On the road 16-18/4/11

Into South OZ we go

On Granite Island off Victor Habour

Breaky in the Taj Mahal

Leah's caravan'er wave

Seal on rocks out front of van park in Port Elliot

Well we're finally on the road, departing at 6.30am on Saturday morning. First stop was to see one of the famous BIG monuments "THE BIG M", thats right Maccas at Yass,mmmmm. Once all our belly's were full we proceeded down the road to Gundagai where we were greeted by the 'dog on the tucker box monument'. A dud but the story behind it quite interesting. From here we went to Wagga Wagga for a morning tea beside some dam and then onto Hay. This part of the journey was very, very lifeless with hardly a tree to be seen let alone a hill, guess that's why its could the Hay plain hey!!!!. One of the positives of this part of the journey was that Leah had finally developed her 'travelling van wave' photo to come!!! We got to Balranald at around 3pm to a van park on the Murrumbidgee river, first fish coming up!!!! However after talking to the park owner I was told that all the Murray Cod died with the 'Black Water' that came down with the floods around Xmas. No disappointment though as we were all very exhausted from the trip and the week leading up to departure. The park was blissfully quiet and beautiful. Dinner in the van was rice,tuna and corn. Make mental note 'nothing open in outback Saturday arvo'!!!!!
  Woke reasonably early and had some breaky, we hit the road by 8 for another big drive to Victor Habour. Again we stop every few hundred km's for a nibble and driver change. The outlook did vary (although only slightly) in the country side. Trees we're making a regular appearance and so were hills, more like slight undulations really. What was very noticeable was that in every hole was water from such a good season of rain, much to the delight of the farmers I'd say. Again after a very long drive we crossed the great Murray River, and we arrived at Victor Habour, well Port Elliot actually, as I forgot the name of the van park I had booked the night before and we liked the one we turned up at. It's a Big4 and well appointed and very well located to explore the surrounds, it's also a surfers dream with heaps of points, bombies and beaches to check out and maybe tempt a dugong to get wet. We think we might hang here for 3 days maybe even 5 as we aren't due in Adelaide until Thursday Night. (swell is due Wednesday for all in the surf realm!!!!!).
Kids have been brilliant to say the least and are travelling better than I could have wished for [Mike].

Now it's my turn; not much left to say really except that I am delighted with the weather and how we are all travelling. I am blown away by how well Claire is travelling. Claire moans and groans with a 2.5 hour trip to the beach so we were WORRIED to say the least. The big guy is doing another amazing miracle as Claire is already looking like a seasoned traveller. Jarrod is keeping our brains very stimulated with crosswords; family genetics in play here thanks Pop Nicholls and Nanny Roz. Mike is getting more relaxed with my driving; he is now no longer asking me every five minutes what speed are you doing. Well done Mike. Hey Wiki those travel pillows are simply fabulous THANKYOU! An important mention to Nanny Nicholls your cookies sustained us for the first couple of days YUM! Every dog we see has us think of Molly Moo [Leah].

Hairy Clairey; so far we have been travelling very well apart from every now and then I get a bit funny in the tummy. My favourite thing so far that I have seen were two kookaburra's on the electric wires [jumping up and down with their pants of fire ha,ha,ha]. I love the scenery here at Port Elliot.

Jarrod Man; I have learned three things so far. Number 1 Australian is really flat. Number 2 do not bang around in the caravan. And the most important thing of all DO NOT mess with Dad at night.