Newsletter #17 - Home in Melbourne!

As I prepare the last Newsletter for this trip we have been home for almost two weeks and have settled down to suburban living again. It has been great to catch up with family and friends, we are very fortunate as we enjoy being at home and we also love our time away travelling, the best of both worlds for us.

After leaving Lake Macquarie we travelled the motorway to Sydney crossing the beautiful Hawkesbury River and going through massive cuttings which I remember the rock being blasted out many years ago on our trips to Queensland when my boys were only little (doesn't seem like about 40 years ago!!). Passed through the lovely suburbs of Wahroonga & Gordon and arrived at Collaroy, northern beach and parked on the road at Philippa & Steve Kings for a couple of nights. Steve thought we were turning the street into a retirement village for motorhomes, we had a great fun time with them and with Ben, Jake and Bec. With all the comings and goings it brought back memories of my boys in their late teens with the 'revolving door' on the farm. All good fun, we even found time (a spell from eating and drinking) to tidy up the garden for Philippa. The view from their front deck is lovely looking to the water, plenty of time sitting around catching up on news.

Monday morning they had all left for work before we were even awake so later we left there and found our way to Kirribilli to have lunch with Heather & Phil. What a lovely lunch and catch up we had with them, again sitting on the deck looking at the water and Phil's yacht, among others moored almost on their doorstep, Sydney really is lovely, especially if you have a view of the water. The weather was beautiful which adds to the beauty of the city.

After lunch we said our goodbyes and headed over the beautiful majestic Harbour Bridge, views of the city and Opera House, we do love Sydney, then down the motorway and the Hume Highway. We stopped at the historic little town of Berrima with a quaint old Hotel and Jail, very pretty spot. In a way it is a shame all these towns are by-passed with the freeway, but I must admit going through the towns slows down ones travel. The best thing is to take some time to go off the freeway and visit the towns from time to time.

We went off the highway again and through the little towns of Collector, Breadalbane and Gunning, we found a windfarm around this area and also on the old highway a nice spot to stop for the night. Nice green farmland around this area. Next morning we continued on down the Hume, not much to report as we have travelled this so often and it doesn't change but a good freeway if you want to travel between Melbourne and Sydney as quickly as possible. We turned off at Violet Town to go across to Murchison to one of our favourite camping spots on the Goulburn River, nearly to Melbourne, you can guess, we have had some grey skies and rain, welcome home!!

We spent the next two nights at what we call 'Honeymoon Lodge' under the trees, lovely green grass around us and a very 'low' Goulburn River beside us, a very relaxing time we had here, just to unwind before we get to the city.

The remainder of the trip to home took less than 3 hours, as we approached the city, we could see that the Melbourne Eye was still not complete, we had hoped this would be finished, will they ever get it up and running again, such a shame. The freeways and tunnels to home make travelling so easy, it is great.

We trust you have enjoyed our travel news, I try to make it interesting and varied to suit everyone's taste, sorry if some of them are a bit long, try to cut back but don't like to leave out too much.

A few final statistics for those people interested:

Total time away: 21 weeks = 5 months

Total Kms travelled: 9,109kms

Longest day of travel: 539kms

Shortest day of travel: 0.5km

Bye 'til next trip, which will be in 2013, trusting we both keep in good health.

Love from Jan ‘n Pete