FINAL DAY WE HEAD HOME

We wake and are all excited that today we were heading home, we pack and of course its raining so camper is packed up all wet.

We say our final goodbyes to Kevin and Sandy and head off around 10.30am.
There was a bike race on today Melbourne to Warrnambool and we hope this wouldn't hold us up, but it was the opposite so we were fine.
The kilometres got less and less and we got over excited when we saw a Frankston sign on how many kilometres it was away.  We thought we would be home by 2pm but in the final stages it was more like 2.30pm. We turned into our street and there were many cars as an auction was about to take place then we spotted our parents all waiting out the front for us, with signs saying "Welcome home Travelling Garretts" and Dad rolling the video as we pulled up. Yeah we made it and we are at last home.
Oh what a journey, we loved every minute and would do it all again if we could. There's no place like home,though.!!

QUICK FACTS OF OUR HOLIDAY

* 85 days

* 39 camping destinations

* 37 times we put up our camper ( we have it down pat and can get it put up in record time now)

* 20,875 kilometres travelled

* 2328 litres of Fuel (Diesel)

* 7563 photos taken and video

* 56 Games of Uno, Oliver crowned the Champion

* 3 large bottles of SPF 3 used 

* 7 pairs of shoes worn out and thrown away

* 4 containers of peanut butter

* 100's of dead kangaroos

* 50 plus dead Emu and wombats

* 3258 views on our blog and still rising

* Views on our blog from countries all over the world like: Australia,USA,Russia,Vietnam,United Kingdom,Germany,Thailand,Argentina,Hungary,South Korea


MEMORABLE MOMENTS ON OUR HOLIDAY

* Starting our holiday with family in Yaapeet and finishing with family in Panmure/Warrnambool

* My 40th birthday presnet from Mark and the kids to the Horizontal Falls(Never to be forgotten)

* Mark and Dylan swimming with a turtle and snorkelling in Turquoise Bay

* Hearing that Mark and I had become Great Auntie and Great Uncle to baby 'Stella Rose' on the 9th August

* Oliver standing in a cow paddy at the Bungle Bungles

* Lily conquering Frenchman's Peak without help, actually walking

* Meeting up with Chris Green who I use to work with

* Bumping into the Mark Fisher(and Family) ,a school mate of Mark's at Uluru and then travelled with them for 2 weeks

* Oliver using the marine toilet

* Mark and Dylan walking the 10km around Uluru

* The Dingo who took all our food including 2 stubbies of beer

* When the Mark and the  boy's lay on the rocks at night on Devils Marbles and watched the stars and actually saw a shooting one

* Seeing Uluru for the first time, just amazing

* The moment we drove in our street and saw our family standing and waiting for us to arrive home.

We do have a lot more moments but have just single out a few to share. 

Well its goodbye for now and thank you for reading the blog and following us.

Hayley,Mark,Dylan,Oliver and Lily Garrett

Otherwise known as 'THE TRAVELLING GARRETT'S'

OUR HOME COMING 

Stay tuned more to come-Some snap shots

Enjoying the 1st day

Cold and chilly  in Flinders Rangers

Yaapeet 

Boy it was cold in Flinders Rangers

                                                         Well look at that,Oliver Street in Coober Pedy

   

Uluru

Fire time 

Uluru

Well done boys on the Kings Canyon Walk

Lily takes a snap shot

Dylan and Hayley at Desert Park,Alice Springs

Devils Marbles

Relaxing

Poached Egg Flower

32 deg hot springs

Termite mound in Litchfield National Park

Wave pool

Surfing the wave pool

Being silly at TIO Stadium

TIO Stadium,Darwin

MORE SNAP SHOTS TO COME , AND SOME INTERESTING FACTS ALSO, STAY TUNED

Final Full day of our Journey but read on there's more interesting fact to read

After such a beautiful sleep and waking up a bit later than normal we started the day at around 11am and headed into Warrnambool to look around. The day wasn’t bad in the early morning but it was cold and then it got colder. We had some hot chips and dim sims for lunch and sat down the beach area and watched boats. After lunch went to Lake Petrode to a parkland area and park for the kids. It was a huge area and the park was for all age groups even Mark and I. We were like big kids on the Flying fox. There were two flying foxes for small children and then one for 12 years and up, so Dylan, Mark, and I all had a ball gliding down. Lily had a go on the small Flying fox, but ended in tears, as it was too fast.Oliver was only enjoying the smaller one due to his age.

VIDEO OF HAYLEY ON A FLYING FOX

MARK ON THE FLYING FOX

Oliver and Lily

 

Just having fun

We stayed at the park for ages and then it got so cold we left. We went and checked out Hopkins Falls, as last time we were here, it was the floods and it was overflowing. Warrnambbol has a whale nursery and we drove to there but we knew there were no whales. 

We were all getting together tonight for a BBQ, and as Lily would say,” Baby Stella is coming over, isn’t she”. Yes Amy, Murdoch and Stella were coming for dinner and it was lovely to be all together and Stella, slept for 3 hours before heading home at 10.30pm. Just hope she slept for Amy when she got home. Boys went out to the camper to bed and Lily rubbed her eyes and went to bed too. Dylan was up again at 11.30pm and can’t sleep out in the camper it was raining, so he sleeps inside and Mark traded places with him. I secretly think Mark wanted his last night in the camper trailer.

Oh well, our final journey is tomorrow as we head off from Panmure bound for Frankston town. I’m feeling excited about seeing family but sad that such an amazing trip has come to an end. We will never ever forget such a journey and we have many photos, videos and have course this blog to look back on. The kids have so many memories and have also written their own diary of the trip in their own words.

If anyone is thinking of doing something similar, we highly recommend it to such our beautiful country Australia.

Australia is so big and we still didn’t see everything, we really needed 6months or even a year to do more adventures.

We know the kids have enjoyed the time and have learnt a lot too.

So thank you to everyone who has come on this journey with us, reading and keeping up with the blog. Hope it wasn’t too long, but I hope to compile it as a book we can read back on.

There will be another journey but not sure when 

Mount Gambier to Warrnambool to Panmure

Well waking up this morning in different surrounds was strange but we were warm and toasty and could hear the rain. Boys were up already and watching TV cartoons. We hand showers, breakfast and watched TV and then packed up and left for a refuel of diesel and thought we’d check out the Blue Lake. We got out the car up at the lookout and almost got blown away with the wind and there was that fine misty rain. We all looked very quickly at Blue Lake and hoped back in the car. That was just insane wind, so strong and freezing too. I had checked temperature overnight in Mt.Gambier and it was 2.9 deg, very cold indeed.

The kids enjoying their time in  the cabin

Blue Lake,Mt.Gambier

Today we were headed to Mark’s brother’s place to stay for our final leg of the journey and to see our beautiful Great niece that was born on the 9^th August while we were in Mataranka. Her beautiful name is Stella Rose, and Lily is over the moon to see her. Mark and I can’t believe that we are Great auntie and Great Uncle, and that makes us feel OLD!!

We decided that as it was only going to take 3 hours or so to get there we’d stop off in Port Fairy and have lunch. We know this town well as we have camped here twice and love it. We went over to the campground we stayed in at Christmas and we could drive in and look around. This campground is only open in the summer months, so no one was there. I have done a little video for friends of ours that are staying here this Christmas coming so they can see their sites.

The bakery was the spot to have some lunch and we even sat in front of the open fireplace at the bakery. We walked the shops and looked in our favorite ones and the boys bought a book each to keep up the reading.

It was time to move and go pop in on our niece, Amy and her baby Stella. I had done bits of shopping for the newborn around different parts of Australia, so she received a few items throughout our journey.

Lily and Stella

Oliver and Stella

Dylan and Stella

Hayley and Stella

 

Meeting Stella, she was as cute as a button, of course and we all couldn’t wait for a hold of her. Lily was over excited that it was actually real and you could hold her. We loved our cuddles and we love her to bits.

Amy and Stella

We left Amy and Murdoch’s house bound for Kevin and Sandy’s which is another 15 mins in Panmure. They live out in the country, so we were looking forward to seeing their new place. We were welcomed by Kevin and Sandy and their huge house and had a lovely dinner together that night, talking and reminiscing our holiday with them. We were here for our final 2 days of our trip.

Arriving down the road to stay for 2 days at Kevin and Sandy's place.
So beautiful and peaceful

We set up camper and were hoping to get it in the garage but it didn’t quite fit in, the boys slept out in the camper on the queen bed. Mark and Miss Lily as well as I had a room inside. We were taken on a tour of Kevin and Sandy’s place and out the back were a Koala in a tree. Their a few koalas are around and were told there was one with a baby, but we didn’t get to see it. This was another animal that we hadn’t seen on our trip, so it was exciting to see. Kevin and Sandy have 3 cats and 2 dogs and Lily was scared of all of them. The peacefulness and darkness was just bliss as we slept that night

Port Pirie to Mount Gambier

The cousins catching up

Hit the road at 9 am and organized a coffee date with our niece, Matilda Herben, who lives in Adelaide. We expected to be only 2.5 hours from the city. We found an area where we could park the car and trailer as there is a lot of angled parking around the town. We found one and started to walk into the city, it started to rain and we all knew, we were getting closer to home as Oliver said this reminds me of Frankston. We rang Til and made our way towards the cafe Til recommended to meet at. Getting rather wet as we all ran and still in our thongs, difficult to run in of course we finally found cafe Cibo. A beautiful smiley Matilda met us and a warm coffee was definitely on order. It was just lovely to see our niece Til and to start talking to family about our trip, I think we will be 
talking for months about it, so watch out family and friends. We stayed and chatted with Til for over an hour and as we were to travel another 5.5 hours we thought we better move, it was 1.00pm. The weather was just awful and cold and wet. 

We had planned a surprise for the kids, as we knew the day before it was going to be raining and actually hailing the whole time we were camping. Our original plan was to stay in McLarenvale for 2 days but that was scrapped because of the weather. We said lets make a big drive to Mt Gambier and stay in a cabin, But to surprise the kids. We drove and drove until we reached Mt Gambier at 6 pm. 
Still raining, I checked in and we drive to our site, No.4 and I turned to the kids and said, wow we have this small grassy area, Dylan's says, "I'll jump out and measure mum, if we'll fit", I switched the phone onto video quickly and said, " Look we aren’t staying in the camper trailer tonight we are in this cabin. The sheer delight on Dylan’s face, the shock on Oliver's and the what did you say look on Lily's face was priceless. They ran inside as it started to hail at this stage. Running in and checking out the bunks and TV was their main concern. Dylan then noticed, from up above, water and a puddle near the bunks, oh no the roof is leaking. I raced across to reception to let them know that the roof was leaking and they only had one other option to put us into a bigger and one with an en-suite cabin. We move all our belongings over to No. 1 cabin, wow even a bigger TV, which makes the kids, so excited even more. 

Heater was cranked up and we had a very late dinner as Mark walked to a supermarket to pick up some Shiraz to up warm him up and I got a bottle of white. Perfect way to end the night, as it still poured rain outside. 

Port Pirie

 Left Streaky Bay and back on the road, another reasonable drive today. We will mark this place (Streaky Bay) on the map as a place we would come back to and stay longer.

 Today we saw for the first time about 20 dead wombats on the side if the road, not a pretty sight. We found a great spot to stop for lunch in a town called Kimba, it was an apex lions park with a great playground and you could actually camp there for free. The toilets were very clean too. Kids needed to stretch legs and have a play. We had heard that the 'Big Galah' was in this town, but we drive around trying to find it. Instead I ran inside to the information centre and asked, 'Do you have the Big Galah in town', we were so close when we were looking for it. We drove there and had our photo with the 'Big Galah'. My Nanna, use to own a Galah, and its name was Herbie, so the kids know this and whenever we see a Galah its always,” Look its Herbie". 

Halfway Across Australia

This town Kimba, is also the half way point of Australia. Signs posted around say,'Halfway across Australia'

The Big Galah

We thought we would drive to Port Augusta, but then said lets drive to Port Germein, we had looked up a caravan park that was is the Camp Australia Book and this one was recommended. We arrived and they had said sorry we have just given away the last powered site, and even the unpowered were no good. We turned around and drove out, until a permanent resident said "No we have site 28 available", so we drove back in only to be told again,” Sorry, its actually reserved", so we drive out again and we take a look at the longest wooden jetty in Australia and drive on to Port Pirie. I held my breath, hoping they had a site as it was getting a little late now; 4.30pm and we needed to settle in and get a site. Yes all good and we set up in record time. 

A gorgeous Tree and mosiac in the park

 We then take the kids into town to go to the local park, they needed some exercise and to get out in the fresh air after being in the car all day. Mark decides, lets get some Indian for dinner and Oliver and Lily some McDonalds so we organize that and then take them to another park to eat dinner.  We watch the sun go down once again on the local jetty near the park.

Another beautiful sunset in Port Pirie

The Jetty

Mark and I on the jetty

We get back to camp after 8.30pm and its bedtime for all.

Off the Nullarbor and to Streaky Bay

Left Nullarbor roadhouse around 9.30am. Mark tried to have a shower this morning, as you need to put in a dollar coin so you get 5 min shower but no his didn't work. I had tried lily the night before and popped $1 in and got a cold shower. We headed only 10 mins up the road to the whale centre, the head of the Great Australian Bight and were hoping to see some whales.  A few cars were there so it was a good sign. We asked the attendant,’are there any whales today’; yes there were about 6 in at the moment with their calves. They come here every year to give birth from the Antarctic and stay for the winter months until mid spring. The calves’ put on about 60-80 kg a day, wow mum must have a lot of milk. We reached the platform area and some people said turn right so we went to the furthers lookout and it was such a surprise to see about 4 whales plus their calves lazing around and laying on their backs and sticking their noses out of the water. They were so close enough to the coast to hear the water being expelled from their blowholes. An amazing experience to see. Mark and Dylan saw a calf breach out of the water coming down with a huge splash. The whales and their calves slowly moved down the coast and were at times out of sight as they go deep into the sea. Mark had counted 14 in total whales. A well worth trip to the whale centre. We headed off hoping to get to streaky bay today.

A whale

A view of the whales, they are there in  the distance if you look hard

 We stopped off at a rest area for lunch, as everyone was getting a little grumpy. This rest area was, as the boys put it, fly central. There were so many flies we could hardly butter sandwiches. We all jumped in the car to eat; otherwise we would have been eating flies. Got to the Ceduna quarantine area and were ready to hand over our honey, much to Oliver's disappointment, carrots and an onion. We cooked up our potatoes last night. The guy said what have you got, and I handed over our bag of goodies. He said you can keep the carrots and the honey, and it was a relief for Oliver, as he was getting a bit sad about giving up the honey. 

Oliver thought he would drink the honey before we crossed the border, but in the end we could keep it.

We arrive in the town of Ceduna and park the car and Mark,Lily and Dylan go and get more supplies in the local IGA supermarket. Oliver and I stayed put at the car. Many aboriginals standing around on the streets, and actually yelling in their language entertained us. Oliver kept saying to me lock the doors. I had said, what if I take a photo of them Oliver." Oh my mum you do that your eyes will be as black as their skin, you'll be beaten up. ", Is what Oliver said and I had to laugh.  

Another hour on to get to Streaky Bay and it rains slightly on the way, we hoped the clouds would move on and they did. The caravan park is directly on the beach and there are many vans there. We get a spot close to camper’s kitchen, which is what we wanted so we didn't have to get our tables and chairs out. Boys ran quickly down to the beach, which was only 20 metres from the camp, and there were 17 pelicans, boys had counted them. It was the fish cleaning area and there were 4 fishermen cleaning their fish and I guess the pelicans wait for scraps as well as the seagulls. Boys we're playing a game and counted the fish being caught by the seagulls and pelicans, the end result was pelicans 7 and seagulls 6. The boys were going for the pelicans and they won. 

We all had a walk along the bay and spoke to different people doing traveling as well, mainly the elder people. Boys and Lily found the games room and that kept them occupied until dinnertime. We did all our cooking in the camp kitchen and we ate in there too. After dinner we continued the uno championship, as this will be decided at the end of the week as the holiday ceases. We all won at least game each and Oliver now takes the lead from Mark.  We went to bed and starting laughing as the campsites were really close to each other and all we could hear was the guy next door snoring, actually for a moment we thought it could be Ricey next door. Another funny thing was we could hear someone with a lot of zippers on their camper, as we heard zip,zip,zip.