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Trip Start Oct 19, 2009 Trip End Oct 30, 2009

  Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Wednesday, November 11, 2009

G'day everybody,

This blog has been a long time coming, for it is the last blog of our epic journey.  After leaving the country town of Clermont we headed straight for Hervey Bay to visit Cherie’s Auntie Sue.   It was great for Jacob to see his Auntie Soup; this is the affectionate name that Jacob uses.  Cherie was pretty emotional on the day, I guess we have been on a fast moving rollercoaster ride, and now we are feeling kind of relieved that the trip is over but satisfied at what we have accomplished as a family.

We were going to stay in Agnes Water, but duty called and reality kicked in, for Dave had job interviews at Hervey Bay and Maryborough Bunnings stores.  The other reason was to obviously look for a place to settle down and to place the kids into school ready for next year.  We are looking for 2-3 acres for the kids to run around on, close to Maryborough or Hervey Bay.  We have always liked Hervey Bay region because it is close to major centres and yet out of the rat race.  It reminds us of the Redcliffe peninsula but here you can have a bit of worlds, the beach and acreage.

After relaxing at Auntie Sue’s place for a week it was time to complete our journey and spring a surprise on Grandma and Grandad in Shailer Park.  It was also critical to arrive after the 28th of October and to enter their street from the other direction to complete the giant loop around Australia. We arrived in Shailer Park that afternoon around 3pm to spring our surprise but no one was home!  Bloody typical, you travel around the country for 12 months and arrive on a Friday afternoon just knowing that Grandad should be home and guess what, they were out shopping.

Cherie had a spare key so we let ourselves in and waited with anticipation for the arrival. Jacob was champing at the bit and as the saying goes, like a cat on a hot tin roof! He was so excited. Cherie made a quick phone call earlier to find out where Grandad and Grandma were while somehow not letting them know we were standing on their driveway.  After waiting just over an hour we heard a car pull into the driveway, it was them!!  Jacob couldn’t contain himself and rushed down the back stairs to meet Grandma and Grandad half way, pretty emotional stuff, hey.   Jacob carried a photo of his grandparents with him for 12 long months just waiting for this magic moment.

It was so good to be back and let me tell you the tears and beers were flowing. Oh, I forgot to mention the Champagne! Next it was time to spring a surprise on Uncle Jeremy and it was Jacob running down the stairs again to meet Uncle Jeremy half way. The first question Jacob had for his uncle was 'where was the crusty old computer’?   This is the laptop Jacob uses when at G & G’s place and carries around from place to place around ten times a minute.  He has missed it dearly and somehow it was still operational.

Enough of the home coming, it is now time to wrap up the trip.

The trip around this beautiful and rugged country of ours was mind blowing, and it has left us wanting to see more.  We haven’t had the time to really sit and think about what we have just accomplished, we’re sure though that once we get settled again in a home of our own and start to get into the normal daily routines of life, it will hit us BIG time!  The most wonderful element about doing a trip like this is the ultimate freedom to do as you please, when you please (well, do a degree, with two kids in tow).  To wake up every morning and look outside and think to one’s self, ‘okay what shall we do today, or where shall we go today?’, is a dream come true.

Some of the most surreal moments were spent with the well weathered Nomads and lots of families doing the same thing as us. Once on the road you tend to forget what’s really happening out there in the real world. We seldom picked up a newspaper and never watched TV which made it all the more enjoyable, so much time was spent outside doing the real thing.

We are going to sell our home on wheels called "Serenitynow" but it won’t be the end of our travels as we intend to purchase a new caravan to have for future endeavours, as we have only scraped the surface of this wonderful country. To all those people that doubted us, we told you we would do it!

Don’t dream it, just do it! That’s our motto.

Statistics.

Kilometres travelled: We racked up a total of 50,251 km in the car and around 23,000 km in the caravan.

Hit and misses: The only thing we hit was a low lying bbq that run out in front of us at The Aires River camp ground on the Great Ocean Road.

Flat tyres: We plugged one of the Caravan tyres that had a large roofing screw in it. {Eucha, VIC.}

Broken Windscreens: Nil.

Break downs:  We threw an A/C belt down in Port Lincoln S.A.

Diesel most expensive: $1.74 P/L, at Barkly Homestead QLD.

Diesel most Cheapest $1.05 P/L, somewhere on the East Coast?

State by State: The most favourite places.

NSW: Kosciusko Nat Park, Depot Beach, Bermagui.

VIC: Mt buffalo, Bright, Port Fairy.

TAS: The whole State.

SA: The Barossa and Clare Valleys, Hahndorf.

WA: Entire SW Coast, Margaret River, The Kimberley’s.

NT: Uluru, Kings Canyon, Darwin.

QLD: Mission Beach, Etty Bay, Wonga Beach, Daintree.

This will not be our last blog as we intend to use this site for lots of other holidays.

To all those people that followed our travels, we thank you for all your support.

Well it’s that time to blog off.

Chow.

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Emotional moments	Home at last	Room to play!	Claire playing hide & seek
Uncle Jeremy lit up like a Christmas tree	Claire & Aunty felicity	The effect of the kids just after 5 minutes