else managed to hook anything else at that spot, so we zoomed across the harbour to another reef to have another go. 

Toby has a bite!

Levi managed to feed his bait to a few fish, which he was thrilled about. Every time he reeled in an empty hook, he celebrated that he had fed the hungry fish. 

Still no joy on the fish front, so we moved again down a sheltered little spot between some of the islands in the bay, and finally we found fish. Toby was the first to land one, and the second. In all, Toby caught three Moses Perch (good for live bait, but not good eating) and three Moonfish. Tim caught two Moonfish and a Javelin fish. Lauren caught two Moonfish. Isaiah caught two cat sharks, which had to be thrown back, and I reeled in a sand shark, again, had to be thrown back. Zane tried his best and had a few nibbles, but didn't manage to hook anything. Levi too. We all had a great time though, and did manage to take enough home for dinner.

First fish

Lauren and one of her two Moonfish

Isaiah & his catshark

Sand shark. Not any good for dinner.

After we got back to the wharf, we went to the show grounds to buy some fireworks. :D

Fireworks earned. Proud boy.

We worked together to clean Lauren's house and to prep dinner before all our dinner guests arrived. The Donaldsons, and some of Lauren's neighbours, Chris and Sarah, and Ben and Nicki came over for dinner and fireworks.

The fireworks were insane. From 4pm, there were explosions every few minutes. I am not sure when they stopped, because I was asleep before it was over. You could go outside the front door and look around and see fireworks in nearly every direction.
We took ours down to the vacant lot at the end of the street. Tim and Ben took charge of setting them off at the back of the lot, and we sat on the footpath to watch. We blew up $210, and had a great show (everyone contributed).

My favourite were the ones Toby bought, called V2 Rockets, and the one called Mother-in-Law. Lots of colours and sparkles.
It made for a very late night though, with the last people going home at 10.30. Tucked in some very tired children and then went to sleep to the sound of fireworks in the distance.

Day Twenty-One - June 30

We went into the city to the botanical gardens this morning. A friend of our from Sunny Coast days, has been in Darwin for a few years now. We hadn't seen her for 10 years, but I spotted a mummy morning tea play date she was planning at the gardens for this morning on Facebook, and decided to surprise her. Her face when she saw us was great! We got to meet her little girl, and catch up over morning tea.

After morning tea, we took the boys to the Military museum at East Point. We watched a short film about the bombing of Darwin and learned lots about Australia's involvement in WWII. I did not realise that Australia was bombed 88 times. So much death and destruction.

I baked a quiche for lunch. It's funny how you miss pottering in the kitchen and having an oven. I was starting to feel like I had forgotten how to plan a meal that couldn't just be prepared on the stove. 

We took Yanda to the massive new park near Laurens this afternoon. It has a three story slide and two flying foxes. A very fun afternoon was had by all. We did get as few "carpet burns" going down the very slippery slide, but we had a blast doing it.

It's Friday, so the Palmerston Markets were on. We took the boys and their wallets out for dinner. We were adventurous in our food choices and tried Asian layered steamed jelly cake, some crispy rice noodle waffles, and bbq'd octopus. We also had Cajun chicken and avocado crepes, some honey chicken, fried rice and salt and pepper squid. Mango lassi is a must at the markets. 
I found two dresses that I really liked, but when I went back with my wallet they were gone.
There were lots of fruit & vege stalls, selling a variety of tropical things we don't see that often. The boys were excited to find star fruit, as they have been asking me about it for a while. So we had to have some of that. We also got a little pink fruit that looks like a giant lillipilli or a tiny pink pear, that Lauren thinks is a rambutan, but I am not convinced. 
I got some blue cypress essential oil, after a demo in which she applied some to our slide injuries and they stopped hurting. Good for cuts and bites too.
Levi was very disappointed at the end of the night when it was time to go, because he had really wanted to spend some of his money to go on the jumping castle, but they were packing up. He had been so busy running and playing on the green that he had forgotten until then. 

We are nearly finished Rangers Apprentice book 2. It goes a lot faster when you have three readers. :)

Day Twenty - June 29

We had a pretty relaxed day today. A sleep in, some washing, sorting the trailer. I am hopeful that everything will go back into the car and trailer ok for the drive home. 

Stock image of Leanyer.
I left the camera behind.

In the afternoon, we took the boys to Leanyer water park. Levi is still 3cm too short to ride the big water slides, much to his disgusted disappointment. He still had lots of fun in the pool and on the kiddie slides though.

Stock image of Leanyer

We BBQ'd again at Lauren's, and Isaiah and Levi both spent money on ice creams at the shops today, so we had those for dessert.  

Day Nineteen - June 28

Anbangbang billabong

Our last day in Kakadu today. We packed up and went to Anbangbang billabong and gallery. Isaiah and Toby and I climbed up to Gun-warddehwardde lookout. Then we drove into Jabiru and checked out the lake.

Anbangbang billabong

Anbangbang gallery

Toby took this. Not sure how he achieved that effect.
 

We went to Cahill's Crossing about an hour and a half before high tide, to watch the river rise. It was one of the tips the couple we met at Coober Pedy gave us. As the tide comes in, it pushes the barramundi up stream, and the crocs come in to fish.


We watched a man catching decent size barramundi, and saw three crocs. 

 

Then we drove up to Ubirr, and saw some more aboriginal art, and climbed up to the lookout over Arnhem Land. The line in the land between the rocky, scrubby Kakadu and the lush green, flat Arnhem Land is very pretty and impressive.

Back to Lauren's place now for a couple of days before we start to make our way home.
On our way back to Lauren's, we drove through one patch of roadside burning off. It was a bit scary driving through the thick smoke. So many birds of prey circling, picking off the little lizards and things escaping the flames.

We saw a lot of little wallabies and padamelons on the verge too, nibbling at the new grasses that have come up since the burning off. Very cute. Too hard to take clear pictures at 100km/hr though.