More red dust!

After staying at Mum and Dads in a house, for two months, we are finally ready to get back on the road again!!

We flew into Melbourne on Christmas Eve, after our car broke down in Alice Springs. We had an electrical fire in our 4WD and it burnt out two of the wiring looms. We couldn't get it fixed in time to drive home for Christmas so we left the car and caravan in Alice Springs and flew home to Melbourne.

About a month later the car and caravan arrived at mum and dads, on the back of a tow truck. It was great to have them arrive two weeks earlier than expected but we were shattered to find them both filled with red dust! The two front windows on the caravan had broken and had been open for most of the trip. They were on a huge truck which obviously kicked up a lot of dust as it drove through central Australia.

They were filled with dust! I couldn't see out of the windows and I could write my name in the dust on my doona cover!! Mum and Dad were awesome, and helped me spend hours cleaning inside the van. Mum washed all of the curtains, bedding and couch covers, and dad hosed down everything that could get wet. I put on a dust mask, and scrubbed the inside of the caravan from top to bottom, back to front! The most disheartening thing was that I had cleaned the entire caravan from top to bottom the day before we left Alice Springs, so that we would be ready to leave straight away!

The back of the car was as dirty as it had been after going to Cape York. At least I could empty the back out and clean it with the high pressure hose!

 We kept the caravan at Dan's mum and Dad’s house while we waited to get a service done on it. There it got the outside scrubbed clean and a few maintenance issues fixed by Dan.

After spending almost all of our savings on the house, car and caravan, we are finally ready to set off again.

We have had a wonderful couple of months catching up with everyone but we are really looking forward to hitting the road again. This time we are heading west to explore the Nullarbor, the Western Coast of Australia, Darwin and South Australia. This will be our last year travelling so that our eldest son, Sam can settle back into the school system before starting high school.