The start of our new life and how we got here.

It was hard work, exhausting, stressful and totally crazy - but we did it!
Despite a few doubting thomases who saw our disorder and thought we'd never get away.
We packed everything up, trucked our worldly goods nearly 500kms, shoved them into storage, set up our caravan on our land and are now planning stages 2 and 3.

We so couldn't have done it without the best neighbours in the world and beautiful friends who packed, wrapped, chucked, sorted and most importantly brought coffee sometimes with cookies and muffins.
Thankyou all so so much.

Also to our favorite son who valiantly came with us to Kempsey, shared the driving, helped pack the storage unit and then drove the rental van back to Sydney. I think after that we are even for the time we helped you move into Darlinghurst in the rain! Mwah!

Big hugs to our favorite son and our favorite girlfriend of that son who have taken on our aged furbaby. I hope you all survive in your shoebox....um, I mean apartment!

An honourable mention to our favorite daughter who is babysitting the CDs and is dealing with our mail.

We also really appreciate that our mountains home will become the home of some good friends of ours and hope they will be as happy there as we have been. Thanks for helping to make the move less painful.

Having bitten the bullet and booked the rental truck and above-mentioned favorite son we were committed to the move, but as I said we had so much stuff still to sort, pack, recycle, ditch.
After many many trips to the op shop, a trip to the tip and 2 council pick-ups we filled the removal truck, the car, and most of the caravan. On moving eve we worked until about midnight and it was still not done. It became blatantly obvious that we couldn't all leave as planned at 5 am the next morning.
So a hastily hatched plan B was enacted - G and D would leave as planned and I would follow in the caravan when I was ready. Once again the best-neighbours-in-the-world came to the rescue with a supporting cast of friend-with-trailer and friend-dropping-by-and-bringing-coffee.

But finally the house was empty and I left at 1 o'clock with a little trepidation to drive the caravan all by myself up to Kempsey. I was really stressed about driving the Sydney bit along the dreaded Pennant Hills Road, not a pleasant drive at the best of times but with a seriously loaded car and van I was careful as careful could be.
I was driving mainly at 80 kph and a lot less going up hill! Mostly the drive is dual carriageway but one section closer to my destination is only one lane each way and when there was an overtaking lane no less than 3 big trucks overtook me - ooops, sorry for the hold-up guys.
I was reunited with my men at quarter to eight that evening.

It was with some relief that I settled in the handily-located motel room with dinner from the motel restaurant reheated in the specially-provided microwave. (A half decent vegetarian lasagne)

5 days later and we are nearly sorted - having taken 3 more bags of stuff to the op shop and crammed more stuff into the storage unit - it will be bursting at the seams.
We can almost utilise all parts of the caravan....just need to locate the seating.

So far so good.