We are off - no turning back!

11th August 2014

This is it. The van is packed, the kids are busting to get moving (probably so they can stop in 30 minutes time to go to the loo !).

All final checks that everything is packed and the van is secure, and off we go. The car feels like it is struggling a bit on some of the hills between Mt Barker and Murray Bridge, but I quickly realised that overdrive wasn't designed for towing up hills.... and yes I did know that already, just had a brain fade.

After travelling for what seemed like hours, it was announced that I needed to stop for a loo break.... at Tailem Bend..... (stay calm Barry ). 

Next stop we got "all the way" to Lameroo (170 Km away). Decided it would be a good place to divert the kids attention away for a while from their ipads and into a bit of a history lesson. The town has done a great job of making a couple of bridges and other displays using artefacts from its foundation days such as railway pegs, old spanners, rabbit traps etc .

Off we started again, only to stop 35 minutes later for one of those cheesy tourist photos at the Victorian border (see pic below). Had to do it!

Next stop was at Ouyen. The sole reason for stopping here was to try the Vanilla Slice that was supposedly announced as the "Best Ever" by Jeff Kennet...... Meh... not convinced. Tasted like a vanilla slice to me. It was great however to be able to just open up the van and get stuff out for lunch instead of having it packed in the bottom of an esky floating in icy water.

We started trundling along and became a bit wary that because we had to divert around the Tooleybuc bridge for repairs via Nyah, it was going to be cold and just that bit too far to get to Balranald, so we stopped at a little town on the river banks called Wood Wood..... because we could could ! Was chatting to the owner of the van park a little later, only to find the bridge was only closed between 9am - 3:30 pm....... Grrrrr. Either way, this was a lovely quiet little spot - albeit old and undergoing lots of repairs - and we got to see a rather amazing houseboat pull up which gave us yet another great photo opportunity

So all in all, what was touted as a 452km , 5 hour and 20 minute journey ended up taking us over 7 & 1/2 hours.....