All over bar the shouting

Well, we are back home now (boo hoo) and pretty much straight back into it. But let me recap the final leg of our journey.....

Day 12
We left Albury headed for Melbourne to visit relatives (the Butlers). We had a final breaky of bacon and eggs, much to Mark's disgust as he wanted to get out a bit earlier, but both the kids and I were up for it! We eventually left just after 10am.

Heading down the Hume Hwy (one of the most boring roads I have driven on.....maybe because I have driven it MANY times), I was lamenting about all the towns that are now bypassed. Yes, I agree that when you want to get from point A to point B in a hurry, major arterials like the Hume are great. But the towns along the Hume that have been bypassed have not always done well and some are a mere shadow of what they were. I don't want to really mention any in particular, because as soon as I do, someone from that town will be on me like a shot saying how the town is fine, but I reckon you can all understand what I mean. As a result of these bypasses, great monoliths have sprung up, usually adorned with a giant golden "M" or similar. Sigh.....

We took some of the backroads and called in to some of the towns - Euroa for example, where we had lunch. Mark said we were travelling route 66 (for those that have seen "Cars" you'll know what I mean!).

We headed to Melbourne via Alexandra, Marysville and surrounds to see how things were recovering after the devastating fires earlier in the year. OMG. I hadn't been up this way for a few years (I think the last time was when played waterpolo for the last time at Alex back in about 2001) and I was gobsmaked. It was really hard to get your bearings, particularly in Marysville where hardly any of the buildings survived and all the trees are gone. As mentioned in earlier posts from this year, Mark fought fires up at the Alexandra fire and he was interested to see how it can recovered. I am no tree expert, but from what I could see from the ute, many of the trees on the Cathedral Range looked dead.

Leaving this sad, but recovering area, we headed to Beaconsfield. For the first time for the whole trip (my opinion only), the GPS did it's job. I really didn't think about how to get there from NE Vic, but it directed us to drop from Marysville through the Black Spur, down to Emerald and then to Beaconsfield. Easy!

We spent the next couple of nights with family, not doing very much but catching up. Mark hadn't been down to see the Butlers since early December last year and I hadn't been there since April, so it was nice to catch up. We just parked the van out the front and hooked up to their power!

On Sunday, we packed up and headed home. Everyone was a bit quiet and like the end of all trips, it was a bit sad to drive in the front gate.

Here it is Wednesday and the van is still not 100% unpacked. Life on the farm started the moment we drove in the gate - Mark was out to look at a cow, I was sorting bills getting ready to pay... Mark's eyes have started to play up again, and in the last couple of days have gunked up again and are blood red. Even the cows are looking at him funny. If he's not careful, he'll get pulled out for a vet treatment the next time Mike comes to look at one of the cows!!

So that's it. Our first family holiday with Biddy and the caravan. I'm happy to say that everything went better than I expected (with the kids and the van). Thanks to those that have followed my ramblings. We are now looking forward to planning our next trip which is to Darwin to catch up with the Stevenson's in mid March 2010. In the meantime, we have harvest, Colac show, Mark's back operation, Biddy's birthday, Christmas and the usually madness that accompanies our general lives!