WEDNESDAY MARCH 23      SALE TO HOME     270kms

We were all up fairly early, with the result that we left the park about 9.30am.

As we left the town behind, I texted a friend in Drouin, who was expecting us to call in for morning tea, to let him know we should be there about 11am.

We made good time to Drouin, despite encountering some roadworks. Driving the Princes Highway through this fertile, farming part of Gippsland is always pleasant, with the blue ranges in view to the north.

C was not technologically comfortable, and had not updated his GPS for some time. That was witnessed by the fact that the estate where my friend lived did not appear on C’s GPS. T had lived there for some eight years by now! So we came off the freeway and then waited in the main street of Drouin for them to catch us up, after I had texted directions from the freeway to where we were. They’d had to make a comfort stop in Yarragon, so were about ten minutes behind us. That gave time for a short walk for the dog.

Made our way in convoy to T’s place. The others had never been there, and it was a while since I’d visited. We received a house and garden tour – the garden had really become established since my last visit. His assorted citrus trees were now fruit bearing.

After a pleasant morning tea and chat, we left at 1.30pm, heading for home.

The traffic on the freeway heading towards Melbourne was really heavy. Much more than I’d expected. Part of the rationale for returning home today had been to avoid the traffic build up of tomorrow, when people would be getting a flying start on the Easter break.

The bulk of the traffic encountered between Drouin and the Eastlink exit was trucks and delivery vehicles. With our increasingly heavy reliance on road freight, rather than the rail alternative, poor old Melbourne was rapidly becoming clogged up, it seemed. It had become an endless cycle of building more and bigger freeways to ease traffic congestion, thereby encouraging more use of said freeways, leading to even greater congestion….ad nauseum.

The Eastlink traffic was less, with more cars and fewer trucks. We came off at Canterbury Road and then had the usual stop/start run home – due to proliferating traffic lights.

A big panel in our front fence had blown down. Probably in the same wild weather we had last Friday. No damage to anything – just a fix-up job for John. Back to reality!

Our flat tenant, who’d been keeping an eye on the garden watering needs, had picked a lot of figs from our back yard tree, and left a big container of same on the front veranda for me. Fortunately I got to them before Couey did – she loves figs! Now I would have to think of something to do with them. No room in the freezer because it was full of tomato products. Would have to dehydrate them. Back to my reality!

There were still quite a few fallen and bird pecked figs lying about on the ground beneath the tree. Party for Couey.

Easy and quick unpack. A week’s worth of washing to do.

We would need to get both Bus and Terios serviced again, before the next jaunt. Might need some new tyres soon, too.

Bus is really good for this type of short trip.