WE MADE IT FINALLY

 We are finally here at our first destination Barraba it's Thursday 21st October 2010.  

The trip up was uneventful and we stopped at Singleton Caravan Park on Wednesday night and went to the local RSL club and had Thai food for dinner. After dinner we went back to the caravan and picked up a Clint Eastwood movie on TV.

The caravan has been set up as a mini theatre which includes a 32" flat panel TV, a surround sound speaker system, a home theatre system including a DVD player  and of course the mandatory hard disc set top box and dvd recording system. It also includes a fully automated satellite system on the top which we manage through a remote control so we get free to air digital TV and paid TV through select TV anywhere in Australia.

Home in the park at Barraba

Our aim currently is to stay here until Christmas at least at which time we will head south again for a about 5 weeks, meeting up with our kids and grandkids, in Sydney and Canberra, friends from BSTT and family at Narrabeen caravan park, friends from a past life in the Yarra Valley in Victoria and family and friends at Balranald caravan park.
We will then return to barraba in late January 2011 and plan the next stage of our life.
Although the trip was uneventful the week before turned out to be full of events which we enjoyed very much as we spent it with our family.
On Saturday 16th October we headed into Campbelltown as Maree had another dental appointment and then we spent what we thought was to be a relaxing day of doing nothing and preparing last minute stuff for our trip.
However my son had other ideas for us. He came home after lunch and decided that he wanted to replace the balcony railing as it had been chewed out by cockatoos that used to sit on it and wait for a feed.
So we spent the afternoon stripping it and started to rebuild it. A nice relaxing afternoon.
Anyhow it was a great way to do things together which we had not done for a long time. 
During the day as the discussion turned to the trip my two granddaughters and grandson were getting clingy and very close to us as the realisation started to set in that it would be some time before they would see us again after we left.
It was difficult to watch and the rest of the afternoon and evening became fairly emotional and although it was very nice to have the attention we also came to the same realisation as our grandkids had and our emotions also started to take over.
We had a lovely family dinner in the evening and we all had a lot of fun that ended with a comedy video night which turned out hilarious easing some of the tension that we were all feeling.
Sunday Maree and I headed to our local shopping centre to do  some final shopping hopefully a nice relaxing Sunday afternoon.
My son had other ideas.He decided that not only the balcony railing needed replacing that we should continue to do the stairs also as it was fairly worn, so we spent the rest of the day working on the stairs and balcony.
After dinner we all sat together and watched TV prior to going to bed.
Anyway we left on Wednesday as mentioned above and left behind some emotional scenes from the kids and grandkids went back to our home and hooked up the van and started the journey.
On Friday we started to unpack a lot of the stuff that we bought with us and met my sister and her family for dinner and a good old chin wag, catching up with a lot of happenings since we had last seen each other. Stayed at the bowling club for dinner and won a couple of meat trays from the raffle.
Its now Saturday and had our first big sleep in, which was excellent. We went for a walk into town to check out the scene and pick up some groceries, went to the local catholic school fete and then wandered home for a leisurely day.
Nothing planned for tomorrow so we will see what happens then.
I hope you are enjoying the updates as much as I enjoy writing them and to all my kids, grandkids and family, including my friends at BSTT extra big hugs and kisses.

For now see ya soon


Bill and Maree

PS This is the scene from our first night in Barraba