The furthest South…

As we headed out of Adelaide we began to see a different Australia on the quieter roads. We were definitely in the South now.

We stopped for a break in a town called ‘Meningie’ and saw our first pelicans. Six of the hugest and weirdest looking birds I had ever seen, doing synchronised swimming in a very precise formation.

This was clearly ‘a thing’ because one of the local mums pointed at the giant birds and said ‘pelican raft’ to her son.

As we were leaving the town we saw our first kangaroo, lying dead by the side of the road. It happens a lot here – cars go too fast for most animals to figure out…

About 50km further down the road I saw a dead Koala on the road and we were all gutted…no less so when we realised it was much more likely to be a wombat. Wombats have existed in my life since I was little but only in the last couple of days have I come to know what they look like – cute and way bigger than in my imagination!

We remembered our author friend ‘Hedgehog Hugh’ saying that dead hedgehogs on the road were better than no hedgehogs at all because it meant there were some out there…we took comfort from that and sent love to our kangaroo and the wombat.

As we headed further south some of the countryside looked a little like the New Forest…England, home – a very long way away …and we took the chance to catch up with each other a bit sat in that car.

The last few weeks we had been fully focused trying to find a way to Australia and during the two days on buses we’d been in our own little worlds.

We went back over our trip reflecting on the highs and lows. I had suggested to Theo that he write a press release to send to the Somerset radio and papers (‘Somerset family tries to travel to Australia without flying’) – it might be just the sort of thing Somerset Sounds might be interested in 🙂 He’d finished it and sent it just before we left Dili. We hadn’t heard anything yet but who knew – there were a lot of climate related events happening in Australia…

It was good to reflect back and remember some of the little details and it was good to just chill and listen to an audiobook as we watched more of Australia pass by.

(In case you want to know – the book is ‘The Hail Mary Project’ by Andy Weir …such a brilliant story, and so well read!!)

The miles slipped by and we reached the coast as the evening shadows began to lengthen. We’d let Daisy know we’d arrive around 10.00. Did we have enough time to stop and run down to the beach at the Gibsons Steps near the Twelve Apostles? (I had never heard of either, either – funny how ‘either’ and ‘either’ are spelt the same but said differently, English must be an absolute nightmare language to learn 🙂

It was Theo who inspired us to go down.

‘This is the furthest South we have ever been – next stop Antarctica. We have to go and put our feet in the sea :)’

He was right – we did have to. We didn’t hang about but it was spectacular being on that beach. The warm wind whipping around us, the foam on the sea alive with adventure and the sun’s soft light cradling the golds and browns of the sand and rocks.

We ran full pelt at the sea and then ran back pretty bloody quick because we’d forgotten to take our shoes off 🙂

It was breathless and a bit wild. A fun family moment we will always remember – our furthest point south of the Equator. …and then we were running back up the stairs – it was time to get going.

The rest of the journey was straightforward until we got to Melbourne – which turned out to be an A* nightmare. Two hours of solid traffic jams.

I had thought that Melbourne was a mediumish sized city – if I’d been asked in a quiz question about the relative sizes of Bristol and Melbourne I would have thought about it and then have said Melbourne was maybe twice the size of Bristol. It turns out it is actually nearly seven times the size and that EVERYONE was on the move that evening.…it made Jakarta seem like a Sunday afternoon drive in the Cotswolds.

We tried not to get stressed, let’s face it we all ‘try’ not to get stressed – but we did! We were late, we got lost, my phone wouldn’t send messages because I’d filled it up with photos and videos and so What’s App wouldn’t work – fun, fun, fun!

We did not want to arrive at our pregnant cousins house at 11.20 at night, but that’s what we did and she was amazing about it!!

She was awake and looking out the window to guide us in and then she got our all the food she’d bought for us and we made mini pizzas and had a midnight feast!

I have known Daisy since she was a baby and I love her very much. The last time I saw her she was a  21 year old fashion model who had decided to get away from her relationship in Oz and come to look after her beloved granny in England – she was wild and kind and she had a lot she was dealing with …and here she was in front of me, a mature young woman about to give birth to her first child – a little boy.

We had a great time with Daisy, meeting her husband Adam and his 10-year-old daughter Isla – laughing about accents and getting closer. Seeing pictures of their wedding and looking at all the baby stuff ready for his arrival. Daisy was ready for him to come out ‘right now’ but he’s got a due date of the middle of January so we shall see (…I’m praying for her sake he’s not overdue!)

We went out into a forest the next day because the night bus to Sydney didn’t leave until 10.00 that night.

Daisy took us to a place where you could feed cockatoos and we bought wild bird seed to take with us.

We were mobbed! Cockatoos, red chested green parrots, red and blue parrots, some lorikeets and we even saw a Kookaburra 🙂

Up close parrots are screechy and cheeky with no sense of personal space – they also have bloody sharp claws and beaks 🙂

No-one else had birdseed so we gave it out to everyone there and had a brilliant time. It wasn’t lost on me that our first stop away from home had been to see Cousin Tim and our last stop before Ellie was Cousin Daisy.

We are lucky with our family…I’m not sure we’d have made it this far without the love and care we received in Thailand from Natascha and Bob as well…

It was time to go…and after some more Melbourne-related drama – ‘returning the hire car to the airport is easy, just look for the sign saying rental returns’. Melbourne airport had four terminals and a massive number rental return places which had us sweating and muttering unpleasant curses at cheery Aussies, but we found where to leave the car eventually. We found a way together as we had so often in the last four months.

We got a taxi and arrived at the bus stop.

Our last journey.

Twelve hours from Melbourne to Sydney.

It was very unlikely that I’d have slept anyway but our drivers love affair with the rumble strip on the side of the road had my attention, heart rate and general ‘don’t kill us now you bastard’ filters right up!

The irony of dying on the last leg was too much for me so I went up to the front to talk to him at one point and he was awake, so that was a relief.

He was actually a lovely man and I had a good chat with him in one of the service stops – I managed to resist threatening to haunt him and his entire family if he killed us – another tick in the box marked ‘grown up’.

As daylight creeped into the bus I looked back and Rosa was wide awake too – we looked at each other.

This was it – in a few short hours we would be getting off the bus into Ellie’s arms…we whispered to each other about our journeys to Heathrow to collect her and Thoma – all our very own ‘love actually’ moments.

We were so nearly there