I was aware that the Saturday we were leaving was the first day of school holidays for NSW, and driving north out of Sydney, I was absolutely convinced that the traffic was going to start building up very early. The alarm went off at 6am and after admiring the sunrise (it was stunning!) we got to work packing up all our stuff one last time. Thank goodness.

Once we were all jam-packed into the car and leaving at 7am, I was keeping my eye on the traffic on maps, and there were no delays! I really couldn’t believe it! It was an easy and lovely drive out of the city, even though, disappointingly we missed the turn off to actually go over the Harbour Bridge. Maybe next time! We made a few pit stops along the way, with a planned longer stop at Laurieton at my rellies’ house. Thomas and Quinn were going downhill over the course of the day, but there wasn’t much we could do other than keep driving. It wasn’t a very comfortable drive home, being crammed in the car with all the gear, and the kids were quite whiney at times, but on the whole they did okay.

We had a lovely visit with Uncle Faryl and Aunty Mon at Laurieton, with Julius falling in love with the family dog, and Chance getting one last throw of his line in the beautiful river. We left after 2pm and still had about 6 hours of actual driving time to do. I explained to the kids, when they were complaining, that we either suck it up and get all the driving done, or we stop again, unpack everything, spend another night not in our own beds, and have to drive again the next day. They all agreed that getting home that night was the right choice, but my goodness it was a long drive.

I had the great idea (so I thought) to pre-order dinner to pick up at the Gold Coast, with half the car wanting Subway and the other half wanting Gozmen Y Gomez. I downloaded both apps and at about 5pm decided to look at the ordering system. It was at that point that I saw Subway closed at 7pm and we weren’t due to get there until 7:30!! I managed to convince the Subway contingent that GyG was actually the way to go, and we all ordered to collect at 7:30pm.

When we arrived, we couldn’t find a park (because Gold Coast) and had to park around the corner, then all piled into a hotel to use their facilities (so dodgy) then went to pick up our order which was only half done. I mean they had only had two hours to plan for it…. aaaaaanyway poor Quinn who was the one who wanted GyG the most couldn’t even eat as she was feeling so awful, and Thomas only managed some chips. We got back on the road after 8pm and hoped to be home at 9pm but there had been an accident on the M1 (because Gold Coast!!) and we didn’t get home til closer to 9:20pm.

So yeah. 14+ hours for a 10 hour trip! But we were expecting it (the kids are still scarred) and overall they did very well. I had started feeling a bit unwell by that afternoon, and came down with the car virus the next day, then three days later tested positive to Covid!!

But I willed myself better as Marty’s birthday weekend was coming up!!! More on that in my next post. Thanks for reading!