13 hours to go…

It is definitely time to go home. The kids miss the dogs, and Inara wants her bed. She actually got the best sleep out of us all as she got lots of cuddles in bed with either myself or Josh most of the evenings. She didn’t even have to share with her brother once!

Since we arrived late into Forster we didn’t get to see the town, so in the morning before our longest drive yet, we needed to check it out.

The kids got their scooters out after we packed up the car and we walked along the river boardwalk and then back to Forster beach.

Forster is a coastal town, it could even be called a fishing village, that has 15k residents. There wasn’t many new builds and it had very 70’s looking buildings and houses. There was all types of cuisine offered and even though our lamb dinner from the Persian restaurant was good, I’m kicking myself that we didn’t get fish and chips.

The walk on the river had boats to rent, and fishing shops that sell coffee. My favourite shopfront rented boats, sold oysters and wine and cheese to eat on an aluminum frame barge. We found the caravan park, right near the beach, and I will definitely be there again.

The kids were over it by now and wanted to get going. I decided to walk the bridge while Josh and the kids went to the Woolies for lunch. I had a great walk across the bridge, where I took in the beautiful views of the mouth of the river colliding with the ocean. To make the last moment of our trip special, I even saw 4 dolphins in the channel.

Today is a long drive … 12 hours with stops.. we left at 10am. This is my longest drive in one go, and of course the kids as well, but josh did do a drive from Brisbane to Melbourne in one go, many years ago.

Overview of the trip:
The kids did really well. They had their moments and I think Josh was over the excessive talking and story telling, but it wasn’t a holiday I regret going on. To make the holiday a bit better for us we did sort of bribe the kids that they will get money at the end of the trip if they have been good. Each time they fought, or weren’t kind, or gave back chat, they lost $1. I think it worked and I expected to give them very little but it looks like they are pocketing $75 of the $100.

I loved the NSW surf coast, I had no idea it was so beautiful. The great dividing range goes all the way from the Grampians, Victoria all the way up to Northern QLD. The drive always had beautiful views to look out upon. The Great dividing range is the 5th longest mountain range in the world, and the longest in one country.
The beaches are big and and had so many lookouts to see the coastline. There were plenty of river crossings that dumped into the Tasman sea or Coral sea.

NSW is full of cows. So many cows…

If we had more time, maybe a week more would be ideal, I would have liked to have stayed in Port Macquarie rather than Coffs Harbour. I would have liked smaller car rides which then we could have stayed in Ballina or Brunswick head and a day to two more in other locations. The kids said they wanted more room in the car and to bring the trailer but they don’t realise the trailer would slow us down.

We finally made it, with a few more stops that needed but we have learned on this trip that Brandon has a small bladder. We made three petrol stops, our first time on the trip that the petrol light came on. We stopped for dinner in Albury having Zambreros. We did find an American Lolly store so the kids bought airheads and i splurged and got Arizona Iced Tea.

Odometer leaving: 113161
Odometer arrival: 114324
Total today: 1163km
Total trip: 4253kmRead more