Full Circle

On the 8th Nov, exactly 10 months after we pulled out of our driveway in Keith, we were driving from Adelaide to Keith! However, we only had the briefest of stops at "Grannie & Pops" to say 'Gidday' then it was on to Mount Gambier where we will be living temporarily, while assisting Nicole and Daniel with family duties while they work and study in two different places for a bit.

Western entrance to Keith

34,000km later... and after10 months, we had seen some amazing things, met some amazing people and had some amazing experiences, and we were home again - safe and sound. Our approximate calculation is that we had 100 different places we stayed (ie pack-ups and put downs!!) and stayed an average of 3 days per stay, with the max. stay being 10 days.



Goals met:

• travel around Australia - we did that
• survive each other - we did that
• develop family realtionships - I don't think they are any worse! (and probably much better)
• learn lots - we did that
• be open to participating in giving of some time for volunteer work - we did that, but would have like to have done some more which didn't work out!
• meet and talk to lots of different people - we did that
• broaden our outlook on life - we did that

As you can see by our map, there are still so many places to see in Australia. We only scratched the surface and have a big list of places to see next time.
One of our favourite trip times, was holidaying with all our family in Darwin. Daniel, Nicole, Isabelle, Mia and Jake all flew up to see us in July and Jon's Mum & Dad were also up there in their caravan. So we had a great family time, which helped us to last the rest of the travelling time until we saw them all again - in three months time!

In all of our amazing experiences, the ones we will take with us for longest will be those that involved social and fun times interacting with other people and sharing great times.


Jed's thoughts on the Trip

Our trip was awesome we got to see some wicked things  like that Kimberly’s, Otway’s, Cape Range, Kosciuszko,  Great Barrier Reef, kinrara which was a working cattle station and the sight of the WA SA boarder. One of my favourite places was Manning Gorge which was on the Gibb River Road. Another good thing was meeting up with some South Auzzies who were traveling about the same route as us so we stayed with them in about 5 stops.  It isn’t the destination it is the people you meet and the weather has a fairly big say. Overall the trip was an awesome experience and lots of fun!!     

Lily's thoughts on the Trip

Our trip was AWESOME, but 10 months is a long time and I missed all my friends and extended family a bit. We got to go and see a lot of places and attractions. Some including: snorkelling on the great barrier reef and the Ningaloo reef, climbing Mt Kosciusko, walking to and swimming in gorges, working on a cattle station for 10 days and riding their horses, Otway’s tree top walk  and zip line tour, climbing the Gloucester tree and soooooo much more. We got to meet heaps of great people and families. We keep in contact with some families and even stayed at their house or visited them at their house. My favourite place was Exmouth, cape range national park and coral bay, especially snorkelling. We have had lots of great times, I am not sure if I would ever do it for 10 or more months again because I miss lots of people.

We dreamed the "Dream", and had a fantastic time following this particular dream of ours! And who knows what may come of it.

I wonder what the next one will be... ?

Til next time...