Tuesday 26 December – Finished the novel “A Dog’s Way Home” by W Cameron. This was a great tale of a dog’s loyalty and the lengths it would go to do “Go home”.
Denmark – Williams - Home
Well this is it, the final day. It is hard to believe it is actually here, in fact I wanted to ignore its arrival all together but knew that was not possible. We were awake at 6am, but happy to stay put and read, which allowed me to finish my novel.
At 7am, the longest we have stayed in bed for a while, we finally rolled out of bed and began the final pack up. I made the bed and then wandered down to the house. Paul was off for a shower, while I chatted and sorted the breakfast things. I then ducked in for my shower and followed with breakfast.
We spent the next 30min hunting down all of our’s and yogi’s things, finding space for them in the van and car. Paul loaded the trailer and then attempted to drive the van to the road. He caught one of dad’s fruit tree nets in the process though and then didn’t have enough room to get out the gates. He had to take the trailer back off, drive the van out and then we all helped push the trailer out to the van.
With it all hitched back on, I brought the car out and loaded it on for the final time this trip and then it was hugs all round as we loaded ourselves and a very confused dog into the van and began our final leg of 430km.
We didn’t get far, Mum screaming stop at me as we moved away. I’d left the hand brake on in the car opps. With that sorted, we were finally away, heading first for fuel at BP in town. I had to sit with Yogi while we stopped, as he seemed a little stressed and unsure, but once we were on the road, he seemed to settle down.
Today was a completely different day weather wise. It was cool and overcast and as we drove along the Mount Barker Road, we disturbed puddles of rainwater. By the time we reached the Muir Highway, the wipers were on clearing the water from the windscreen. It didn’t last long and once we hit the Mount Barker round about and turned north on the Albany Highway, the rain was gone.
We reached Kojonup at 1045am, with plenty of cars lining the streets and the bakery open, but we didn’t stop. There had been a steady stream of cars heading south, many towing caravans, holiday makers heading on to various south coast hideaways. I was glad we were making our way north, as there was less traffic heading towards Perth. There was also a decent police presence patrolling the highway, but they always seemed to just miss the idiots.
An hour later we reached Williams. We pulled into the sports ground ready for a stretch and loo stop. Yogi was pleased to get up and out as well. We did a quick wander between the playground and pool, before returning to the van. Paul checked everything over, finding a broken strap that needed repairing. I watered the dog and gave him a treat and by 12noon we were back on the highway with 175km to go and a couple of hours,
At 1pm, we passed the Jarrahdale turn off and the GPS was telling us we had the final 75km of our road trip ahead of us. By now I was counting off the kilometres in 5km lots, watching for the green markers telling us how far from Perth, and ultimately home, we were. Not long and we would be at the southern end of suburbia.
The familiar surrounds of Armadale soon were upon us and once we turned into the Tonkin Highway, we were only 30min from our driveway. I tethered the mobile to the iPad doing a few things online as we drove along.
Shortly after, we had to pull over as we could hear this loud banging noise that had us wondering what now? Once we were by the side of the road we could see that the bike was against the car, another strap had snapped and the bike was bouncing against the bonnet. At least it was an easy fix and we were on our way once Paul had tied som knots to join the broken pieces.
We were surprised to see so many changes on Tonkin Highway and the new flyovers. Boy will that make a difference when it is all complete. We were even surprised to see new buildings of substantial size, how they were erected in such a short time frame had us baffled.
2pm and we were onto Wanneroo Road and turning into the streets of home, finally rounding the street and spying our house, something we haven’t seen for nearly 12 months. Home.
We have been back in the house now for 4 nights, we have relished the luxury of our queen size bed, huge shower recess and flushing toilets, but it is all feeling a bit foreign and excessively large. We have seen some of our family and friends and now are ready to get back in the van and head off again. This home owning, suburbia, running to a schedule is so far removed from our norm of late that we would prefer to run away. We had devised a list of jobs we would need to complete during our 4 weeks at home, but have realised that there is just so much more that needs doing, it is very overwhelming.
We will however, plod along, do what we can, live vicariously through the Facebook memories that have already begun replaying our amazing adventure and look forward to our next journey. Thanks for joining us during this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment