There was heavy rain overnight and once
again we were very grateful to be inside a house. We got up and had breakfast
and chatted to our hosts, Millie had a shower and Caitlin made more videos on
her iPad. Tony and his uncle had stayed up quite late the night before so Tone
had a bit of a sleep in. It didn’t take us long to pack up as we’d brought even
less inside this time than the night before – the only time consuming thing was
the extremely steep driveway that we needed to walk down and up to get to the
car and back (we’d left the car and trailer down on the street, there was no
way we could go up the drive with the trailer on).
LiAM in particular was very keen to just get
in the car and head home. We were on our way just after 10am, very excited to
be on the very last leg of our trip. We drove through the beautiful and
familiar countryside around Camperdown, with the stone walls and windmills and
cattle and sheep. Driving through the little towns between there and Geelong we
saw lots of tractor and harvester equipment. Mainly we noticed how often we
came across a town – we’d become used to driving all day to get to the next
town, and here they came up every 20 minutes or so.
We stopped near Geelong to get petrol and
some hot chips from Red Rooster. The roadhouse was a bit a of a culture shock –
the service station, McDonalds, Red Rooster and several other food outlets all
shared the same building, and there were SO many people. We got our chips and
were happy to be back in the car.
It was raining pretty hard for a lot of the
way into and around Melbourne. There was more traffic than we had seen – well,
since we’d left. One thing that stood out to us was the low number of caravans
– we were used to seeing almost nothing but trucks and caravans, and here it
was mainly cars and utes, we only saw 3 caravans between Geelong and the ring
road.
Traffic was slow on the ring road, first
because of lane merges, and then because of a very nasty looking accident near
Sydney Rd. Eventually the traffic cleared and the last 45 minutes flowed
easily. On our way we drove nearby several friend’s houses and gave them a wave
as we went past.
One by one the kids recognised roads we
were driving on and realised how close to home we were. Coming through
Christmas Hills it was very exciting to see Yarra Glen spread out on the plain
below – really felt like coming home. As we drove through Yarra Glen we noticed
lots of houses had been built in the estate they were just starting when we
left. It’s cool to live in such a beautiful place too – driving along the road
to our house we could appreciate the beauty and not feel so much like we’d left
all these fantastic places and now we were just at home – home is fantastic as
well.
We arrived home just after 2pm and everyone
felt happy and bit of disbelief – we’d made it! We were going to back the
trailer in to the carport first so it was in position to unpack – then we saw
Buckley and everyone tumbled out of the car to go and pat him. He was excited
to see us and we were all so thrilled to see him. We let him come inside with
us to check out the house – it looked so neat and familiar and strange and felt
much bigger than I’d remembered. We hadn’t been home long when Winky came out
to see us. The kids were so excited that she ran straight back in under my bed
in fright – but did come out and gave us all a cuddle then hung around with us
all afternoon, I think she was pleased to see us too. Later in the afternoon we
saw our 3 remaining chickens and the kids reallocated ownership and names
(they’ve grown since we left and we weren’t sure which chickens these were –
they’ve got new identities now so it doesn’t matter). The mountains that are
normally our view were obscured by cloud at first, then the clouds lifted through
the afternoon and we could see Mt St Leonards and really felt at home.
We lit the fire, went through our mail,
slowly brought things in out of the car and moved things around the house to
make it habitable for the 5 of us (I’d put a lot of stuff in the kids’ room so
that our house sitter had more space, so I moved some of that back out so that
the kids could get to their beds). LiAM and Millie put the PlayStation on and
played with their new Skylanders, Caitlin rang her friends to tell them she was
home.
It was a lovely, relaxing afternoon and I
resisted the urge to rush around trying to get everything unpacked and in place
– there’s plenty of time for that and I am going to try very hard to stay
relaxed as I have been on the trip. Tony went to get pizza for our Friday night
dinner – a great way to celebrate arriving home. While he was out he visited
some friends and met their new baby – the kids and I are keen to see her soon
too (born while we were away).
Caitlin started working on a photo
slideshow of the trip to take to Girl Guides this week, then on tidying up her
room – we’ve all got a new perspective on space and belongings I think after
living in the tent for so long. Tony watched the football and the others
watched some TV, I pottered around and we all felt very happy and comfortable
(even though it felt a little weird as well).
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