We made it! Left a very cold Melbourne on Thursday morning and arrived on Saturday night at about 8pm. It was quite a surreal journey - the first night we camped in West Wyalong in New South Wales and were so tired that we went to bed when it got dark at about 7:30pm.

M woke me up and said it was 6:30am and we should get going, so I bounded into action, packed up the tent and 15 minutes later we were on the road. It was when it didn’t seem to be getting light that I looked at the time on my mobile phone. It was 1:45am! I sent M a rather terse SMS message (he was in the van ahead of me) telling him to check the time - I saw the van swerve. Once we knew what the time was it was hard to keep our energy up, so after doing about 100km we pulled over at a truckstop and both slept in the front seats of our respective vehicles. Yes. I am still tormenting him about it.

The second night we stayed in Narrabri, which is about 100km from Moree where the radio had been saying that there were quite a few lightning cells. So Narrabri was just bizarre, the sky was black and the thunder very ominous. Thus I booked a cabin, as the thought of sleeping wetly in a tent did not appeal to someone like myself who had got her last sleep in the front seat of the car. So we felt rather special in the cabin, particularly when it started raining fat cats and dogs at about three in the morning. We were back on the road at 7am and then made it to Kingaroy by about 5pm, where we tracked down M’s mother (who was in hospital again) and told her we’d be in town that night. The next three hours were the longest of the whole trip - the Kilkivan road in between Wondai and Maryborough was just hideous - unsealed and very narrow (not to mention unlit). I felt like I was about to crush native wildlife with every rotation of my wheels :o(

Finally made it to Maryborough and hit the bottle shop. Bought three longnecks of VB from a somewhat inebriated man and then drove the final 30km to M’s mother’s house. Then crashed out. I have sooo much more to write, and pictures too, but my laptop battery is running out and we don’t have any electricity on yet (or water, for that matter) but hopefully will have power by tonight. Will write more then. Have survived the first site of the house and am feeling both positive and broke. Maybe busking is an option.