Finally got up and going at a decent time today – Andres slept well, and thus so did we.

We woke up to find it raining and quite a bit cooler than we had experienced over the past few days. I was beginning to think it would remain 42 degrees every day for the remainder of our trip!

By the time we got on the road it was raining quite hard (I got quite wet loading the car!), and indeed it rained non-stop all the way to Albury. We stopped in Deniliquin for some morning tea and to feed Andres a little, and I was regretting looking at the weather forecast (28 degrees and showers) rather than the reality (15 degrees and rain) when I chose my wardrobe for the day – my warmer clothes were packed in the boot and were not easy to get to. Needless to say, it was hot-chocolate for morning tea rather than our usual fare of a cold drink!

The rain seemed to get heavier the further we drove – I’m not sure if the towns we passed through got a lot of rain or whether we just followed this one rain band as we drove east. Either way, there was a lot of water on the road which made it a little challenging at times, but there was very little traffic so it was an easy drive despite the rain.

We arrived in Albury just after 2pm, checked into our motel and started unloading the car. Our motel room is quite unique – a two story town-house style apartment, but our downstairs part is on the first floor of this Tudor-style manor house (built in the 1980′s). So we have to go from the basement where the car is parked, up two levels to the first floor, and then inside our apartment, we have stair leading up to the bedroom area. It really is quite a spacious apartment – large lounge / dining area with a compact but functional kitchen on one wall – upstairs is a large bathroom with spa bath and a large bedroom with a huge four-post bed. The bed is so high we almost need a ladder to climb into it.

It’s only got one bedroom, but there is plenty of room to set up the cot in the corner away from our bed.

After settling in, we drove to the supermarket to buy some mince and other supplies and then I made some bolognaise for dinner (which Andres loved), making sure I had left-overs so that we could serve this to Andres again tomorrow night.

Echuca to Albury

The trip so far

Managed to get going a little earlier today. Unfortunately Andres woke up again and was having difficulty getting back to sleep – he was very restless, even after bringing him into our bed to sleep. I ended up moving to the second bedroom where we had his cot set up and sleeping on the spare bed, while Andres slept in our bed next to Leanne. At least this way we all got some sleep.

After breakfast we packed up and hit the road again. It was already hot – even though Adelaide had got a cool change, it looked like we were in for another 40+ degree day. Indeed, it quickly climbed to 42 and stayed there pretty much all day.

We arrived in Echuca in time for lunch, stopped at a bakery and then after lunch headed to our accommodation for the night – a very nice and quite new holiday apartment, complete with marble floors and benchtops and a large spa bath in the bathroom (which Andres refused to get out of during his evening bath).

We relaxed for a while and then I went out to buy some ingredients for dinner, I made a quick chicken pasta dish for us while Leanne made tuna and vegetables for Andres.

It was a bit disappointing that we were now only staying the one night at this place – it was a very nice apartment. Not exactly designed with children in mind (only one bedroom with the bathroom off that room), but it would have been nice to base ourselves here for a few days while we explored the area.

Swan Hill to Echuca

The trip so far

Finally started our return journey today. It was a bit of a late start – took us a while to finish getting everything ready and pack the car. It hadn’t made it any easier that Andres was very restless and woke up in the middle of the night and refused to go back to sleep. I ended up sleeping next to him on the spare bed next to his cot to keep him company.

By the time I started packing the car, it was already very unpleasant outside, very hot but also a strong hot wind was blowing making it feel even worse. We had planned to be on the road by 9am, but it was approaching 11am before we actually got going.

We drove from Mt Barker down the freeway, past Murray Bridge and stopped at Tailem Bend briefly to feed Andres a little. We then continued out to Lameroo where we stopped for a toilet break and to feed Andres some more of his lunch. By this time it was already over 42 degrees with the dusty wind blowing, it was quite unpleasant. We did find some lush green grass to sit on in the shade along the main street of Lameroo – we were wondering where they were getting all this water from to keep things looking so green … even the round-about looked amazingly green!

We continued on to Pinaroo, where we stopped for some lunch in a cafe there. It was extremely unpleasant outside – the car was fine when we were moving with the air conditioner on full, it was stopping and getting out that was horrid! The worst bit was the tar on the road was melting and stuck to the bottom of my shoes – so it was sticky wherever I walked after that, and my shoes were even sticking to the pedals in the car a little bit which was very annoying.

After lunch we continued on through Ouyen and eventually on to Swan Hill. Most of this second-half of the journey was very unpleasant with the temperature gauge recording a scorching 46 degrees outside for most of the trip and the wind gusting strongly and blowing up dust and buffeting the car. Fortunately there was not much road traffic, so the drive itself was easy.

We got in to Swan Hill around 6pm unpacked the car, fed Andres and then I headed out to find some food. Fortunately the air-conditioning in our apartment at the caravan park worked quite well – it was still nearly 40 degrees around 7pm. The caravan park pool looked tempting, but it was crowded and we were too tired after a long day of driving. We did stay up and watch a bit of television, but it ended up being an early night.

Mt Barker to Swan Hill

The trip so far

A very early start for us this morning – originally we had planned to start our trip back to Sydney today, but instead had a change of plan.

Earlier in the week one of my friends from back at uni sent an email out inviting people to a breakfast gathering in a park in Adelaide to catch up with everyone. This group of friends from uni keep in touch regularly via email and get together every so often. This was a belated Christmas gathering, and since we hadn’t seen everyone for a few years, I thought it would be great to try and make it there.

I was able to make a few phone calls and fortunately there was no problem to re-arrange our accommodation for the return trip. I had actually planned to spend one night in Swan Hill and then two nights in Echuca – so we could then visit a fauna park in that region on the second day. However, with my camera still broken and the weather being so hot, I wasn’t that keen to make the effort to visit – staying only one night in Echuca wouldn’t make much difference to our plans.

So I pushed our stay in Swan Hill back one day and dropped the first night of our stay in Echuca so that we could then stay around the extra day to visit my friends.

So we got up early, packed the car, said goodbye to my parents and drove back up the freeway to Adelaide. After a brief stop at the wrong park (I misread the instructions – oops!), we managed to find everyone and spent an hour or so chatting and trying to avoid being soaked by the kids who had brought water-pistols to help keep cool.

It was already 36 degrees by 9am and the forecast was for 42, so we didn’t think we would last long at the park. I didn’t mind it that much – and Andres had fun playing with a bucket of water they had set up to refill the water-pistols with. He got completely muddy and wet, so we stripped him down to his nappy and he was quite happy playing there.

We agreed to relocate to a cafe in Norwood where it would be a bit cooler (it was over 40 by this time!) and we could grab some cool drinks or icecream, so after quickly cleaning up Andres and grabbing some clean clothes for him, we drove around and spent another hour or so chatting with my friends.

We decided to head down to Marion shopping centre for lunch, so drove down – of course Andres fell asleep almost straight away, so we took our time and then did a couple of slow laps of the car-park looking for a spot while to give him a bit longer to sleep. We wandered around the shops, noting that not much had changed in the years since we had visited, and stopped for lunch at Spargo’s restaurant where we used to go for dinner before we went to see a movie – again, not much had changed.

We stopped to let Andres play in a small kids play area for a bit and then headed out to the car. Of course, because we had a lot of our gear with us from our stay in Murray Bridge, the boot had to be just about fully unpacked to get the pram out and back in again – it was a little unpleasant doing that in 43 degree heat … just touching the outside of the car risked getting burns! I hate to think what the temperature was like inside the car – fortunately the air conditioning works pretty well, although it was struggling a little in the heat.

We eventually made our way back up the freeway to Leanne’s parents’ place at Mt Barker where we were staying the night – all the rest of our gear was there too, so we could re-pack and try and fit everything back in the car for our trip home.

It was a long, hot and tiring day – I was still hanging washed clothes out on the line after 11pm, but it was still mid-30s outside and the clothes were drying pretty well!

Murray Bridge to Adelaide to Mt Barker

The trip so far

Quiet day today – spend the day with my parents (or rather, they spent the day with Andres), while I did some maintenance work on their computers.