Home Sweet Home....

Yes, we are indeed back home in Port Macquarie- an amazing, quite strange feeling it was, to drive back into town today, about 10 months after we set off- we have seen and done so so much inbetween!

We arrived home about 4pm and spent most of the afternoon unpacking the car and caravan- a huge amount of stuff! It was great to see mum and dad again- mum drove in and had a bbq dinner, with apple pie, with us here at Dad's house. We'll be staying here until we can find a place of our own to buy. Mum and Dad have already been searching for us and we even drove around and looked at a couple of possibles this evening after dinner.

After a long, slow drive, with several traffic jams, we arrived in Sydney, at North Ryde caravan park, at about 6pm yesterday, both tired and a bit frazzled. We quickly set up the van and showered, then headed across to Coogee to meet Joanne and Matthew and his little daughter, Marissa, for dinner. It was great to see Jo and meet Matthew and we enjoyed a lovely meal.

Today we drove the 500kms or so back to Port Macquarie- home.

There's lots we want to do- it's actually a bit of a culture shock being back in a house, and the reality sinking in that we are here to stay for a while now. I almost keep thinking I need to check my caravan book to read about the places on the agenda for tomorrow, or the kilometres we'll need to cover. Then I realise I can lay my trip-planning hat, however reluctantly, to rest for a while. Anyway, in the next week or so before Adam returns to work we plan catching up on a few health and beauty appointments, hopefully surfing or windsurfing and of course hunting for a place to buy and meeting with a bank to confirm how much we can borrow!
I will also let people know I am back and available for any work which may be going in my profession.

We have also updated our "animals seen" list, as we had indeed forgotton some creatures...To the fellow who left a comment regarding the eastern quoll- Adam was lucky enough to see one of those at Mt Field National Park.
Here's the updated list:

ANIMALS WE HAVE SEEN ON OUR TRIP AROUND AUSTRALIA

Kangaroos: Red and Grey
Wallabies (Bennetts, Yellow Footed, Rock, white + others….about 5 in total)
Pademelons
Potteroos
Tree kangaroo
Saltwater crocs
Freshwater crocs
Green ringtail possum
Common ringtail possum
Brushtail possum
Brown and white possum (cant remember official name)
echidna
Emus
Camels
Long-nose bandicoot
Eastern barred bandicoot
Small bandicoot
Melomys (like a small mouse)
White tailed rat
Platypi
Tasmanian devils
Spotted quoll
Eastern quoll
Western quoll
Koalas
Wombats
dingoes
Dugong
Turtles- loggerhead and green
Sharks- black tip, white tip, tiger, lemon
Humpback whale
Dolphins- Indian and bottlenose
Seals
Little penguins
Lots and lots of fish
Manta rays
Sting rays
Eagle rays
Olive pythons
Tiger snakes
Tree snakes
Lots of lizards!
Rabbits
And of course lots and lots of birds, some rare and endangered


Will keep blogging- have plenty of new chapters starting and will also post some more photos from Tassie etc to include here. My Dad has been kindly printing out our blog updates along the way- he has put them together in a folder for us and it's like a little book of our travels, which will sit perfectly with our many, many photo albums from the trip.

Meanwhile, we hope we may see our travelling friends Mick and Sarah in a few weeks when they are travelling through Port Macquarie on their way home.

Love and hugs,
The Returned Travelllers, A&E xx