The next journey begins

We have been house sitting in Kensington, a western suburb of Melbourne, for a young couple who have been holidaying in Fiji.  We have also looked after their two dogs, Lennox and Kostya.  On Sunday, 26^th May we packed up and along with our nephew, Connor who is 13, and our two grandsons, Jake aged 9 and Tim aged 8, we headed out of town on our next adventure.

Peter had a challenge getting all the camping gear for five people, plus the boys gear and our gear (this is the beginning of a four month adventure before we return to Melbourne for us but the boys all return home to their respective parents in the middle of June) into and on to the Patrol. Mind you there was assistance from three boys in getting the job done!!   The level of gear on the roof rack seemed to be getting higher and higher and there is still the brazier on top!  As we pulled out of Kensington to commence our trip north to Mildura there was very little room inside either.

We stopped just south of Bendigo for lunch and a stretch – it was certainly cold so the picnic didn’t last too long.  We continued north stopping every hour or so for a stretch and eventually arrived in Mildura. 

This was over five hundred kilometres and hopefully will be the longest travel distance in one day although we will need to travel each day to reach our destination of Townsville via the Simpson Desert by the 8^th June.  Fortunately we had pre-booked into a cabin at a caravan park so we didn’t have to erect the tents in the dark as it was after six p.m. before we arrived.  We only stayed overnight but before we left on Monday morning we had a chance to wander down to the banks of the Murray River and see the house boats moored.  Tim had collected a brochure of the native birds to the area so enjoyed looking for the various varieties. 

With the load back on and in the Patrol we commenced our trip to South Australia.