Will's Birthday Party

Remarkable as it seems, our baby boy is now 5 - we had a little party at Sparrow Park for him the weekend after we got back from our trip. Thought of course it would be hot and sunny - which it was - but what we didn't count on was the galeforce winds whipping across the park... and the grit and sand flying around...




Everything tried to blow away - table cloth, napkins, sandwiches... children! We didn't even get close to lighting candles, but Will pretended to blow them out anyway. And the kids had a great time playing on the climbing frames at the park and hunting for pirate loot bags we had hidden about the park... and then taped down so they couldn't blow away!



Grannie Jenny and Auntie Kim were also in attendance, having arrived a few days before from the UK. But I don't have any pictures - I think I was too busy trying to hold things down...

Jan 22nd - 26th - Echuca and Home, or Why Sometimes You Are Just Supposed to be Somewhere

So, as I said, we were pretty much stuck in the van for a while after we arrived - the wind and dust were still so bad that the children had to put on their swim goggles to go to the toilet block - so we had to amuse ourselves in the van. This is Phoebe sitting in the sink - I really don't know why - and also Phoebe being SpiderPig - which she and the other children thought was hilarious...

Eventually the wind died down a little and, under pressure from the kids, we decided to venture into the pool at the caravan park - which, considering the amount of dust and leaves therein, was fairly brave in itself, but the kids were game so off we headed.

Had been in about 45 mins and were contemplating heading off when things went very wrong - turned around to see a man attempting to haul his apparently unconscious daughter out of the pool - Nick leapt into action to help, and I rounded up children as other people tried to calm the girl's hysterical sister, and someone else called an ambulance. So there I was, in the pool, holding three out of four children, watching Nick give CPR and thinking 'What the hell happened? This was a teenage girl of at least 5' 7", in a very small and shallow pool (you can see the rough size in pic below), having a laugh with her dad and sister, and surrounded by probably 25 other people. How could she possibly have drowned?

It was so surreal watching it all unfold - and the kids saying 'What's daddy doing?' - and I pretty much stayed put for a couple of minutes, partly because I was a bit shell shocked, and partly because I honestly expected the girl to cough up some water and be fine, but as it became apparent that that was not going to happen, I got out and started gathering towels, shoes and other bits and pieces which seemed to take so long - and by now I really wanted to get the kids out of there!! And all the time all I could hear was Nick (now aided by two nurses also staying at the park) feeding info to the ambulance dispatcher via someone else - snippets like GCS of 3, not breathing, no pulse... and by the time I left the pool I reckon they had been doing CPR for 10 minutes already.

So I went back to the van and waited - saw the ambulance come and go, and still no sign of Nick. So I drank a few glasses of wine for medicinal purposes... And after a couple of hours he reappeared having accompanied the girl to the hospital. Turns out that when the ambulance arrived, they couldn't get her heart or breathing stabilised even with defibrillator and oxygen, so Nick and one of the nurses went in the ambulance to lend a hand. And straight after getting to Echuca hospital, she was transferred by road to ITU in Melbourne - should have been a helicopter but the wind was still too strong.

At this point no-one was any the wiser what on earth had happened to her. We wondered if she had had a fit, inhaled a leaf, hit her head... In any case, Nick was very pesssimistic about her long term prospects having been down as long as she was - probably 25-30 mins all in before tha ambulance even got there.

Didn't hear anything else till a couple of days later, when the nurse who was helping came by to say that, after piecing family history together and having some extra tests run in Melbourne, it turned out that the girl had a previously undiagnosed heart condition and had apparently had a heart attack in the pool due to the exertion of racing her sister. In a way this at least helped make sense of what happened, but she was still under sedation and the prognosis was not good.

The night before we left Echuca, we discovered that she had regained consciousness, and could recognise family members, but could not speak. It looked like she would have a very long road ahead of her in rehab.

Or, at least, that's what we thought till the other day (end of Feb) when Nick got a phone call from the girl's dad - to say that she had had an internal pacemaker fitted, was totally fine and had been given the all-clear to return to school on Monday!! Nick was totally stunned and really chuffed. And I love my hubby - he rocks!! Obviously we were meant to get to Echuca a day earlier than planned...

Fortunately the rest of our stay in Echuca was considerably less eventful. We went wandering through town the next day - a really beautiful old Victorian town, but so dry and dusty - I can't imagine how beautiful it would look if it were green. And it was bakingly hot too - poor kids, I think we made them walk for miles!



The town is full of great little gift shops, cafes, restaurants, and lots and lots of cellar-door wine tasting... Because the area around Echuca is so dry, they are big producers of dessert wines like Muscat - which just so happens to be one of my favourite drinks - and some pretty hefty reds, and I'm pretty fond of those too...



The Murray River meanders through town and it's very popular to rent a houseboat in Echuca and spend a couple of weeks floating lazily on the Murray. Along the riverside, old-fashioned vehicles offer trips, and of course there are all the paddle steamers to choose from - we went on the Pride of the Murray. There wasn't any particular reasoning behind that, it just happened to be the one leaving next! Ella was sound asleep in the pram when we got on the boat, and woke up about five minutes before we docked, and was very confused... Are we on a boat? Umm, yes, but not for long...

There was also a bar on the boat - actually, it's Australia, there are bars in all kinds of places - so Nick and I had a beer and watched the (river) world go by. The river is extremely low just now - the last big flood was in 93, but it's hard to imagine how that would even be possible - I reckon the water is at least 40 or 50 feet below the top of the riverbank right now.










Children demanding drinks upon leaving the boat, so we stumbled upon Oscar W's - a gem of a place right on the river with great food, great service and great live entertainment. Sat outside and had a cold beer (barman most amused by query as to the availability of pints.... but beer just sold in silly little glasses in Echuca) whilst the childfren propped up the bar, amused themselves by licking tube-shaped ice cubes on their straws and amused the barman with their accents...




We loved the look of the menu so much that we booked to come back for dinner later that evening - it was fantastic - dinner out in a very swanky but totally unstuffy restaurant, with four impeccably behaved children. And the chef made them calamari specially, so they were in heaven....


This pic is Nick outside with the children - he looks a bit fried actually - and the next one is Will eating his chocolate/banana/ice cream dessert. The whole restaurant sang him Happy Birthday for the next day, and that is why he is looking a bit sheepish!

This is a picture of James concentrating on something at the table - probably colouring - and as usual, his tongue is poking out as he thinks really hard!!








The next morning was Will's actual birthday - we had promised him a new bike so that he would no longer look like a hamster on a wheel, but obviously couldn't get him one whilst travelling, so he was quite happy with the promise of one upon return to Geelong. He did get other bits and pieces too like Bionicles, books, Star Wars figures and DS games, and as a special birthday treat Nick made pancakes ( I don't think there was enough batter for a 'P') and then took them off to the cinema to see Bolt.


From then on the day went significantly downhill - Will was sick after the cinema, which we originally put down to too many sweeties, until it happened again, and then Ella started!! So poor Will spent most of his birthday throwing up, accompanied by Ella, and Nick and I spent most of Will's birthday cleaning up! We toyed with the idea of driving home early - could have been in Geelong in 2 1/2 hours - but decided to see how things panned out, and sure enough, the rest of us were all fine, and as you can see, we were back in the pool the next day, which was our last day in Echuca.

Headed into town again that evening, and ended up back at Oscar W's - in spite of the fact that they were 'full' and turning people away at the door, they 'found' us a space and fed us in style again. Probably the best restaurant we have been to in Australia by miles. Spiked James' hair before going out - hadn't realised quite how long it actually was... Scary thing is that when I met Nick, his hair was just as longand a similar (if somewhat neater) style...


Walked home and had a special 'Happy Birthday' sing song and cake as we had had to postpone it the previous day - Can't take any credit for the cake, it was a Safeway special, but I did tart it up a bit! It was extremely tasty...

And that, as they say is that. The end of the trip - the next morning we drove back to Melbourne and handed back the van. Am I glad we did the trip? Absolutely. Was I sick of the van by the end of it? Absolutely! Would I ever do it again - probably not!! Only just coped with four small children, but they keep on getting bigger... Got pretty sick of making (ie constructing) our bed every night, only ONCE managed to remember to secure all doors before travelling, and never want to smell another chemical toilet as long as I live.

Oh, and about the kangaroos - saw two, about an hour north of Melbourne. Turns out we really didn't need the 3500km round trip then...

Jan 20th - Surfer's Paradise to Echuca, or Big Roads, Big Dust, and a Whole Heap of Empty

I could equally have entitled this post 'How to Miss Every Major Milestone Including Two Big Guitars and One Enormous Radio Telescope' or even 'How to Come as Close to Running out of Petrol as I Ever Want to Come'. But more about all of that in a minute...

We had decided not to head back south the way we had come as (a) we fancied a bit of variety and (b) we had only three days to make it to Echuca and needed the most direct route and (c) we hadn't seen a single (live) kangaroo since leaving Geelong and knew that we could remedy that inland.

We drove down the coast as far as Ballina then headed inland along the Bruxner Highway as far as Glen Innes - remember, the one in competition with Maclean for the 'We're more Scottish than you are prize? Well, I can state for the record that Glen Innes has no tartan lamposts, and although it is surrounded by towns called Dundee, Glencoe and Ben Lomond, it's also surrounded by towns called Llangothlin, Bolivia and Wandsworth, and a miniature Stonehenge. So not more Scottish than Maclean then, just a bit confused....

We then headed south on the New England Highway as far as Armidale - our planned stop for the night (and, I can advise, a WHOLE lot prettier than the Scottish Armadale...) this is when the roads got really straight... We could see for miles and were bound to see a kangaroo soon! Or not, as it turned out - got to Armidale with barely sight of another car, let alone wildlife , and parked up for the night. Armidale was really stunning, though we only saw it on the way out the next morning - Nick was joking around saying 'I bet they don't need any Orthopaedic surgeons here, just as we passed the sign saying 'University Hospital...' One to bear in mind for the future maybe!

So we headed off early towards Tamworth, Country Music Capital of Australia - planning to see another 'Big' on the list - the Big Golden Guitar. I mean, you couldn't miss it, right? Well, except of course if you were going through Tamworth during the annual Country Music Festival, and consequently were siphoned around the closed-off centre of town and saw only a couple of supermarkets, petrol stations and overpasses. Ah well, never mind - we'll be passing another Big Guitar later...

Joined the Newell Highway at Coonabarabran and kept heading south aiming for Forbes and planning to pass the big Radio Telescope at Parkes on the way - that would make up for the pesky guitar!

Passed through some very empty, desolate looking country on the way - and a great rain storm - and no bloody kangaroos either!! Had 160km of petrol left in the tank after leaving Dubbo (which is, incidentally, the best thing to do to Dubbo) and desided to push on to Parkes 120km away... Briefly considered getting fuel a couple of places outside of Dubbo, but the strains of Deliverance were too strong in our heads.... and then, we discovered that the concept of diustance left in a tank of fuel is somewhat elastic.....

As we neared the Radio Telescope turn off, we had 'lost' 25km worth of fuel somewhere and had only 35km left in the tank - it was 20km to Parkes, and 5km down to the telescope and 5 back.... so after a quick bit of mental arithmetic, we did a quick swerve away from the turn off and kept going.

Nevertheless, 20km on 35km worth of fuel? Not hugely worried yet, except, that is, until, we got stuck behind a slow moving truck on a twisty, uphill stretch of road.... and watched the fuel gauge go down 4 k's at a time.... 12 km to go, 16 km in the tank, 11 km to go, 12km in the tank, 10 km and 8, 9 km and 4... and by the time we had 8 km to go, the fuel gage read zero. Pretty stressed, but still, to be honest, I was thinking we would probably make it - don't cars always have a bit in reserve?? And then we started struggling up a long hill... there was NO fuel... Had visions of being stranded in the middle of nowhere with four hot and cranky children waiting for the next (a) helpful trucker, (b) NRMA patrol or (c) psycho axe murderer to come along. Don't know how Nick coaxed the van to the top of that hill, but he did, and then, like an oasis in the desert, we saw a petrol station about 500 yards down the hill. We had so little fuel we actually had to COAST in.... Not an experience I ever want to repeat!

Spent that night in Forbes about 30 km further down the road and left early again the next morning to set off for Echuca - stopped for Breakfast in Narrandera where (in theory) we should have seen another Big Guitar - but it was hot, we got sidetracked, and we photographed the 'Big Bum Trees' instead (my children named them...)




Kept driving through some increasingly windy conditions, and every truck that went by in the other direction nearly blew us off the road, and we could see a dusty looking horizon - but nothing prepared us for the dust storm we ran into after Jerilderie!


Not a driving experience I think Nick will ever want to repeat - as it turned out, a fairly unusual occurrence, but we didn't know that when we were driving - we wondered if it was always like that! Got to Echuca and everything was covered in dust - had to just sit in the van and wait for it to stop blowing... And yes, we still hadn't seen a single kangaroo!

Jan 16th - Maclean to Surfer's Paradise - or Goodness, what a big prawn...

So we left to head north to Surfers' Paradise - late, obviously - and per recommendation from James and Lesley, stopped for a late lunch at the Macadamia Castle. No really - look... All things macadamia. And lots of things not macadamia. Soft toys, smelly soap and the like. But a nice lunch though. There's an animal park there too, but since it was only open another half hour and they still wanted to charge full entry price, we didn't bother...

And we passed the big prawn in Ballina (Now, I should have mentioned that we had already passed the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour on the way to Maclean, but the photo didn't come out. The Australians have an obsession with building big fibreglass statues of - well - just about anything really - see here for more details... Mention of more Big Things soon!



Countryside still stunning, still green...

So we arrived at Treasure Island holiday park about 6 and headed straight to the pool - and, as if by magic, all of a sudden, Will could swim. But only for half an hour - he hasn't repeated it since. The problem we have with our children at the moment is that Will can swim and thinks he can't, and Ella can't swim and thinks she can.... Ah, the joys.

Had dinner at the restaurant on site where the cricket also happened to be on.... And Australia lost... Again!! To South Africa. There was some very quiet 'yay-ing' coming from our table... And a lot of glum looking Aussies.





The next day Richard and Kaliki and their children Robbie and Asta all came to visit us at the park - so we spent the morning around the pool again, and the afternoon around the barbecue. Haven't seen R and K since 2001, so much catching up was done again. I should also point out how grateful we were to them for driving 5(!) hours south to see us. We would love to have gone as far as Hervey Bay to see them - by all accounts, it's a stunning place, but we simply didn't have enough time - that would have been another 10 hours driving for us and we were cutting it fine for getting back to Melbourne on time as it was.

Got up early the next day and met up with them again at Seaworld. Of course we were late... And almost had an altercation with a car park height-restriction barrier... Almost...





We never had any intention of doing any of the other theme parks as the kids are too small for most of the rides, but we really enjoyed Seaworld. We didn't even mention to the kids before we got to Queensland that we were going anywhere involving theme parks of any description - there was already enough 'Are we there yet?' without adding in When are we going to Seaworld?'



Saw polar bears, a fantastic dolphin show where we had front row seats, took the kids on flume rides (twice, in fact), saw pelicans, sharks, tropical fish, swam in the swimming pool, went on water slides... And it was actually CHILLY when we were at the pool - only we could get a chilly day in Queensland!

The kids were so impressed to stand on the Toasted TV stage - Toasted TV is the Saturday am show for kids here and it's always broadcast from Seaworld...

Went to the beach the next day - well, you couldn't go to Surfers' Paradise and not go to the beach, could you?


James perfected his boogie board skills, and Will proved pretty capable too - and Nick had a go, but suspected that he could probably do with a bigger board. Really, you think????




The beach was really quiet as the Queensland children had gone back to school, but pretty windy and the currents were really strong in the waves. Still, sandy, windblown children make for great photos....

And that was the end of our trip North - time to start heading back down.....