Summary

After being on the road for 184 nights and having travelled 30,885 klms we are now back in Sydney.

We are very proud of what we have achieved and loved every minute of it, even the testing and painful ones.

The boys have grown so much within themselves and have learnt so much along the way from lighting fires to changing tyres, making damper to reading a map.  We are so very proud of the little men they have become.

The people that we have met along the way and the friendships that we have made truly made our adventure special.  We had so much fun travelling with like minded people including The Southwells, The Glovers and Alan and Sophie.  Thanks for a great time.

A massive Thank You to the following people who let us park our van and family either in your front yard or on your farms:

Mick and Karen
Craig and Donna
Marcus and Naomi
Jim Shannon
John and Sue
Craig and Kylie
Tom and Michelle

Along the way we definately met some freaks, interesting people and locals including Ian Robert Clarke, the family of 13 travelling around Australia in a bus and the The Aboriginal family we picked up in Kalumburu.

We will treasure this time spent together as a family and the memories that we have made forever.

We highly recommend travelling around Australia, it can be hard at time but so worth it.  If we had the chance again we would pack up and go without giving it a second thought.

2 - 3 October 2016 - Days 183 - 184 - Shoalhaven Heads

We woke to a lovely view of the hills with fog over them.

There wasn't much of a packup this morning as we had only put the stabilizing legs down the night before but kept hooked up to the car.

Our first stop for the day was The Big Marino in Goulburn and Mitch couldn't help himself but had to have a photo with the back end of the sheep.

We drove down the Illawara Highway to Wollongong before heading south to Shoalhaven Heads to stay with the Bishop's.  It was by far the steepest and tightest road that we had driven along towing the caravan.  By the time we reached the bottom the brakes were smelling and the kids and I were very relieved that we didn't pass a semi trailor along the way.

It was great to catch up with Tom, Michelle, Miles, Alex and Camilla again.  We had seen them along the way on our adventure at El Questro and Broom.

We had two great nights catching up with them all and the kids loved playing lego in their back shed.

Tom's Dad took us for a drive in the Big Foot which takes you up the mountain behind Coolangatta Estate that their family owns.

The view from the top was amazing and the drive up was abit scary at times as the track has a gradient of 35'.

We couldn't visit Shoalhaven heads without a trip to the skatepark so Michael took the boys and Camilla for a ride.

The kids had a few dance offs before we said our goodbyes and hit the road on our final journey home.

A big Thank You to Tom and Michelle for having us, it was a lovely way to spend our last two nights with you guys.

Before we knew it Sydney was getting closer and then we were driving across the Harbour Bridge.

It was nice to be home and the boys were very excited to see their cousin Estelle.

After being at the Deni Ute Muster and not washing the car for quite a while Michael gave the car and caravan a well deserved clean with the gerni.

It was a weird feeling to be back in Sydney.  We were both very happy to have made it home from our adventure safe and well but abit sad that it was all over.

1 October 2016 - Day 182 - Beehive Hotel Coolac

Mitch wanted to go and have a quick ride before we left, so Michael and Mitch had a ride before we went back and packed up.  It had rained alot during the night so we had to dig out the mud around the wheels and stabilizing legs.

As we were worried about getting towed out of the site on Sunday morning early to leave in time to arrive in Shoalhaven Heads to watch the league grand final, we ended up leaving on Saturday.  Alot of people had the same idea and people were trying to flag down tractors to get towed out.

Michael and Mitch went for a walk and found a tractor down the muddy street and we were lucky enough to be the first in our street to get towed out.  The mud was terrible and people were filming us getting pulled out as our van was one of the biggest there.  We survived and got towed out but we took alot of mud with us under the car and caravan.

We had plans to stay in Wagga at a caravan park for the night so we opened the taps on our 180 litre water tanks underneath the van and emptied the tanks as we didn't need it.

On the way to Wagga we got diverted due to the floods which put another 100 klms onto the trip. There is so much water on the sides of the roads and in paddocks.

We arrived in Wagga at the caravan park to find out that it was full, so we kept driving.  We then arrived in Gundagai to find out that both the caravan parks are located between the river and creek and both had been cut off due to the floods.

Just outside Gundagai we filled up with petrol and then visited "The Dog On The Tuckerbox" statue.

It was starting to get late and we had no idea where we were going to stay.

After doing abit on research on Wiki camps we found a little pub called The Beehive Hotel.  They let you park your caravan out the front for free.  So we went straight there and went and had a drink in the pub to pay for our parking spot.

As we had dumped all of our water, we didn't have any water for showers and we had mud all over clothes.  We looked a treat but we had heaps of fun at the ute muster.

Mitch cooked the BBQ that night standing on the side of the road outside the pub.

29 - 30 September 2016 - Days 180 -181 - Deni Ute Muster

A big Thank You to Craig and Kylie for having us.  We all had a great time and the boys had heaps of fun on the farm with Jake, Danial and Casey.  We look forward to catching up again when you come and visit us.

It was time to leave and drive to Deniliquin.  We arrived in Deniliquin in under an hour but as soon as we reached the town centre the traffic stopped.  It was an interesting drive as we had the CB radio on listening to what was going on up ahead.  Well where do I start.  Single people were trying hook up over the radio while other people were getting angry at each other asking questions about the traffic.  Once the language started to get abit interesting we turned it off.

By the time we travelled the 5-10 klms from the town to the Deni Ute Muster and found the family camping area, 3 hours had passed.  They had opened up the camping area a day earlier than normal to help with the traffic but it made no different as thousands and thousands of people were trying to arrive.

All the dirt roads within the site were muddy.  We finally arrived at the family area and we tried to drive across the grass which looked dry to find a spot and we got bogged within about 10 metres.  People were getting bogged everywhere and they had lots of tractors pulling people out.  We got pulled out and towed to a nice wet spot.

Over the next 2 days we had a great time watching cars getting bogged and towed out.  The ute muster had a great atmosphere and everyone just wanted to have a great time even though it was wet and muddy.

The mud was like nothing we had seen before and as it got busier the ground just got worse.

That night we walked thru the ute paddock to see all the different set ups.  Some people had gone to great effort with their sites.  Michael was told by some young people to get back to the family area as he was drinking a can of Fosters.  We could only take cans and we couldn't find Corona in a can.

On Friday morning we all got dressed and put our gumboots on to head into the arena to watch the barrell racing.  We got about 50 metres from the caravan and I managed to fall over in the mud.  Besides being covered in mud it was very funny and Michael couldn't help getting a photo.

It was so muddy that utes trying to compete in the events got bogged.  Mud was being sprayed everywhere.

Michael and Mitch went on a Monster Truck ride and got covered in mud but loved every minute of it.

Cooper went in the Novice Whip Cracking Competition which he had to crack the whip for 1 minute.  Michael and I were really proud of him as hundreds of people were watching and he competed against not only boys but men and the Australian champion.  He did really well and even though he only learnt to crack the whip in Darwin when we bought it, he didn't come last.

We watched the rodeo until it started to rain so we stood under the grand strand and waited for the rain to pass.

That night we went back to the main stage to watch John Williamson play.  He was great and the kids really enjoyed it as we have been listening to him in the car.

I took Cooper back to the caravan as he wasn't feeling well and left Michael and Mitch to listen to the end of John Williamson.  They were dancing around in the mud and when the song stopped Mitch turned to Michael and said "Dad that was really gay".  Michael couldn't stop laughing.

When they arrived back at the caravan we had a fire and listened to Keith Urban in the distance.  It had been another exciting day.

27 - 28 September 2016 - Days 178 - 179 - Echuca

It was nice not having to get up and on the road too early.  The boys went for a walk in the paddock next to the caravan park looking for kangaroos and found heaps.

By the time we packed up and left it was 10.30am and we drove the 160 Klms to Echuca.

We drove into town and parked in the information centre and walked down to the port to book a ride on a paddlesteamer for the next day.  The Murray River was running high at over 4 metres above the normal level because of all the rain.

When we were in Bali we met a lovely family Craig, Kylie, Jake, Daniel and Casey and they had invited us to stay at their house.  They have a lovely house with a few acres.  Michael loved it as Craig has race horses and the both of them are very similiar in their interests.  When they met in Bali they really hit it off.

The boys had a great time cruising around the backyard with Daniel and Casey rounding up cows on the quad bike and locking them in different paddocks.

It was great to catch up again and we had a late night chatting.

The next day we went on the Paddlesteamer The Canberra for an hour cruise and Michael got to drive.  It was really interesting to see how high the water was along the Murray River.

The next stop was the Holden Museum.  They had a great collection of cars and the boys really enjoyed looking at them all.

We walked across the Echuca bridge which takes you across the border into NSW.  The boys weren't impressed to be back in NSW!!! The adventure is coming to an end.

We visited The Great Aussie Beer Shed which not only has beer memorabilia on display but anything made in Australia.  It was really interesting and the Owner got all the kids on the tour to demonstrate something along the way.  The kids loved it. You could purchase an alcoholic drink in a beer cooler with all the money going to the Children's Hospital for $10 so most people were cruising around the museum drinking.  It was for a good cause.

We couldn't visit Echuca without a quick visit to the skatepark.

That night we went to The Falcon Hotel for dinner with Craig's family and had a great night.