All up much better than expected. A lot of driving for us and small screens for the kids, but much more variety and great food than I would have imagined!
We were keen to get to the Climate Action Rally in Adelaide by November 17, so we had some motivation to move quickly. Two days in Esperence to fuel up for the trek turned out to be too many, it turns out! Not that there is anything wrong with Esperence. I just lost focus, a little bit... and overprepared. In my mind, I was prepared for any breakdown eventuality, with food and water for up to five days unsupported. I know we wouldn't have been off the beaten track, or unnoticed for anywhere near that period of time, but it was my first Nullabor crossing and I tend to err on the side of safety... So we headed off with a very heavy caravan and realised by about midmorning on the first day that we had another border crossing coming up and had a weeks worth of fruit and veg to get through in 2 days!! You would think by now we would be all over this border crossing stuff, but, as it turns out, not!
So we cooked a lot, ate well for breakfast, lunch and tea and only had a few small bits and pieces to leave behind in the Penong caravan park, on our second night of the crossing. Needless to say, we would have been happy to do a little less cooking, with all the driving we were doing but there was no way around it. One of the upsides was less cooking the next week, as we ended up with plenty of soup leftover in the fridge!!
So we cooked a lot, ate well for breakfast, lunch and tea and only had a few small bits and pieces to leave behind in the Penong caravan park, on our second night of the crossing. Needless to say, we would have been happy to do a little less cooking, with all the driving we were doing but there was no way around it. One of the upsides was less cooking the next week, as we ended up with plenty of soup leftover in the fridge!!
I had always imagined the Nullabor would be boring, but to be honest, I really enjoyed it. There was a lot of variety in the scenery, from rocky, windswept cliff tops with views to the south, to scrubby trees, to sparsely vegetated flatlands, to hectare upon hectare of wheat fields. Actually the wheat was not really Nullabor but we drove flat out for four days from Esperence to Adelaide so it all seemed like Nullabor to me even though the Eastern part of the drive really wasn't.
Paul and I shared the driving and spent a lot of the time chatting to and reading to each other. We had started on Christopher Paolini's The Inheritance Cycle. It has become somewhat of an obsession for Paul, Isaac and I. The only reason this post is happening is that I finally finished the last book this week(20/12/13 today)! The kids, for the first time in the trip, realised we had brought a portable DVD player with us and watched about a movie a day. They also worked pretty hard on their small screens, listened to How To Cheat a Dragon's Curse (by Cressida Cowell - awesome series for listening to in the car), and intermittantly had a few good rows. One thing that used to drive me crazy from this time, and after, was us saying "Look at X, kids" and Sascha (the worst, but not the only culprit) giving an astounded "WOW!" as he glances up from his game to something often completely out of his line of sight! I guess hoping that if he gives us a great reaction, nice and quick, he can get back to his game all the earlier! Sometimes we laboured the point and other times just rolled our eyes at each other or shared a quiet laugh!
Our stops were at the delightfully named Cocklebiddy and the aforementioned Penong. We felt very cheeky, and glad to be back in civilisation, to stay Friday night on the Port Augusta boat ramp. The location required a walk at dusk to enjoy the sunset and a kayak in the morning. The place really was quite special, marred only by the many dead birds washed up on the beach, a bit of noise from the pub at night, and the loss of one of Sascha's thongs in the mud!
The drive from Port Augusta to Adelaide was pretty much all wheat and very picturesque in it's own way.
Another little story I remembered when putting the photos in for this post, was Dom losing his first tooth. It had been loose for a while, then one morning when he woke there was blood on his lips. When he opened his mouth it was almost out and Dom easily and painlessly removed it. We luckily had the special "My First Tooth" box from Grandma ready to receive and store it safely in. I cuddled Dom and accidently shed a few little tears about losing my last baby. I tried not to rain on Dom's happy moment and explained that I was a little sad to see him growing up and that he would soon not fit on my lap anymore or some such stuff. I thought I had balanced my comments a little bit with the positives of him growing into a great big boy and how proud I am etc etc but clearly not very well, as a few moments later Dom comforted me with this comment "Don't worry, Mum... I'm still pretty cute".
Paul and I shared the driving and spent a lot of the time chatting to and reading to each other. We had started on Christopher Paolini's The Inheritance Cycle. It has become somewhat of an obsession for Paul, Isaac and I. The only reason this post is happening is that I finally finished the last book this week(20/12/13 today)! The kids, for the first time in the trip, realised we had brought a portable DVD player with us and watched about a movie a day. They also worked pretty hard on their small screens, listened to How To Cheat a Dragon's Curse (by Cressida Cowell - awesome series for listening to in the car), and intermittantly had a few good rows. One thing that used to drive me crazy from this time, and after, was us saying "Look at X, kids" and Sascha (the worst, but not the only culprit) giving an astounded "WOW!" as he glances up from his game to something often completely out of his line of sight! I guess hoping that if he gives us a great reaction, nice and quick, he can get back to his game all the earlier! Sometimes we laboured the point and other times just rolled our eyes at each other or shared a quiet laugh!
Our stops were at the delightfully named Cocklebiddy and the aforementioned Penong. We felt very cheeky, and glad to be back in civilisation, to stay Friday night on the Port Augusta boat ramp. The location required a walk at dusk to enjoy the sunset and a kayak in the morning. The place really was quite special, marred only by the many dead birds washed up on the beach, a bit of noise from the pub at night, and the loss of one of Sascha's thongs in the mud!
The drive from Port Augusta to Adelaide was pretty much all wheat and very picturesque in it's own way.
Another little story I remembered when putting the photos in for this post, was Dom losing his first tooth. It had been loose for a while, then one morning when he woke there was blood on his lips. When he opened his mouth it was almost out and Dom easily and painlessly removed it. We luckily had the special "My First Tooth" box from Grandma ready to receive and store it safely in. I cuddled Dom and accidently shed a few little tears about losing my last baby. I tried not to rain on Dom's happy moment and explained that I was a little sad to see him growing up and that he would soon not fit on my lap anymore or some such stuff. I thought I had balanced my comments a little bit with the positives of him growing into a great big boy and how proud I am etc etc but clearly not very well, as a few moments later Dom comforted me with this comment "Don't worry, Mum... I'm still pretty cute".
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