September 11. Home and Statistics. It's all about the numbers

We had our longest day of driving for the trip. We were ready to be home. 421ks from Lake Hume stopping at Wangaratta for a driver change and Seymour for lunch and a driver change back. Funnily enough, Seymour provided the best sausage roll for the trip and Linda managed to get one more op shop purchase with a brand new dressmaker doll which could only fit because we were almost home. From there, we only had a quick pit stop on the Geelong road for petrol and an icecream, so we got back at a reasonable time, enabling us to reunite with Linda’s mum and then relax and reflect.

Statistics

Nights away: 69
Stops: 35 + a Melbourne side quest
Kilometres: 10,341
Litres per 100k’s: 13.65
Number of refills: 39
Petrol prices: High $2.45 / Low $1.59 / av. $1.95
Most K’s in a day: 426 – Albury to home.

Van Length: 5.5m including drawbar
Coldest night – 2 degrees – Yass x2 (it is near Canberra)
Warmest 35 – Port Douglas and surrounds.
Records bought: 27. Coffs Harbour and Charters Towers having hauls of 7 each.
Animals that were on warning signs that we did see: Crocodiles, a cassowary, kangaroos, horses, emus.
Animals that were on warning signs that we didn’t see: Koala’s, Drop Bears
Recorded Steps / K’s walked: 751,643 / 560ks

Thankful for:

Coming back to Melbourne for a weekend to see the boys and their partners to celebrate a major milestone. 10 weeks is a long time to be away, and previous trips the boys flew to meet us, this time we flew back to celebrate Alex and Tess’s engagement.

While we had cold, wind and rain at times, it was comparatively sparse and the new van let us hide away for the most part, so we weren’t too impacted. We missed 57mm at Bryon Bay by less than 24 hours and some poor weather on the coast by heading inland.

Health was generally good. Linda had an issue with midgies at 1770 which took a little while to resolve. I smashed my big toe into a sleeper as I rushed to the bathroom at half time in the footy at 1770 as well, but the level of painkiller already taken and wearing my slides helped mitigate the damage. Thankfully a lot less haemorrhoid cream was used to treat bites this time.

Issues with the van. We learned a lot, and while no disasters, there were a couple of sleepless nights.
- Losing battery power at 1:30am in the morning. At sunrise, we found it was a fuse coming loose.
- Battery running out at 3am in the morning and going into sleep mode. Woke it up by being able to use a solar blanket when the sun came up.
- Exhaust fan knocking on the housing. Fixed by shaving the housing with a Stanley knife.
- Remediated the awning with a full replacement of the 7m shock cord and tent poles.
- Carbon Monoxide monitor telling us it was at end of life by beeping incessantly until you pressed a button, every three days.
- Cover to the external power point has gone missing.
- Found that the sink is leaking a little bit when we arrived home

Car reliability. A few windscreen chips, but a rock from a passing truck as we came out of Brandybottle gave us almighty crack. Insurance covered it and was just inconvenient, so not a too big a deal. The passenger side window decided to not close as we rocked up to get the windscreen fixed. Subaru suggested bringing it to the dealer, but I cleaned the tracks and got it working again.

Trip Highlight. This is commonly asked and it is hard to pinpoint to one thing. It is exciting going to new places and experiencing new things, and having so much new stuff to do. It makes the days seem longer. It is amazing looking back and seeing what we have done the last 10 weeks, and it has created so many more shared experiences between Linda and I. Both of us being semi-retired and being able to do this with minimal restrictions is a highlight. We are very lucky to be able to do such a trip.