I wrote the following as the adventure was almost to an end; little did I know that Part 2 was equally exciting. I have just transcribed my writings from a notebook I bought at the airport, so the chronology is a little challenging… but, it is what it is, as this is what it was.

So, let’s get to Part 1….

15th January 2021: Friday – As I sit in the Melbourne Airport, with another 2 and a half hours until my flight back to Adelaide, and if they let me in, another 3 hour drive home to Berri, in the dark? I thought to myself, self, I shall have a little reflection on the last couple of days as I escorted my youngest to a new life, new job and no doubt new adventures in Sydney.

I might add, it just feels great to be actually writing pen on paper again; I hope all the electronic journals I now use are, will be, with all the others; at least the girls can read the types ones and not my cursive!

So when did we leave? It was actually is a little hard to remember?

13th January 2021: Wednesday – and so it began. I drove down to Adelaide pretty early in the morning as I had scheduled with a mate Adam to attend and interview with him – you know the old caring support person – except I was ready to pounce!! So, when that was done there was only one way to celebrate and that was to have pies for lunch by the beach.

The morning went quickly and so I went down to the Adelaide airport to leve my car in the long term carpark and walked back to the terminal for Jackie to pick me up.

So, around 14:30 I was in the car with Jackie, only just as it was packed to the roof with all her things to take on the move – I didn’t realise until later that the two four draw cabinets in the back were full on make up…. in fairness jackie has been a makeup artist for Mac for the last few years. I did manage to find a little gap to put in my carry on bag after some re-arranging which Bryony, Jackies Mum, had told Jackie I would do?!

We had a pretty pleasant drive to Berri and a really nice evening and a few chats. We watched a movie (John Wick!!!) after cooking dinner together and had a Dad and Daughter evening; can’t remember the last time I did that with just one of my girls.

Jackie hit the sack at about 2230 and me not long after: well actually after a few more ciders and smokes – great idea with 1200 kilometres to drive tomorrow!

14th January 2021: Thursday – We got up to an early start and it didn’t feel like we were rushing too much. I cooked eggs and avocado toast for both of us, and a coffee; all went just like last night and it was just lovely.

Away early to Mildura….

I just remembered, the excitement started early yesterday. When Jackie picked me up from the airport she hadn’t thought to refuel her car so we ran the gauntlet all the way to Nuriootpa before refuelling; I was very bravado about the entire thing, but pretty sure halfway there we weren’t going to make it! With the fuel light on from Gepps Cross we eventually pulled in, I think literally on the smell of an oily rag. I thought this was a good omen for the rest of the trip.

So, back to where I was, Thursday morning off to Mildura.

16th January 2021: Saturday – The future is definitely not set?! I missed my flight home to Adelaide last night, so I am sitting in the Melbourne Airport waiting to go later this afternoon; it is now 1230 and I fly out at 1655; a few hours yet, so, I think I would like to continue my story from yesterday, or was it the day before, as to how I actually got here, and how it has not actually been a ‘trk’ other than having the hallmarks of one…..

14th January 2021: Thursday – Jackie and I set off from Berri heading to Mildura which is about 160 km away and on roads that I had travelled on several times before. Although when we got to Mildura we had to refer to our old friend Google Maps to actually get us into New South Wales.

…. which of course reminds me that very soon after leaving home we did cross the border into Victoria. We did see that there was a big presence of bio-security and Police at Yamba which, I suppose is more the ‘official’ entry into the Riverland and has been there since I was a kid. Basically the fruit fly inspection which now is also being used to keep out other bugs.

It was fun and interesting to shove my very limited knowledge of history and the rivrland and the Australia we were travelling through – I did know that the Mildura working Man’s club used to and for all I knew still had the longest continuous bar in the souther hemisphere; these are real gems of knowledge. I suppose the world has become so electronically small that teaching or learning about how irrigation was introduced to the Riverland or other extraneous facts just don’t hold the weight or interest as much as a cat riding a vacuum cleaner or the latest video clip..It just seems that I knew all this from when I went to school; I can’t really remember looking it up since – maybe now I will?

So, down the main street of Mildura, without getting lost and across the mighty Murray, again I might add, leaving Victoria and entering New South Wales.

We had to apply for ‘permits’ to enter Victoria which both Jackie and I did, even though it appeared to be an automated service; they were never checked? As, we left Victoria, over the bridge for NSW it was as if we were never there… except…

… on the bridge coming from NSW to Victoria there was a massive line up of cars, uniforms everywhere and temporary tents and inspection stops all along the bridge; it was a bit disconcerting and I realised the only time I had seen this before was overseas or in science fiction movies – I decided not to share this with Jackie.

After doing over the bridge we both agreed it was coffee time so we saw out first coffee shop at GolGol.

It was one of many places and towns we would travel through with repeated names, eg Wagga-Wagga, being just one (I think I will find them all later if I type this up and send the story to Jackie – of course I will have to type it us so Jackie can read it – looking back at the following pages and my deteriorating had writing and chronological scatter gun approach I may have trouble deciphering it myself)
(Author Note – I didn’t look up all the towns…)

In GolGol; me telling Jackie the historical fact that the original topographer was afflicted with a stutter and his junior scribe was too scared to correct him hence the naming of all the towns with double words….

Into the GolGol general store, which was called the ‘Golly Cafe’ without to higher expectations. Immediately upon entry we knew it was going to be good as it was full of locals and had a magnificent cake cabinet with a vanilla square that was calling out to both Jackie and I; we did however decide to share. The staff were all happy, helpful and engaging; both Jackie and I commented on this and agreed when we got back in the car.

The Golly Cafe served up our vanilla slice and being forever the practical one decided to cut it exactly in half rather than at 110 km/h later in the car; no knife…. but, Ian is the ultimate doomsday prepper and the master of innovation and decides his credit card is sharp enough… and proceeds to flatten the vanilla slice in the middle, not cutting happening but custard squeezing out both ends…. the staff laugh, Jackie films and we get a knife, make the cut, grab coffees and hit the road… I eat most of the squashed bit; but it was a fantastic vanilla slice anyway!

Jackie’s now behind the wheel.

We headed from our coffee stop and a little getting over what we had seen on the bridge coming from NSW to victoria. The cars were lined for at least a kilometre and all the tents and uniforms had definately made an impression on both of us. I know it is all for our safety and it looked like many were just going through on cross boarder passes, no doubt for work; but, as Jackie commented, it was ‘scary’. I agreed, yet thought it also ‘ominous’ which I also didn’t share.

But, we were on a ‘road trip’ and Jackie had her play list on which to me sounded like the same ‘boom-boom boom-boom’ song over and over again…. and we just burned the kilometres…

Some time crossing the Hay Plain, ot later?… we did change drivers again and thankfully play lists! Jackie and her sisters had been subjected to my taste in music from their younger years: Jackie got to experience the full 15 minutes of The Doors, The End and I became a Tik-Tok start singing the finale. I also thought their song “people are Strange” was pertinent, because it is a song really about being a ‘stranger’ as Jackie may feel for sometime in her new home.

And, our Australia drivers never disappoint and over a few hundred kilometres we got to see great examples both by truck and cars; and Jackie and I both realised that trying to understand what they were doing and more importantly why, was like trying to solve an illogical problem with logic….

Which brings me to fun we had on our travels on Friday, which seems to fit here in giving each other logic problems to solve. jackie got an early advantage which stumped me for a while and I had one which drove Jackie insane for 100’s of kilometres…. so I thought I’d share (I will never tell you the answer but when you get the right answer – not just a guess which you hope is right – you will know it is the right answer…)(… and they are all solveable with the information you are given…)

Two men are found dead, on top of a mountain, in a cabin. How did they die?

A boy is with his Father when the boy is seriously injured. The Father rushes him to hospital. The Doctor comes out and says I can’t operate on him, I’m related; he’s my son. How could this be?

A man is walking his daughter to church. They cross a railway line and a train runs over the man’s foot, he is not injured. How can this be?

At night a man is standing on top of a hill. He lights a cigarette and fires a Cannon. What is his occupation?

Good luck….

Just to show off: I’ll let you know I made up the last two!

Games in the car were killing the kilometres and I think we both learned stuff along the way. We continued to burn the kilometres all day and decided that we had a good breakfast, a great squashed vanilla slice and we had stopped for fuel and got ‘snacks’ which Jackie insisted were potato chips and Twisties!

We decide to just keep driving and have lunch and dinner combined. We couldn’t decide if that would be a ‘dinch’ or a ‘lunner’. I like the first one but would love the second one if you spelt it with 3 n’s?

It was fitting then that we had dinch in Wagga Wagga; Jackie had a healthy vegetarian subway and I decided to see how much KFC and coke I could force down my throat? The kilometres were burning away; play lists changed to local radio and chatting and conundrums filled the spaces.

We actually had a plan to stay a few hundred kilometres out of Sydney so that I wouldn’t have to travel into any ‘COVID19 RED ZONES’ (All the terms are sounding more and more like the dystopian futures I watch are read in my science fiction…)….not that we had actually booked anything?

So Goulburn approached and seemed good and ‘The Bakehouse Motel’ had good review and more importantly was within our price range and had vacancies. Arrival was easy and the guy at reception was friendly and helpful; although Jackie did point out that his directions to the nearest hotel were lost to her after the 5th turn and ‘going up the road a bit, about 5 minutes, and there is a great little pub’ – we never found it.

Jackie showered and I was sent on a shopping expedition for cider, smokes and a vegetarian rice thing that I would find in the freezer section at the super market? I should have had the first shower!

I drove into downtown Goulburn and it was lovely: so many lovely places in Australia.

Everything really is ‘close’ in Australia; especially for a population who historically (in the country areas anyway)who would drive 60 km for a Hamburger at midnight and home again…. and, the countryside, even over the Hay Plain, is never the same, changes all the time, especially over all the kilometres we had done that day.

I was back at the motel after only a slight geographical embarrassment and the grattitude that I had not been killed when I initially pulled out of the motel on this journey, straight in front of two cars, one from the left the other from the right in a classic pincher movement; both braked hard…. then smiled and waved….

This actions by the locals, and the motel manager at reception was the first of many polite and friendly encounters I had in my short shopping expedition in Gouldburn; the ladies in the smoke shop, the guy in the bottle shop, the checkout dude scanning my frozen veg rice and qwinwhaa abomination (ok – quinoa); plus I drove past nice parks, old well looked after building and people out and about; it made me happy.

Jackie heated her healthy dinner by blasting it with microwaves and I drank a few ciders outside, doing the fellow traveller nod, and a g’day as you accidentally make eye contact in the motel carpark.

We were both a bit knackered so we jumped into bed (of course I had a cider on the night stand!) and said we’d take pot luck with a movie and both laughed, both seeing the wrongness of ‘super Bad’ and loving it at the same time.

… a good end to a ‘Dad and Daughter Road Trip Day’.

15th January 2021: Friday – Well, here will be a day that will go down in the annuls (or anals!) of our family history; butt, remember, that in this next tale nobody dies, so it was a good day.

Jackie and I had set our alarm for an early start; you know around eightish. We moved with the pace that Jackie described to me that she moved at when she had a difficult customer in retail – glacial… but, Maccas breakfast awaited us and we sat in the ‘restaurant’ (the definition of which has certainly changed where it was required to wear a shirt and tie)… and I explored the wonder of the Macca’s ‘Hot Cakes.’

We took a photo!

Jackie driving on the last leg of our journey together; straight to the Sydney airport what I thought was all through ‘GREEN ZONES’ ? flight out tonight and I was away.

Jackie got us the last few hundred km’s super dafe and alive although it seemed that every truck we came across was trying to kill us and we were the only ones who were’t speeding. It was nice to have some 500 km of freewway into sydney over the last couple of days.

Man1 We arrival at the Sydney Airport drop off zone brought home that I now had to let go of my little girl for her to live her new life and adventure, a long way away. I wrote the following in my little book of wisdom that I keep and was sure that I had included it one time or another in cards I had given to my girls. Now it was coming true:

Your World

Take any opportunity to live overseas or at least interstate. this is not going on a holiday but living there. Learn to be independent; enjoy your own company, miss home (and cherish it); experience another culture; eat their food, speak their language; make friends with the world and mainly yourself. Love the worlds diversity and vastness; don’t feel small, feel a part of it.

At the airport we managed to get my bag out the back of jackie’s car without the use of a crow bar; and there we were, about to part.

The little tear on Jackie’s cheek and the quiver of her chin will be with me always; in that moment, I thought how lucky I was to be here with my wonderful daughter; and now she had to make her own way.

On this trip, we had done many miles; for me and Jackie to I hope, we had done many years. I learned things and I got to know my daughter and more about the years, the people and the decisions that had got her to this farewell.

I learned of the life Bryony, Kym and William had created with our girls; there are some debts you can never repay; then again I am sure no repayment is necessary, asked for, or expected. i was privileged to be the parent that took our daughter to the launching pad of her new life….

…. and I said farewell to our youngest daughter and sister who would be the farthest away but forever just around the corner in our hearts and thought…. and that interweb video chat thingo.

Jackie drove away, leaving a very proud Dad with about 4 hours before his flight. I had a full pack of cigarettes, half a charge on my phone, a stop over in Melbourne for a few hours and home before midnight; all in one day….
… what could possibly go wrong?

Before I took off from sydney, Jackie had reached her friend Maddy’s place and to me the trek, this adventure was done, all safe, daughter done, Dad on the plane, Melbourne….

I thought the hard part was getting Jackie to Sydney… when in fact, the hardest part was getting her idiot Father home.

Thanks for your patience in reading my rambling story so far. Apologies for the typos and never ending sentences… I just wasn’t up to proof reading and wanted to post it tonight. Plus, I just wasted a whole lot of time watching The Castle again… so the above, is my story.

Part 2 soon.