Well I’m home now. I’ve come a long way baby. 4,826kms in the van to be precise. Today we drove about 400kms.

I’m not sure what to say. I wouldn’t mind going to bed at some stage, reading my book, perhaps watching a DVD. Who knows?

I could write about the past few days, I may write about the past few days. We’ll see how this post pans out.

I had a great time on our road trip. The Great Lower Quarter of Australia Road Trip was a stunning success. Being back in Sydney is a little strange, I’m not sure I want to be here. I don’t want to have to deal with Sydney life, I want to be away when all I have to worry about is what to do that day, or how far to the next driver change over and petrol refill. In Sydney I have to sort things out, sort my life out, organise my year, become a better person, on the road I can just stare out the window.

Melbourne was tops. I didn’t really do much. After breakfast in the City (and a dodgy night in the F1), I caught a tram to the city and sat by the Yarra reading. I am reading The Purpose Driven Life. I never really planned to read it, but it was on the shelf and I wanted some structure to my God contemplation. It’s not bad. I’m a few days behind. I wasn’t very good at having quiet times on this trip. It’s hard to find time alone when you’re always travelling with 6 or 7 other people. Oh well I’ll catch up. I’m only three days behind.

At night we went to Soul Survivor for the night. It was good. Hugh Evans spoke and spoke well. He was honest and passionate. It was good to see how much he loves God, and how much he is intent on searching God out.

It was fun to catch up with the church crew. They’re a lovely bunch. I went to say “Good bye” to a bunch of them and told them to drive home safely because if they died driving home I wasn’t going to their funeral because I’m on holidays. It was a joke but it sounded pretty dodgy. I meant nothing of the sort and drove home kicking myself, because it wasn’t a funny joke and just sounded, um, bad, Scrooge-ish?. Oh well. We all say stupid things some times. My stupid mouth…

Over the past two days we drove home from Melbourne. It was a much quieter journey, there were only 7 of us (Jo left us in Melbourne) and Liz was sick. I think we were tired too. Last night in Genoa (just near the Victoria/NSW border) we realised both cars were almost out of petrol. Genoa had nothing open that would give us anything resembling petrol, and we didn’t have enough to make it to Eden the next town up. We had sudden terrifying thoughts of getting stuck alone in our cars in the wilderness having to have Breakfast Club-type conversations where we all shared our deepest secrets while we waited for the NRMA. So, fuelled by our fear of intimacy, we headed off down some mostly ignored road hoping to make it to a remote costal town that we found hiding on the map in the hope of finding petrol. We arrived in this town and found had a surprisingly large amount of people in it. I wondered where they all came from, and if they ever left. It felt a little like we were explorers like Captain Cook in dire need of water and had discovered an island somewhere in the vast, empty ocean with a colony of natives no-one had ever heard of before, who were most probably cannibals.

As we drove into town it felt as if everyone was staring at us. We drove past a long abandoned petrol pump on the way in, and hoped that wasn’t the only one. There was an Ampol, but that was all locked up for the night. In fact every petrol station was closed.

We were saved from a night spent in our petrol free cars warding off the hungry locals, by the owner of the Shell, who was cutting lettuce in his yard adjoining the station. He kindly opened his pumps again so we could fill our cars up. He said he didn’t ever do this but he did it for us because we’re tourists. He told us to be quick otherwise the locals might notice and then they’d want a piece of the action. At the time I thought he was talking about after-hours petrol but on reflection it was more likely he was protecting us from their appetites.

We spent last night in Bega. The people who live there are very friendly. I’d recommend the Pizza shop on the main street to anyone. Mainly because they have the friendliest pizza shop owner I have ever met.

Today we drove and thought of Sydney. It really is a lovely place this. The whole trip was pretty un-eventful (although I did pick up my first ever hitch hiker, a lovely Czech girl called Mishalandavlvofvaoiviavfkvkvich). We ate lunch in Ulladulla, perhaps not the classiest little seaside town in Australia, but certainly not lacking any tacky charm. It had what we needed (a parking spot, toilet and food), except for my friend James who has gone AWOL. Shame. I’m sure he’ll turn up. At least, I’m sure he’ll turn on his mobile again.

We drove into Sydney at around 3:30pm, with a cheer and a smile. I started to feel like I was back home as I drove to the city at the speed limit and everyone else was driving faster than me. In the rest of Australia I’m a bit of a hoon. I’ve noticed that in most of the places we’ve been people stay about 10kms under the speed limit, in Sydney everyone stays about 10 over. I guess we all balance each other out.

So now I’ve seen more of Australia. I like this country, and I like these people, even the cannibals and the people from Dandenong. I think next time I’d like to drive to Perth. I wonder if the van would cope.