We have just arrive back fro our first real family road trip. We headed to the Hillsong Conference in Sydney and on our way back we popped into visit family and friends in Melbourne.
It was a great trip, apart from all of us getting sick, but we had a wonderful time. We got to drive on dirt roads, watch cattle stop traffic as it crossed the highway, saw BIG things (like the Big Cod and the Giant Ram), we saw a giant kangaroo almost get run over by a truck and most of all we had a ball.
We weren't sure about how Amaya would travel in the car, so we decided to break the 14 hour trip to Sydney over 3 days. Our first stop was Swan Hill, on the Murray River, in the Northern parts of Victoria. We then travelled through Deniliquin, home of the Utemuster, to Wagga Wagga. Then we travelled up to Sydney via Goulburn.
Hillsong was a busy and exciting week and we were surprised and amazed at how Amaya loved the music. We knew that she would like to dance, but not only did she dance, she attempted to sing!
Hillsong is normally very busy, so with a child is was quite difficult. Amaya normally has a 3 hour sleep during the day, but at Hillsong, sleep was not on her agenda. Infact, Mark walked around the stadium, where she did sleep, but it took Mark an hour just to walk around the arena because it is so big. Mark and I decided to take a day off each so that we could take in as much as we could without worrying about getting distracted and it was great. I got to hear Joyce Meyer and dance to Israel Houghton.
On our way back to Melbourne we stopped off in a town called Beechworth, which is on the edge of the Snowy Mountains. We saw a few snow capped mountains, but because we were all sick, going to the snow wasn't a good idea.
We then travelled to Melbourne and stayed with John and Lois Symmonds for one night and then with our friends Nat and Tim. We were spoilt and had a relaxing time. We got to go to the Dandenong Ranges and have morning tea at Sassafras, which is where our favourite tea shop is.
We then spent a day with Pete, Di and Ella and the kids played at Kidsmania. Amaya loved the ball crawl and wasn't fased by her Daddy and Uncle Pete lobbing plastic balls at her. she just said "Ouch!", but wasn't fussed.
Thursday was our travelling home day, which began at 5.00AM! We thought that by leaving early that we would make a head start on our day and it worked. We stopped at Ararat for breakfast and was home by 2.30. But just before we stopped we saw a massive red kangaroo crossing the highway. As we were in amazement at seeing our first real Aussie animal, a truck was coming in the other direction and ran over the roos tail! It was horrible to watch it on the road trying to get up. But it was able to get up and jump away.... Phew!
Amaya was fine watching her dvds on our portable dvd player, and she also slept a lot too!
Then we got home to do washing, washing and more washing!
