This is the giant map of Australia that travelled on our adventure with us. Every week or so the kids would mark our journey on the map: if you look closely you can see the dark line weaving a big loop around (and into the middle of) the country. With our arrival back in Sydney, the circle is now complete!
Seven months after we collected Suzy Q from the motorhome shop, she returned us back to Sydney. After two days of unpacking, cleaning and wondering how on earth we fitted so much stuff into a motorhome in the first place, we bid Suzy Q a fond farewell and made the motorhome company promise to keep her name forever more.
It's both satisfying and surreal to have completed the journey and rather strange to contemplate a life without travel every day. Of course, there's still our journey back to Canberra shortly, where we shall do our best to cope with the freezing cold after chasing summer around the country.
So how to summarise such an adventure? It's not possible in a few short words and I don't actually want to write a concluding sentence because we will continue to embrace an adventurous life into the future, shaped by our experiences of this journey.
But numbers are always fun! So here's a few random numbers to provide a snapshot of a seven month journey around Australia:
30,060 kilometres travelled
22 rocks coming back to Canberra, as part of Evie's treasured rock collection
4 fish caught - 1 bream, 1 sparrow tail, 1 whiting, 1 reef shark
2 towels left behind on a clothesline in Coffs Harbour
4 pairs of sunglasses Dylan went through on the trip
73 road trains driven past in one day at Port Hedland
218 days (and still counting) since we've seen Canberra
4 times we turned on the TV in Suzy Q
1 parking ticket, issued for taking up more than one parking spot!
4 birthdays celebrated in 4 different parts of the country
67 times (or thereabouts!) that we listened to the Hairy Maclary story CD
4 random breath tests I had to take, 3 of them in Tennant Creek
2 big scrapes on Suzy Q that accounted for our insurance excess (and a bit more!)
1 visit to a hospital but only for an ear infection
8 capital cities ticked off the list, Darwin was the favourite
and of course a million memories that we've brought back with us.
And so the big adventure is done. We'll be returning to Canberra soon and the stories are nearly complete, for this adventure at least.
And the blog? Well a call out to anyone who knows someone in the publishing industry. I'm sure there's some great magazine articles or a book or two I could write in here..........