One enormous hurdle was overcome this week. I’ve been chewing my finger nails for weeks, ever since I signed up for the new tow vehicle. Due to its weight, it needs to be registered as a truck, and I therefore need a truck licence to be able to drive it. So, it’s been an almost constant source of worry as to whether or not I would be successful in obtaining said licence.

Friday was the day though, and after a fair bit of study during the week, I needn’t have worried. I breezed through both the theory test and the drive test. What a relief it was to get that out of the way. I’m now a fully fledged truck drivin’ man. Well, as fully fledged as one can be with a light rigid truck licence, which only covers me for little trucks weighing up to 8 tonnes. I now just need to make arrangements to actually collect the new beast.

Oh, that reminds me, after a slight hiccup on collection, my parcel of pieces made it up to Sydney safe and sound. The bits I sent up have to be fitted before I can collect the truck, so I’m leaving my fingers and toes crossed, hoping that it’s not too long before I get the call to say that it’s ready to roll. The plan at this stage is a quick flight north and then a solo road trip home. Can’t wait!!!

Also coming along great guns this week was the necessary planning. Again, Bec has been putting in more than her fair share of the hours, spending a four day long weekend cooped up at home, looking after the pooches, pounding the keyboard and trawling the internet. She has come up with some cracker places to visit. Then, for the first time since we really began to seriously plan the trip, we sat down together today and nutted out a pretty strict itinerary. We literally spent hours, going over our intended route, planning how long we should be spending at each of the major stops, and deciding where those major stops ought to be. Surprisingly, we did this with only a very minimal amount of yelling at each other. Actually, I wouldn’t even call it yelling. More of a robust debate.

As much as we want to be able to keep our plans fluid while on the road, there are certain things that are going to have to be booked well before we leave. Thus, a laminated planner and white board marker were put to good use as we plotted our path around the country. Scarily, once completed and laid out, it didn’t look particularly epic. Sure, we’ve amassed a mountain of notes about where we want to go, what we want to see, what we can afford to miss, what we must absolutely do, but laid out on a yearly planner, it seems a little less adventurous than I had imagined.

Having the extended long weekend was a blessing for Bec, in that she was able to take care of poor Bethany, who came through her operation safely, much to our relief. We are still waiting for the results however, so are still in the dark as to what the exact problem is, but thankfully she is home, recovering well. More on that next week, but with any luck it will be good news.

Until next time, stay safe, have fun and don’t forget to write.