The Udder Life: The home stretch

For those that have been following this blog religiously (!), I apologise for the break in transmission. Isn't it always the way though, when you get home, normality kicks in and it is difficult to actually wind up your holiday? The caravan is still sitting out in the dairy yard waiting to be completely unpacked and have the remains of locusts washed off it, and we have been unpacking clothes as we find a need for them! Just last night (a week after our return) I was hunting around in the van for kids medicine!!!

But, back to the holiday. The last post took us up to Day 29, or Friday 16th April, and saw us spend our last day in Mildura. Day 30 became a feature of our whole trip and not in the best sense neither!

We packed up and got out of Mildura by mid morning. The locusts were so bad (and we'd had reports that they were as far south as Horsham) that we stopped at Bunnings to get some mesh to cover the front of the ute to try and keep them off the radiator somewhat. We then decided to head for Halls Gap for the night and do some scenic driving through the Grampians.

Stopping at Laschelles (just north of Horsham) for lunch, we found this free (?) caravan park that had a beaut little playground next to it, and the cleanest toilets I had almost been in, complete with showers. All of this is accessible to the public, but given the population of Laschelles, I doubt they have many problems with abuse of facilities. Anyway, we stopped here to give the kids a break and to have lunch. All which went very well.....until.....

After clearing everything away and watching the kids and Mark play on the equipment, I thought that I could also have a bit of a play. Now I am 7.5mths pregnant, have absolutely NO concept of where my centre of gravity is, and have tripped, stumbled and fell my way through most of this trip. There was one of those small little roundabout things with the pole up the centre and I stupidly stood on it. It twisted, my ankle twisted and I did not twist. Result, a very badly injured ankle.

Imagine this if you will. I am in hysterical tears because of the pain in my ankle and leg, Tom realises that I am injured and rushes down the the steps of the slide, falling in the process and scraping his back. He is now crying hysterically. Biddy takes one look at us and because mummy is crying, she starts bawling too. Mark is simply trying to contain his laughter. In order to keep a check on things, he takes Biddy, and puts her into the carseat, pinching her stomach in the carseat straps in the process. So now she is howling legitimately from the pain of that. A lady that lives in the house next door appears at the car (by which at this point, I have hopped to - again, not the best of things to do when pregnant), to see if there is anything she can do because she heard all the kerfuffle!

Given that there was nothing that any of us could really do, we put ice on it, I took a couple of Panadeine Forte and we got going, thinking we would reassess at Horsham. It would be at this point we would have to make the decision about going to Halls Gap or coming straight home. Because, if I couldn't stand on it, then I couldn't get to the toilet and I need to go to the toilet LOTS!!!!! By Horsham, the painkillers had kicked in, but so had the swelling. Mark wrapped it up and through clenched teeth and a feeling of nausea, I hopped to the toilet. Ok, let's just go to Halls Gap. I didn't want to holiday to end like this.

We had just clicked over 10,000kms by this point, and I can honestly say that the most scenic and interesting driving we did was the stretch from Horsham through the Grampians to Halls Gap. Stunning areas. DSE were doing some burn offs in the northern Grampians and it added to the scenic nature somewhat.

When we got to the caravan park, I told Mark that whilst we had not taken advantage of ensuite sites at all throughout our trip, if there was ever a need for one, tonight was the night! This meant, I only had to stumble 5m instead of maybe 100m in the middle of the night!

Sore ankle!

So Mark looked after all of us that night - setting up, shopping for dinner, cooking, cleaning, bathing kids etc...I should have injured my ankle weeks ago!! It was lovely being looked after!! Ha ha ... Distance travelled today: (will get back)

Day 31 and our last day. A bit sad for all of us, but the pain in my ankle (which is now blacking up quite nicely) tugs at my sensibility to get home ASAP. We left Halls Gap and tootled home stopping in Mortlake for lunch and getting home early afternoon. Distance travelled today; (will get back).

Locusts all over front of ute

Not sure if you can see, but the van is covered in squashed locusts!

All in all, we travelled a total of 10382.2kms and didn't have one tyre puncture, one mishap with the ute or van, and had one hellova time. We are already looking forward to our next extended trip, although with the arrival of #3, we now have to change our towing vehicle because we can't fit 3 carseats in the ute. So whilst we look forward to welcoming another baby into the family in a few short weeks, we will also be welcoming a new car as well!

Oh, and to just wrap up the ankle situation......I went to A&E on Monday and after 5.5hrs and an x-ray, found out that it is largely tendon and ligament damage and I need to keep it up and off it! A subsequent visit to my own doctor later in the week revealed that the damage was so much that it really should have been placed in plaster and me on crutches for around 2 weeks. But it is on the mend now, and whilst it is still extremely painful (and colourful), I am able to hobble around.