It was about 5.00PM yesterday that we finally felt confident that we were going to be ready for our big departure today. It was still a late night though, with all of the final little tasks that were needed to be accomplished. That, and the excitement and anxiousness kept the adrenaline running throughout the night making any kind of decent sleep a fantastical delusion.

Sleep must have come to us both eventually though, as we were rudely awoken by the piercing screech of the alarm clock at the pristine hour of 8:00AM. It was then every man, woman and child for themselves as we screamed around the house making sure every last possible item was crossed off of our to do list and everything was properly packed and secured.

I was yet to pack the back of ‘The Beast’, which is like a life sized game of Tetris, to ensure everything fits in, whilst still leaving enough room for the babies when we stop. There’s only a small amount of re-organising required to get it dog ready.

We’d given ourselves 2 hours to do all of this, planning of course to be on the road by 10:00AM. Our farewell party of my parents and Granny arrived at 9:00, just in time to watch our last minute mad frantic dash. They did offer to help, but we had to decline, on the basis that as of today, we will be on our own and need to know that we can handle it all without the extra help. Thus in my rush, it took us 3 too many goes to get the van hooked up, but I finally managed, with only a moderate amount of cursing. At last, we were ready to hit the road. It was then, more down to good luck, than good management that we realized that the whopping great big (and bright red) wheel lock was still securely in place on the wheel. Not wanting to re-enact the episode of the Simpsons where Homer drives gallantly out of New York with a wheel lock still in place, we stowed that, bid our final farewells to everyone, both in person and by phone (thanks to everyone that called or messaged to wish us well), and off we went. And only 40 minutes late to boot, so I have revised our estimated arrival time back in Melbourne to 6:40PM on the 11^th of October, unless I can make the time up elsewhere along the way.

A convoluted route we then wove, en-route to our first nights stop in Orbost with family. Partly because I’m a cheap bastard that didn’t want to part with the $25.00 to use the City Link and partly because we wanted to stop at a caravan spare parts place to pick up a couple of bits, we headed over the Westgate and then down Dandenong Road to Springvale only to find the caravan joint didn’t stock the items we were after. Nicely enough, the staff pointed us in the direction of another shop to try, even further out of our way in Ferntree Gully. A quick phone call later to ensure we weren’t going out of our way for nothing and off we ventured.

It was only about a half an hour off our designated track, but was worth the effort to get exactly what we needed. Some elasticated, wall mounted magazine holders that we are actually going to use inside some of our cupboards to stop our smalls falling out all over us each time a door is opened. With any luck I’ll get a chance to fit them when we get up to Sydney and have some spare time.

From there, it was a straight through run to Sale where we needed to stop to give ‘The Beast’ a drink and the dogs a potty break. It’s early days, but I think I might have to re-evaluate our fuel budget, as we seem to be using a little more diesel than expected. I guess that is one of the downfalls of not getting a chance to get out and have a good trial run. I’ll give it another week or so for everything to average out before I look into it further. Other than that, it seems to be effortless, with ‘The Beast’ barely noticing the extra heft of the the van.

As for the dogs, they seem to have settled in nicely, finding their own spots on the voluminous back seat, although Bethany has taken to lying across the fridge, stretching her hardest to reach us in the front.

“I wanna be in the front with you guys. Please!”

Our only other stop for the day before pulling into Orbost was in Bairnsdale for a quick snack. We’d been on the road for 7 hours by the time we pulled up the drive at Becs aunty and uncles place, where we were stopping for the night.

The whole rig fitted in their thankfully lengthy drive way, so we didn’t need to un-hitch and were able to easily plug into power for the night. We spent the early evening inside, getting fed and cared for by Roy and Viv. We also got the inside scoop on the best places to visit as recommended by Roy and Viv, from during their years of extensive caravanning adventures. I now have a whole page of extra places to research, to assess their merits for our own trip.

Then we were in for a reasonably early night, hopefully ready for another day on the road tomorrow, bound for Canberra.

Don’t forget to check in on our new updated homepage to see where we’re at and where we’ve been. Just click on the map to be directed to the google map page.

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