Ahhhhh… and relax!!

I’m sitting here in the early morning, with a cup of tea, writing my blog just like I used to ‘before’. Before Bertha broke down and we traipsed through what feels like every single caravan park in Tasmania. Now the family is all reunited, our possessions are all in one place (I’ve got enough dry foodstuff to get us over the Nullabor at the moment!) and, best of all, we are all sleeping in our own beds!! The rest of the family are still asleep. That INCLUDES ANGUS which is a miracle in itself, considering its just gone 8am (which still counts as early these days!)

So we are here in the hills of Melbourne, in a stunning location which I won’t mention yet, as I am aware that this is the internet and we will be here for a about another 10 days. I’ll rave about it all after we have left. Suffice to say that I have gotten up, watched the baby bunnies frolic in the carpark, watched the parrots and rosellas eat, let out and fed the chooks and felt completely and wonderfully at home. Bliss!

Dunc and I had a lovely few days down in Tasmania on our run to collect a revitalized Bertha. Ironically, right before I came up with this hair-brained idea in August, Duncan was planning a quick weekend down there for the two of us. He was just about to book when we decided on a slight change of plan. So we very much enjoyed our little 4-day getaway, though we both missed the children terribly. They got to go to the NGV with Hilly and Pop and we got to fly to Launceston and drive to Hobart. We stopped at all the little antique stores on the way - that would have had the children moaning and complaining. We also visited the Cascade Brewery and the Female Factory which was the female version of Port Arthur. We had a guided tour there, which was great. But they also have a performance-based tour at 11am which sounds amazing. That would have been perfect for the kids, but sadly it was the exact same time as the brewery tour, and Dunc really ‘needed’ to see the brewery!

Bertha took an extra day due to a manifold issue, so we were able to wander all of the Art galleries in Salamanca Place – another thing that would have had the eyes rolling in the kid’s heads. We also spent a lovely hour or so over breakfast or morning tea every day in our favourite bakery. We spent an hour there right after Bertha broke down, surfing the net and figuring out what the hell we were going to do. It’s the most famous bakery in Battery Point and we highly recommend it:

We really felt like locals in the end. 9 weeks in Tasmania. No need to look at a map or GPS for Launceston or Hobart. We almost felt like we should vote in the upcoming election - our vote would go to whichever party will invest in improving the roads!!

And then we got Bertha back! We slept on board overnight in Steve’s yard, which gave us a chance to unpack, load the car into the trailer and clean up a bit. The fridge was just disgusting and the floor had obviously (and understandably) had mechanics tromping back and forth over it for weeks. We had THE BEST night’s sleep in our own bed, which was just as well as it was followed by THE WORST night’s sleep on the Spirit of Tasmania. It was a very smooth crossing, as far as the water conditions, but neither of us slept well. And we were woken at 4.55am to get ready to disembark. Yuck!

So here we are. Happy in our motorhome. Family reunited. We are going to stay in Melbourne for a week or so longer – we want to take the Bertha to school for show and tell and we have some shopping and provisioning to do. New hot water service, generator, EPIRB, etc. I'll be back with another post on Bertha soon - she's AMAZING now!!