One week in and the trip starts now

The plan has always been to travel nice and slowly, only be on the move once a week or so and not do too many k’s in a day…except for the first week.

About six months ago we decided we better book our spot on the Spirit of Tasmania (and good thing we did too). So we duly looked at the calendar for likely dates, checking the soccer draws, school holidays, significant birthdays etc, and decided that 30 September on the ferry was the day, which gave us nearly two weeks to meander down to Melbourne once school holidays started.

Then Football Queensland (in all their wisdom) decided to push the season back two weeks, giving us a bigger, pointless break mid-season, and pushing all finals into school holidays. Well, my team is pretty good at soccer, so I was reasonably confident we’d be in that grand final, now scheduled for 21 September. 

It was a no-brainer (for me anyway) that we’d just delay the trip, which we did, but it has meant that the last week has been much more jam-packed than originally planned.

Anyway, in good UQFC tradition, we duly lost the grand final (after winning 17 games on the trot), and I tore my calf (again), so I was a little sad when we left the next day.

No time to be too sad though, day one was a 550km drive to Crescent Head in absolute flogging rain. After the year of rain we’ve had across the country, every single river we crossed was swollen, and everything was very green (which was quite nice to look at – not that we could see much through the driving rain). We got there though, to stay at Jim’s old boss’s house which turned out to be a beautiful home on 100 acres of wood, atop a giant hill over looking Crescent Head in the distance. 

I won’t write all the details, but we stayed here for two nights, then undertook an even bigger drive (8+ hours) to Parkes. This is not the most direct route, but is the location for The Dish (most notably used to receive pictures when man walked on the moon), which I’ve always wanted to see. We stayed in a really nice caravan park here, went and saw the dish and messed around some more with packing/repacking the car while it wasn’t raining.

After two nights here we had another big drive to Albury-Wodonga, which isn’t much to write home about, except that the Murray River runs through it (also swollen). The rain was back too, so we packed up after two nights with everything being very wet.

Off to Melbourne next, and to stay with friends Jane and Ramsey (and kids). We took over their front yard and washing machine to get everything out, dried and cleaned, then packed away again. Two nights here, then up super-early to make the Spirit of Tasmania ferry.

Poor Jett had to go in the kennels on-board (he was very pleased to see us when we picked him up, but I suspect he just slept a lot). I usually have the worst travel sickness ever, but took my tablets, sat still or slept and managed to get through it. Both kids were sick for a bit in the middle, but really, it was a pretty good trip.

So…finally, nine nights after leaving Brisbane and arriving here in Devonport, TAS, we feel like the trip really starts now because we can slow down, sit still for a bit and really get into our new life routines (whatever they may be).