Last drinks at Scott's bar,...

We have been talking about this since mid-July and now the time has finally arrived. The caravan has been delivered. The moving van is cued for tomorrow morning. Our house is a mess of half-packed boxes,... yes, it sounds like time.

On Saturday night we celebrated our last party at Scott's gaping timber slab of a bar. There was beer, dancing, food and violent piniata bashing until we all fizzled out and went to bed. [sigh] It's the end of an era. Not only is it our last bash behind the bar, but once again, we are walking out of our friends' lives for an extended period of time. It feels like when we moved to Melbourne. Good times were had, but now it's time to go. Time for us to move on to a new adventure,... this time with a gorgeous little girl in tow.

Conversations have moved on to what we might do on our trip and where we might go. We're considering travelling north to Townsville, then west to Darwin via Tennant Creek. Then, we'd go around the West Australian coastline down to Perth before doing the Nullabor Plain and you get the picture. Anti-clockwise around the continent.

I'm not completely at peace with the idea. There are issues. What happens when you take a toddler across the Nullabor? How many times do you have to press replay on the Wiggles DVD in the back before she cracks it and won't sit still any more? What would happen if our car broke down on a deserted piece of road that is only driven on once a week? Frankly, I don't want to think about it too much. It freaks me out and I don't want to be afraid. This trip is supposed to be a pleasant adventure, not a terrifying one.

[sigh] It's probably the exhaustion talking,.... We're tired. We're cranky. We've packed 50 boxes too many today and I never want to see another roll of packing tape ever again! I'm too tired to even be particularly nostalgic about the end of the era thing,... but think about this - while living in this house (ie. in the past four years) we became puppy parents, I started uni at QUT, I went through IVF and Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome and spent a week in hospital with that, and we finally became parents after eight years of trying. We have seen Grace grow from a 7 cell embryo to a climbing dancing chattering 16-month old blessing.

There is only one technicality about us leaving our old house - the contract is not due to go unconditional until tomorrow. We're still holding our breath but we're not letting it stop our trip to Yeppoon. Soldier on.