Despite all preparations, it still came down to a piss and panic on the day before departure day.

We finished work on Friday and breathed a sigh of relief. The next two days were a whirlwind. We sorted out everything we owned and took items surplus to requirements like work tools, clothes and other stuff that was missed previously to the storage unit.

Craig picked up the trailer from storage and spent most of the day underneath it adjusting the brakes, filling the water tank and squeezing last minute items into the trailer.

Menu planning and shopping lists for groceries were made, but we didn’t actually do the shopping, as we knew we couldn’t take fruit and vegetables across the Victorian border into South Australia, so would need to do shopping for vegetables there anyway.

Departure Day

We woke early on Monday morning and threw the last couple of bags into the car. Hitching the trailer to the car, at around 7am we pulled out of the driveway and exhaled, we had finally hit the frog and toad.

The Giant Koala

About three and a half hours later we arrived at our first ‘Big Thing’. The Giant Koala is located in Dadswells Bridge on the Western Highway.

Constructed by the roadhouse to lure passersby into the café, it succeed with us and we stopped and bought a coffee. The coffee was so hot we couldn’t drink it until we were at least 20 minutes down the road, but it did the job and kept us awake.

The Border Crossing

Noting a sign to dispose of all fruit and vegetables we motored straight on through, knowing that we were not carrying anything. Just as Emma said to Craig about stopping for a photo for our first state border, we sailed right past the sign. It was a bit anticlimactic. Our iPhones self adjusted the new time zone without our assistance, and that was our first border crossing.

Mount Barker

The weather turned progressively worse as we headed west.  A short stop for lunch and another 5 hours up the road we arrived at our destination for the first night. We set up camp as fast as we could before donning rain coats and walked into town.

We scouted a pub and booked a table for dinner before doing our grocery shopping for Christmas Day supplies. Heavily laden we returned to camp and stowed our purchases. After a quick shower and freshen up we walked back into town for dinner.

After a very pleasant meal and a few drinks we walked back to camp and crashed exhausted into bed for our first night on the road.