Where to start? I can’t really believe that this time next week we will already have spent our first few nights on the road! Very surreal that something we have been planning for two years is actually happening!!! I don’t think it had really sunk in that we were leaving until we saw the tow track struggling to lift the container filled with all of our belongings, onboard. Even more surreal is the fact that container is now sitting in Far North Queensland waiting for us to relocate up there at the end of our trip!
Filled to the brim!
Padlock on for the first time – we unlocked at least three times to squeeze in last items nearly forgotten!
Unloading in Far North Qld
Last week was a huge week filled with the final (hooray!) packing and cleaning! I must say a huge thank you to my Mum who did the lion’s share of the cleaning of our house while I finished the packing and ran around after the kids. We were soooooo lucky she was here – it was a huge job in the end – we hadn’t realised how big our house was and how much wall space, blinds and windows there were to clean, and how lacking my housework had been!!! I don’t think our house has ever been cleaner – it was tempting to just move back in and live in it all sparkly and fresh! We managed to squish all off our belongings in to the container but only just!!
We enjoyed the last moments with our fireplace – pizza picnic on the last night in our house – we spent our first night in our house this same way five years ago!
We moved in to our neighbours house last Friday, which is where we will spend most of this week, house-sitting, petsitting and childminding while they are away. The kids are having a ball but I am finding that washing, making lunches and breakfasts and dinners for five kids is testing my organisational skills hehehehe! We were so appreciative though to have a house with a fridge, beds and carpet, a shed to put the camper in and dump all of our yet to be packed stuff, after camping out in our house for the last ten days or so! Eeeek – I am now a bit worried about how I am going to last on the road if I felt this grateful to be in a fully functional house after only 10 days of ‘semi camping’!!!!!
Fealy & Sheil kids at ‘Sheil Farm’
We handed over our keys on Saturday to the new residents of ‘our house’, which was a relief on one hand that the packing/moving was over but sad to being saying goodbye to our home on the other. It was very strange seeing a removal truck there today and turning into the driveway across the road is very strange too!! Saturday afternoon was spent enjoying the freedom of not having a looming deadline and a mountain of work to do!
Kids final play on their fort
On Sunday we headed to the local pub for a very laid back farewell lunch with friends and family. I need to write a seperate post on how grateful we are to all the friends and family that have been soooooo good to us over the last 5 years that we have lived in Samford. We feel so thankful to you all and hope that you will know how much we appreciate your kindness and support as we have prepared for this trip! We got some very clever and thoughtful gifts including some handmade place-mats for each of us to use in the camper, itunes cards for the kids, a care package of snacks, wipes, and pencils, along with some lovely cards.
Farewell lunch
Friends, family and fun
Very hard to be leaving my little sister behind – we love ya Kate – you’ll have to find someone else’s pantry to raid on weekends now!
Goodbye Johnson Family – thanks for the good times!!
This week is still super busy! We need to pack the camper – everything is currently in our neighbour’s house or shed and now needs to go into the camper – there still seems to be a lot of ‘stuff’ depsite my best efforts to be ruthless in my trip packing! I hope it all fits in!! Today we had the roof racks for the car replaced by Tigerz11 as they were rusting! Hopefully this one will be ok!
Rusting roof racks!
Tomorrow we need to take a panel of the camper wall over to have a tear repaired, as well as have our spare tyre fitted to the Prado rim we were generously given as a loan for the trip. Other than that lots of small jobs like finalising our mail redirection, last meetings with the kids teacher’s, finalise car and camper insurance, buying a new camping chair each for Matt & I, some grocery shopping for the road, haircuts. beauty treatments, organise a present for Lex for her birthday, birthday cupcakes for kindy and oh I don’t know, heaps more stuff that I can’t remember!! Oh, and the small detail that we still haven’t sold our little Toyota Yaris which is the petrol money for our trip – very stressful! And we still haven’t found a home for our cat Slinky yet either!! Nothing like going down to the wire I guess!!! We are still planning to leave Samford on Saturday, the 1st of June, but will probably only make it over to the other side of Brisbane at this stage as we are hoping to say hello to Matt’s little brother who is flying back in to Australia that day after nearly five months in Europe.
So close now and we are getting very excited!!!
Anybody able to adopt or foster our cat Slinky?
Slinky – 5 yrs old femaie desexed
Very child friendly cat!
Or want to buy our little car?
http://www.carsales.com.au/private/details/toyota-yaris-2010-14833838
You’re almost there!! How very exciting for your family! I hope you are able to find a good home for your kitty. I would most definitely take her for you if I weren’t in a different country… We travel with our kitty and I am sure he would love a new friend. 🙂 Best of luck with your final week and I look forward to your official launch!!
Whew, I feel exhausted reading this post!! However, having been on the road for over two years now, I can confidently say that you will actually get all those odd jobs done and leave as planned. Packing up our life was far more stressful than we had anticipated. My only advice would be to aim for somewhere not too far away to stop and breathe for a week-10 days before you really get going. It will make a huge difference to the rest of your trip to actually destress first.
I’m exhausted too reading this but am sure that everything will fall into place! We can’t wait to see you and help you unwind in Winton! Get that theme song ready to go as you drive out of Brisbane and forward into the great blue yonder…..