We're off - finally!!

Woohoo!! We are in the car, caravan behind. To all my friends who have been logging on, wondering if I was ever going to write another blog again, wondering if we had dropped off the face of the earth - I'm very sorry, and very happy to tell you WE'RE OFF! The last couple of weeks or so have been crazy, stressful, exhausting. Cleaning up the house and getting everything into storage was all-consuming, hence the lack of blog entries. We finally moved out of the house last Friday, but Darren still had a couple of little things to finish on the van - putting up curtains, bike rack. Then a couple of things turned into a couple more. We were parked in his uncle's backyard (the one who built the van with him). It was so hot, and we were in the way a bit, so the kids and I moved in with Darren's sister and her husband (you are angels Shaz and Mick!) Darren slept in the van a couple of nights and during a big downpour, discovered two small leaks, which he quickly fixed. Luckily we weren't on the road when that happened. We still had a Wet'n'Wild pass to use that we got for Christmas - we fit that in last Monday and had a great time. Casey and Tara have been sick with a nasty cold for the last week. And to top it all off, the real estate rang late Wednesday afternoon (we were planning to head off early Thursday) to tell us that we needed to go back and clean the marks off the walls of the house (which were there when we moved in). Still under dispute over that one!!

It has been said that you don't really appreciate things if they come too easily. Well let me tell you, I am so appreciating being in our new home - our beautiful caravan. We left the coast at 1:30pm on Thursday and got to Yelarbon, just east of Goondiwindi, for our first night. We parked in a rest area right next to the hwy and the railway line. It was very noisy, but we were so excited and had a great night in the van. We headed off again very early the next morning and had a 14 hour day in the car. Poor Tara cried all afternoon, saying "Dad, stop the car. I don't want to go round Australia. I want to go home!" She was in great spirits after stopping for dinner and was happy to get back in the van to go to sleep. We stopped for the night at a free camp spot at Mirrool (between West Wyalong and Narrandera) - population of 17. It was a lovely spot. The good thing is we only have a short drive today to get to Numurkah (northern Victoria) where we will be staying in the caravan park for about 6 weeks.

I am writing this in the car as we are driving, on our new laptop. Gotta love that! I promise there will be more regular updates from now on, so stay posted!!