Thursday, July 8, 2010

Road Trip - 4th September 2009

As some of you may know, my Mum is visiting from New Zealand, which is nice.
And I have an awesome car to drive around as much as I like, which is very nice
The situation is crying out for a road trip... in fact it would be rude not to do a road trip.

However, if you have a toddler and a partner that works and a mum that has a flight on Monday you know that your road trip is not going to the be the cross country adventure that movies are made of, but more of a quick weekend getaway.

Do you remember quick weekend getaways before you had children? There wasn't a need for maps or luggage. You could just jump in the car and go. Now you need to take EVERYTHING.

This is where the Ford Territory comes into it's own.... We had 3 adults and one toddler all with our own bedding (duvets and a porta cot). We also took most of our own food to save on the health risks of eating drive thru cuisine for every meal. So the back of the car was CHOCKA.
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but we fitted in the essentials

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We left at 12.18pm on Saturday afternoon, after naps and lunch. According to Google maps it was only going to take 1hr and 57 minutes to get to our accommodation in Healesville.

That was my first mistake. I should really just buy a proper map drawn and written by someone that lives here. Google maps told me to take the Northern Ring road.......... There is no Northern Ring road, there is a Western Ring road and then a Metropolitan Ring Road.
After a few wrong turns and some tense words between me the driver and my partner the navigator, It took us 3 hours and 17 minutes to reach our destination.

This is our first trip in Australia since Millar was born, almost 18 months ago. So considering my partner and I moved to Australia in 2007 with a view to travel the entire country and go home after about 2 years, we are just a touch behind schedule.... google maps is NOT helping us catch up.

Anyway..... back to the actual trip.
We arrived in Healesville and checked into our Big4 holiday park in Badger Creek. Very nice, very clean.
However, the gaps between the cabins were not built with a large car in mind. It was almost impossible to park the car with enough room to get Millar out of one side and open the cabin door on the other side without scratching the car or having to get the child out of the car seat from the opposite door. (don't worry Ford, I didn't scratch it!).
We all had to enter the cabin one at a time. Close the fly screen, step to the other side of the door, open fly screen enough to squeeze into the cabin. Repeat process until all people are inside the cabin.
You can imagine how much fun it was to unpack and repack the car!

To be honest here, the Ford is too big for me. But I am only 5' tall and the largeness only annoys me in times like this and when I am getting in and out of the car..... but once I am zooming around the hills like you see on those car adverts, I am queen of the road!

The fuel economy was much better than I expected.
We filled the tank before leaving Werribee. We drove to Healesville, (the scenic route courtesy of google). Then drove to Marysville and back. Then drove to Kinglake and back to Melbourne. With a LOT of driving around in between. When we arrived back in Werribee we had only used just over half a tank. That's pretty good right?
We'll see how the fuel economy goes this week driving around like a normal mum doing the shopping and pick ups and drop offs etc.

In the meantime, here are some more photos of our trip.
I wont talk about the devastation in Marysville or Kinglake today. I might write that in another blog when I can give it the correct words. I've included some photos down the bottom that speak for themselves.
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Koala Mum and Bub at Healesville Santuary

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