Today we finally hit the road

Who would have thought after all the time put into planning and preparation I would be nervous as we drive out of the drive way at Doug and Veronica's. We have said our goodbyes and with best intentions to have been on the road by 9am its now 10am. (whats 1 hour in the scheme of things though). Inverloch gave us a parting gift of light drizzle and as we headed Melbourne bound the sun began to shine. John and I look each other and with awkward smiles, I say " can you believe we are finally doing this?" He just looked at me smiled bigger and said "no".
Our first stop was as close as Bass, We needed fuel and alot of it. The price was so good we filled up till nearly over flowing, from there we journeyed through to Tooradin with some extra last minute goodbyes. Mum, Val, Jo and the kids where all there for last hugs. They say a quick goodbye is a good goodbye so we hit the road again wishing that we could pack all the people we love so much in the van and pull them out for hugs when we need them.
Shortly after that again we found ourselves stopping for the last of our goodbyes. We pulled into a pub at Berwick to find an already bawling Sarah, Alec and Will waving at us enthusiastically. Wow what a sight and I had done so well not to let anyone see me cry till this point. I took a deep breath and got out all smiles had my hugs and said see ya, this time we were off and we weren't stopping till well over the other side of the city.
Good old Citilink had roadworks so after a detour we where headed to Bendigo, not the greatest start as we then missed our turn and had to take the long way around to Bridgewater. Never the less we did get to Bridgewater safely, stopping for a late lunch and a cuppa.

The kids played on huge gravel mounds and checked out the nearby creek, whilst I organised the food side of things. We hit the road again, stopping this time in Kerang, the service station was on the corner of Muir ave so we just had to take a photo. I mean what an honor they named a street after us LOL. Full tank of fuel on board again and we where off, this time headed to Swan Hill. We had to do the stop in and see the Huge mighty Murray cod, it would have been un Australian not to. The kids thought it was great, they hopped in his mouth and we took some photos. It was nearly dark so we needed to get a wriggle on to our first over night stop on our big adventure Nyah only a few more kilometers up the road.

What a fantastic camp spot, behind the harness racing club on the banks of the Murray river. Had  a great camp fire, the only downfall, a very cheap and noisy generator running in the next camp.