The Final Day

(Saturday 28^th July)

Our final run back to Tweed Heads to drop off the motor home was unexpectedly stressful. We were supposed to drop it off at 4pm, but we couldn’t just drive straight from Bundaberg to Tweed Heads, we had to stop off in Brisbane to pick up our next car, but also to clean out the motor home. We had to extricate all our stuff from every little nook and cranny, and believe me, there were a lot of places to store stuff!

Plus we had to stop for lunch and make sure we emptied the right things (think black and grey water) and filled the right things (think petrol tank and fresh water tank).

Then there was a lot of roadwork, especially between Bundaberg until a bit after Gympie where the dual carriageway began. But anyway, the whole morning was frustrating, I felt a bit like we were in one of those reality shows and even though we’d practically completed the long journey, we’d fail if we didn’t get to a certain place in Tweed Heads by 4pm.

Our final motorhome-journey sunrise.

We stopped at our friends’ house to pick up their car. We also removed everything from our home and car of the last 16 days and dumped it on their front lawn. And then we descended into a frenzy of cleaning. It actually didn’t take too long with three or four of us working at it and very soon David drove off with our eldest son in the front seat of the van. Leaving me with the two younger boys and a dishevelled pile of our belongings. I then endeavoured to locate the right bags of clothes and shove them into the right suitcase.

Finally two lanes.

The Gateway Bridge

When I’d filled all the suitcases, I engaged our friend’s help to stuff it all into the car he was lending us. I reflected with him that he probably never expected that “supporting missionaries” would ever involve him in helping us clean a motor home. He agreed it was a little unusual.

About half an hour after David left, I too pulled out on my way to Tweed Heads. This time, after nearly 8,000km of driving in a small “truck” I sat in the driver’s seat of a Commodore Wagon. I felt like I was sitting on the ground. The difference was remarkable. Probably my low seat was the most challenging thing, although later David had a lot of difficulty with the indicator. In the motor home it was on the left (being a Mercedes). In a usual Australian car it is on the right. The lever on the left powers the windscreen wipers.

David eventually beat the deadline by 30 minutes. I didn’t get there till 50 minutes later, primarily because I forgot which exit I had to take off the motorway. It was wonderful to realise that we’d completed our journey safely. We achieved all we’d hoped to achieve.

Goodbye dear motorhome.

And it turned out that we drove 7,990km. Just a bit further than I’d estimated!