Sunday 30 September – And so our big trip ends!  It was about 9.15 when we left the petrol station at Ararat on a cold, cloudy day with the last four hours of our trip ahead of us.  There is not a lot to report – the drive was uneventful apart from Grant cleaning up a crow which took a bit too long to get out of the way of the car.  So our final personal roadkill count – Grant 2 (a lizard and a crow), Dawn 1 (a lizard).  

I always like the countryside around Bacchus Marsh, and today was no exception.  The hills are a beautiful green and they always look so fresh and somehow clean.  It was quite grey over Melbourne, but the traffic was pretty light so we had a good run through.  During the day we encountered a few showers (some of them pretty heavy) and a few patches of weak sunshine, and the rain thankfully held off as we got to Newborough where we received a sunny (well it wasn’t raining), warm (that’s a lie!) welcome. 

Back in our driveway we first of all came in and said hello again to our house, to find that Lisa had been up and the heaters were on, there was a lovely vase of flowers on the table and a welcome home note and a plate of home made bikkies and cupcakes on the bench.  That was a warm welcome!  We immediately set up the van, and had unloaded pretty well everything when Lisa, Graham and the boys came up to see us.  It was lovely to seen them all and catch up on the last few weeks in person.  Then Amanda, Mark and the kids arrived, so lots more hugs all round, and lots more chatter.  And they arrived bearing more food including a yummy cake Amanda had made, so we were very spoilt. 

We spent a noisy, chatty, fun evening sitting around eating fish and chips, and having a great catch up.  We’ve had a fabulous trip, but I must say, it is good to be home.  Now we will start planning the next trip.