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...
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