There have been a couple of journeys recently; Swanhill a couple of weeks ago and now, Adelaide. Thieu and I have never been light travellers but now we are as far from light as it is possible to be. I packed almost all of Maddles' extensive wardrobe and she managed to soil most of it before we even left Melbourne. Then there was the nappies. We have been using cloth but decided that lugging soiled nappies around to the houses of the friends and family we were going to stay with was probably a bit much so we bought a massive bag of disposable nappies. Then the change mat. The pram. Then us and our stuff. It took us several hours to fit it all in the car.
The trip to Swanhill was something of a test run for the Adelaide journey. Maddles was fine and slept the entire time except for when she dutifully woke up every three hours for feeding. We went to Adelaide because a local artist has painted a bollard to look like Thieu's grannie. Thieu's grannie, I should point out, was the first female riverboat captain in Australia. All the Rivers Run is based on her life story. So this was why the council commissioned the painted bollard. They don't paint bollards for everyone's grannie (although it would be interesting if they did).
There was a bollard unveiling on the Monday morning. There was us and the local MP and the "young graduate" from the museum. And there were about fifty locals who came down just to see what a bollard painted to look like a female riverboat captain would look like. There was the local choir who made us sing the National Anthem and Waltzing Matilda. Thieu made a speech and people took photos of him. Maddles slept through the whole thing.
Adelaide has been far less eventful, although Maddles did have her first ever trip to the beach. It took even longer to prepare for this journey than it did to pack the car. We took her down to the shallows and dangled her little feet in the water. She screamed and waved her fists in the air. So we packed everything up and left the beach.
It took us two long, hot days to drive over so Maddles and I are flying home. I figured that even if she screams for the whole journey I will still probably come out ahead.
