The Great Aussie Road Trip
Without Prejudice
We decided to go to Queenslamd Yvette and I, she was heavily pregnant with her fifth child and "fed up" and a trip was what we needed.
Deciding to fly Kyle, 13, up with the bags and us to drive with the three little boys, Zach, 8, Brock 7 and Jai 5. We wanted them to see the "real Australia" on the road, not viewed from a plane.
We wanted them to see the vastness and appreciate the quietness of the space and air and sky.
I would have slept them under the stars as well, but we were two women traveling on their own with little kids, so we were booked in to places and stayed in contact with everyone by mobile.
We wanted the adventure and the challenges, growing stagnant in our lives, all problematic, and wanting to leave them behind'
So we did, we took off at 4am one Sunday morning, prior to Christmas, the boys on holidays and bouncing with the excitement. So delighted to have had their Christmas early, mum buying them a PS2 and they had crowed with delight. PS2,
like it was to be bowed in front of.
Yvette was convinced she knew the way out of the city. So we got lost and headed the wrong way as everything had changed since she had driven and it was years for me too, so we ended up in Seymour and were way out of the way.
But we found our way eventually and we were off up the New England singing and texting, and the boys were wide eyed at everything.
We stopped off at various places, the Murray, Dubbo. Brock saying Tubbo was "asgusting" as we had gone into a restaurant there and I had dashed to the loo and was met with wall to wall stench and backed out.
I warned the waiting Yvette, her bladder out of control, and we sat and waited for someone to exit the Ladies. A huge lady exiting finally and we still waited and dashed in, holding our noses, laughing, sure the lady had to have lost half of her body weight, it was truly terrible.
The boys said their loo had been no better, so "Tubbo was asgusting. "
The boys barely bickered and it was excrutiatingly hot, but my little Hyundai had a great little air conditioner in it, and they slept a lot too.
We took all our own snacks and handed them out and played eye spy, and Spotto, for every mini or VW we saw and they started to cheat, naming motor bikes and trucks as Spotto's and we didn't allow it.
We pointed out all the landmarks and Yvette who was going to take half the driving decided her belly was too sore, and I would be doing all the driving. I just kept pushing to get to Coonabarabran and we arrived at eight that night, jumping into the warm pool fully clothed.
It was like being in a warm bath, and we realised a couple of the boys were not strong swimmers so we spent an hour or so teaching them how to dog paddle and then swim out to the wall.
It was heaven to crawl into bed that night, and we all zonked out, immediately. Up early the next morning and on the road again. The weather getting hot and humid and crossing into Queensland, stopping at Toowoomba and stretching our legs and taking photos of the boys in the middle of the huge roundabout.
It was stunningly hot, no breeze, and we played in a park and took them to a cool Supermarket and filled their tummies with drinks and devon sandwiches. And within half an hour of the soft drink we were trying to calm them down as they were bouncing.
But we made it to Beachmere, where my younger sister and family lived, by 3 in the afternoon, so we hadn't done too badly for time.And we'd arrived intact, not hitting any kangaroos,
Love Janette
We decided to go to Queenslamd Yvette and I, she was heavily pregnant with her fifth child and "fed up" and a trip was what we needed.
Deciding to fly Kyle, 13, up with the bags and us to drive with the three little boys, Zach, 8, Brock 7 and Jai 5. We wanted them to see the "real Australia" on the road, not viewed from a plane.
We wanted them to see the vastness and appreciate the quietness of the space and air and sky.
I would have slept them under the stars as well, but we were two women traveling on their own with little kids, so we were booked in to places and stayed in contact with everyone by mobile.
We wanted the adventure and the challenges, growing stagnant in our lives, all problematic, and wanting to leave them behind'
So we did, we took off at 4am one Sunday morning, prior to Christmas, the boys on holidays and bouncing with the excitement. So delighted to have had their Christmas early, mum buying them a PS2 and they had crowed with delight. PS2,
like it was to be bowed in front of.
Yvette was convinced she knew the way out of the city. So we got lost and headed the wrong way as everything had changed since she had driven and it was years for me too, so we ended up in Seymour and were way out of the way.
But we found our way eventually and we were off up the New England singing and texting, and the boys were wide eyed at everything.
We stopped off at various places, the Murray, Dubbo. Brock saying Tubbo was "asgusting" as we had gone into a restaurant there and I had dashed to the loo and was met with wall to wall stench and backed out.
I warned the waiting Yvette, her bladder out of control, and we sat and waited for someone to exit the Ladies. A huge lady exiting finally and we still waited and dashed in, holding our noses, laughing, sure the lady had to have lost half of her body weight, it was truly terrible.
The boys said their loo had been no better, so "Tubbo was asgusting. "
The boys barely bickered and it was excrutiatingly hot, but my little Hyundai had a great little air conditioner in it, and they slept a lot too.
We took all our own snacks and handed them out and played eye spy, and Spotto, for every mini or VW we saw and they started to cheat, naming motor bikes and trucks as Spotto's and we didn't allow it.
We pointed out all the landmarks and Yvette who was going to take half the driving decided her belly was too sore, and I would be doing all the driving. I just kept pushing to get to Coonabarabran and we arrived at eight that night, jumping into the warm pool fully clothed.
It was like being in a warm bath, and we realised a couple of the boys were not strong swimmers so we spent an hour or so teaching them how to dog paddle and then swim out to the wall.
It was heaven to crawl into bed that night, and we all zonked out, immediately. Up early the next morning and on the road again. The weather getting hot and humid and crossing into Queensland, stopping at Toowoomba and stretching our legs and taking photos of the boys in the middle of the huge roundabout.
It was stunningly hot, no breeze, and we played in a park and took them to a cool Supermarket and filled their tummies with drinks and devon sandwiches. And within half an hour of the soft drink we were trying to calm them down as they were bouncing.
But we made it to Beachmere, where my younger sister and family lived, by 3 in the afternoon, so we hadn't done too badly for time.And we'd arrived intact, not hitting any kangaroos,
Love Janette
