....And it begins

Tarrawanna to Towradgi - 1km

After weeks of selling most of what we own, packing the rest into boxes and farewelling our friends and our jobs we decided we could only muster up enough energy for a short journey, so we drove 1km to my Mum & Dad’s front yard. We have hardly stopped since we arrived.

Mali finished school before the holidays and had a wonderful send-off. Her teacher, Ms Mac, put a map of Australia on the wall and her class mates are going to follow her around the country. It was such a beautiful thing to do and Mali cannot wait to share her journey with her school friends.

We have had a wonderful time at Mum & Dad’s. We’ve celebrated Easter with the family and visited Jamberoo Recreation Park with my sister, Carl & Mali’s cousin Asha. As usual Mum & Dad have cooked up some gourmet lobster dishes and entertained Mali in the pool for hours. The pool water has cooled down considerably, but Mali insists on getting wet each day and swam in her wetsuit today (convincing me to also jump into the pool with my new wetsuit). Mali visited Nowra Zoo with Aunty Rie and her cousin’s Tiarne and Asha so she appears to be digesting the concept of traveling around Australia, and who wouldn’t with all the fun she has been having. Corrine also drove to Canberra for the day with her sister Yvette for a day of riding Mt Stromlo trails and we celebrated Asha’s 5th birthday today.

We found some time to have the van professionally weighed and discovered we were 150kg over the safe limit (gulp!). We hadn’t even filled the back-up 60 litre fuel tank in the back of Yokel and the van water tanks were empty. Goodbye Thermomix, bike rack, kitchen utensils, books and some clothes. Craig also made a point of telling me he had turfed a set of surfboard fins which contributed 0.5% of the total 90kg of weight removed (good job Craig!). I’m sure about 10-15kg have crept back in the van since. Perhaps this is an incentive for us both to lose some kilos ourselves…hehe...

Tomorrow we set-off and head to Newcastle to see some friends before we head to Wallis Lake for a few days of getting into the groove of traveling. We have had to change our plans and skip Myall lakes and Crowdy Head National Parks as the campgrounds are closed due to the recent flooding we have had in NSW.

Thank you to everyone who has joined us to celebrate our departure. Our COVID19 safe party, which required the segregation of our friends into two separate time slots was a wonderful day. Thanks everyone for being so understanding….and for coming!!! We have had plenty additional catchups with some of you and a few teary goodbyes. We will miss so many of you, but we are not saying goodbye, just see you later.

Stay tuned!!

Corrine, Craig and Mali xx