WE ARE HOME AGAIN IN ORANGE!!!

After 286 days and driving 38,284kms we are home again!

We left Wagga and headed to Canowindra for a night with Jaime’s Uncle Gus and Nan. It was then to Bathurst to Shultz and Tooley’s house for another night of catch up and pick up Jaime’s ute and some of our other stuff before heading back home to Orange.

We are now home again, back in our house. We still have a lot of unpacking to do, which will no doubt take a while and there is a lot of mowing and weeding and general clean up to happen but that will all get done in time. We are back at work and school and it is great to see all our friends again.

It has been a fantastic trip that we would recommend to anyone, whether you go for a couple of months and do it in a number of different trips or take longer as we did, it is well worth it as there are so many great things to see and experience in amazing country. The hardest thing to about this trip is making the decision you are going to do it! Once you have decided you are going everything else just falls into place. The biggest thing you notice when you get back is that life has not changed while you have been gone, except you have a lot of great memories and stories (and the kids are a bit taller!!).

We are already talking about our next trip!
Thanks for following us on our travels. We hope to catch up with you all soon.

Wagga Wagga

We left our final campsite and headed into Wagga Wagga. On the drive in we spotted a plane up ahead doing some aerial spraying in a paddock next to the road. As we got closer Cody waved out the window at the pilot and gave him a ‘thumbs up’. As it turned out the pilot saw Cody and he had finished all the spraying of that paddock, so he turned the plane around and then flew low over the paddock alongside our car and waved at the boys before taking off to where ever he had to go. The boys thought it was awesome!

On our trip we have been talking with the Aidan and Cody about the importance of always being polite and friendly to people. We have been saying that a simple thing of smiling and saying hello to someone takes very little effort but has a big affect. Numerous times we have discussed the fascinating people we have meet and the cool places and things etc we have learned about all because we simply stopped and said hello to someone as we walked past. The boys have also been spoilt rotten with cakes and biscuits etc because they smiled and said hello to Grey Nomads we have camped near.  They have also learnt a lot about customer service and how some people shouldn’t be allowed to deal with people but also how you can get someone who seems to grumpy and uninterested at first to become very helpful by just being polite, happy and friendly to them.  

The reason I say all this is because as soon as the plane flew off into the sky Aidan’s comment was “Wow, all Cody did was wave and look what he did for us that was so awesome!!”

Beck, Patrick, Aidan, Cody and Joe by their pool in Wagga

In Wagga we stayed with great friends Ray and Deb and their three kids Patrick, Becky and Joe. Ray and Deb used to live in Orange and Aidan used to play with Patrick and Becky every week when he was very young, but it has been a very long time since we saw them all. We went and watch their kids play their weekend touch games and then cooled off and relaxed all afternoon and night back by their pool. After a hit of tennis and game of backyard cricket and a bit more swimming in the pool next morning we headed off to Canowindra.

Hay – Murrumbidgee River NSW

Between Wentworth and Mildura there was some very picturesque countryside but the further east we headed the land became flatter as we entered the ‘Hay Plains’.

Our campsite on the Murrumbidgee River

 We decided to go for the hat trick, by setting up camp on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River –camping 3 nights in a row on 3 different rivers – the Darling, the Murray and now the Murrumbidgee! We realised this was to be our last campsite on our journey home as we will be staying with friends and family for our last few nights. We therefore picked up a few treats on our way through the town of Hay so that we could celebrate our last night of camping on this fantastic adventure, and it proved to be a beautiful final night on the banks of the Murrumbidgee.

Relaxing by the fire on our last night of camping

Mildura - Murray River – NSW and VIC

We decided to keep on the move heading south, following the Darling River to Wentworth to see where the Darling meets the Murray River. With the breaking of the drought and all the resulting rain it was great to see the two biggest rivers in Australia so full of water. That night we camped on the banks of the Murray River just out of the town of Mildura.

Cody, Aidan and Jaime at the junction of the Darling and Murray Rivers

While here we discovered we had our first puncture of the trip and as a result Aidan and Cody got a lesson on how to plug a hole in a tyre. We are pretty impressed with getting only one puncture after all the kilometres and dirt road we have travelled to date!

Jaime giving Aidan and Cody a lesson on plugging a puncture

Aidan, Cody and Jaime also thought that they were pretty cool when they swam all the way to Victoria from NSW! That is they swam across to the opposite bank of the Murray River!

Aidan, Jaime and Cody swimming across the Murray from NSW to VIC

Menindee Lakes

We headed off the next morning to the very impressive Menindee Lakes to camp on the banks of the Darling River. It was here that we did one final Burke and Wills history lesson; visiting the location of the Base Camp when the expedition first set off.  

Burke and Wills base camp on Menindee Lakes

We enjoyed more relaxation on the banks of the river. Aidan and Cody were keen to have a fish but seeing as we had left all our fishing gear in the boat which is currently in Adelaide we thought they would not get a chance to fish. That was until the boys found some scraps of fishing line along the banks of the river and some hooks on some of the line. So after sharpening up a couple of hooks and finding a muscle to cut up for bait they soon had lines in the water. Although there were no great impressive catches to boast about they had a lot of fun pulling in a few small Carp.

Our campsite on the banks of the Darling River

Cody with one of the little Carp he caught on a scrap piece of fishing line

Broken Hill

We left Tibooburra and headed down to Broken Hill just in time to clean up and head down to one of the local clubs to watch the big race – the Melbourne Cup! We found a form guide and after a quick review, we all picked out a horse and put on some bets. Shell did very well picking the winner and Jaime’s horse came in third, Aidan and Cody’s horses didn’t do quite so well. Cody said his horse came out of the gates last and still hasn’t finished.

We spent the rest of that day relaxing by the pool in the van park, deciding that we didn’t feel up to doing any more site seeing.

Cameron Corner and Tibooburra NSW

We headed from Innaminka down through the Strzelecki Desert along the Strzelecki Track and towards Cameron Corner which is where the states of SA, QLD and NSW meet. We stopped for lunch at a place called Moomba. No one permanently lives in Moomba but there are a lot of people who are staying there at all times. Moomba is an Oil and Gas field and it provides all sorts of services for their employees but everyone is flown in and out for their various shifts. We found the information we read at the Moomba viewing platform very interesting. Aidan and Cody learnt where oil and gas come from and the fact that the oil and gas mined in Moomba is piped all the way to Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra.

Aidan, Cody and Jaime at the Moomba Viewing Platform looking over the Oil and Gas plant

It was very exciting arriving at Cameron Corner as we were finally arriving back in NSW!! Although we did have to head back into Queensland first to visit ‘The Corner Store’, which is the road house near Cameron Corner, so that we could top up on fuel. It was here that we were stung with the most expensive fuel on this trip. It was $2.20/litre – we didn’t buy too much!!

The Corner Store in QLD at Cameron Corner - most expensive fuel on our trip!

Cameron Corner marker - the meeting of QLD, NSW and SA

Aidan and Cody excited to be back in NSW

After checking out the corner marker where the three states meet we then headed on through the dingo fence gate and into the best state of all – NSW!!! We continued on to the pretty cool looking little town of Tibooburra where we found a campsite just out of town in the Sturt National Park.

The boys running through the gate into NSW - you have to go through a gate as this is part of the dingo fence

In the main street of Tibooburra