Monday 3 March 2014 - Brisbane, Qld
We finally returned, a little before 3pm. Wow, what a relief! We’d had a huge day driving from Broken Hill to Narrabri on Sunday, although it passed fairly uneventfully, thankfully. We pulled into our motel just after 7pm (after calling from Coonabarabran to book ahead) and were very relieved that we didn’t have to set up the camper. The girls were very excited – “look it has a TV, a fridge, a toaster, a microwave!”, especially with the little soaps on the folded towels. A quick cuppa recharged us and then we were off to find some dinner. We drove into town looking for a family-friendly pub or similar and found that there isn’t much on offer on a Sunday night. Fortunately the bowls club was open and serving basic but cheap meals. Glenn had an awesome steak sanga (rump on Turkish) and I inhaled a plate of salad and prawn cutlets. The girls munched on a huge plate of chips (and gravy for Sienna).
It was well after 9pm by the time the girls got to sleep and close to 11 before we did – partly because of daylight saving and partly because we had a TV in our room for the second time in over a year. I think it was also because we were a bit excited that we were nearly home. We managed to get a bit of rest and then it was up at 5:22am with the Sienna alarm. Glenn’s day started well – he found the other rear tyre on the Cruiser sitting at 8 pound, requiring another change. This was more difficult than last time, because he’d used the easier-to-access spare the other day and our second spare was on the front of the trailer. On the plus side, at least we had a second spare!
Anyway, we hit the road and the final leg of our journey passed without major incident. The girls relied fairly heavily on the DVD player and iPad, but they were very well-behaved considering the amount of time they’d spent in the car over the last week. Perhaps the intensive hours over the Nullarbor helped ‘condition’ them. They seemed fairly content and Sienna didn’t have one tantrum, although I did receive the odd kick on the back of my seat. Yasmin even slept for the last two hours, which was great because she sure needed her energy once we got to Mum and Dad’s!
We eventually pulled into number 9 (after a random detour, pulling off the highway when we were both distracted and going the wrong way). Glenn and I were both a bit jittery (courtesy of our earlier caffeine hits – two Red Bulls and a latte respectively) but very glad to be back on the east coast. The girls were thrilled to see their grandparents and immediately found the noisiest toys to play with. Wilsons on the Road, over and out!
