They Came From All Corners But Sydney Was Gridlocked

Our Mature Gap Year Continues As I Meet Up With The Rest Of The Family Again

Monday 30^th March 2009

Well, today my adventure in Melbourne ends and I have to fly back to Canberra to meet Sofia and the Kids.

So after getting up and packing my bag it’s time for me to walk into St Kilda where I grab some breakfast and then catch a tram to Melbourne Southern Cross station and then catch a coach to the airport.

The flight was delayed slightly but no worries as the Aussies would say and soon enough we are flying back to Canberra. It’s a short flight and apart from a bit of turbulence on the way down all is good.

As I had no checked luggage it was easy to get out of the airport and straight to the car park.

As I had been doing all this here’s what Sofia had been up to:-

Up and dressed, packed and then getting all the children’s stuff together which they had spread around over the past few days. We all enjoyed breakfast and then time for our goodbyes.

We all hope that we can get back for another visit before we leave from Sydney in May. At 11:30am we left and headed out to Canberra.

I had to stop for fuel before hitting the mountain, the petrol station was straight out of the Railway Children and they had a monster Rottweiler which was the size of a bear and it stood in the doorway.

We headed on to Braidwood and went to the bakery stopping for chocolate croissant and a steak and pepper pie, then it was back up the mountain with Madam le Satnav telling us to U – Turn all the way up as the road was so bendy she was convinced we were going the wrong way.

We got to the airport with twenty minutes to spare and had to go into the car park as Alan was late arriving.

And we are all together again.

Sofia was waiting with the car all nicely fitted with a new roof rack and roof basket in preparation for when Stefan arrives from Thailand as the car is already full of bags from the four of us and he is going to be carting even more big bags.

We planned to stop before Sydney so that we would not be paying City prices.

On the map Woolongong looked promising but when we got there after a very steep decent from the highlands (with blue smoke rising from the brakes of the truck in front).

We found it to be highly industrialized so continued on in the pouring rain, on the radio they were reporting that two electrical sub stations were down and the cross city tunnel was closed and traffic grid locked throughout the city.

So we found a motel asap, It was very pricey for what it was, but at least we had beds, although it took three attempts and one price rise to get us all in at the Engadine Motor Inn.

I walked across the road and got McDonalds for all to eat back in the room as we watched the first two episodes of Merlin. Our room had a mezzanine upstairs where Sofia and I slept.

The motel suffered from masses of rain and road noise.

A Not So Incy Wincy Spider

[mappress]