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.

Today we headed up to Loxton with my parents to visit some of my aunts and my uncle who couldn’t make it down to Adelaide for our family afternoon-tea last week. We were happy to also see that my cousin and his family had managed to get away from the farm for a while to come and visit too, so it was great to catch up with everyone.

It was a long day, Andres slept most of the way there and most of the way back, so it was also a quiet drive (around 2 hours each direction).

Murray Bridge to Loxton