DAY 173 & 174 – MELBOURNE AND THE BIG SURPRISE…….

No real photos these last couple of days…

We actually had a a bit of a sleep in this morning as we weren’t in a rush to leave this morning as we only had about 75kms to go today until we arrived in Melbourne. Both of us felt very excited as we headed off on this leg of our journey.  We were arriving a day early so that we could surprise Dan and Chloe.

Before we left Geelong though, Steve decided to take me back to Jayco to show me the van he had found yesterday to see what I thought of it…

Steve's dream van..

 It was pretty good… Not that much bigger than the van we have now, but so much more to allow us to off road camp and heaps more storeage space.  It also has everything already built into it for 4WDing and off road living… 

Internal shower Yahhhhhh

Own bathroom

Plenty of kitchen space and cupbords

Large fridge up off the ground

Even has an oven

Good size living area

The inside is quite spacious with plenty of storage space.. Have taken photos so that I can dream...

Outdoor cooking area included

Plenty of outside storage

Even a rolling tray for your generator

 I could easy see us in a van like this, so this will be our goal for retirement, so that we can spent a lot more time off road camping in future camping trips.  

We were in Melbourne by lunch time.  I am glad we arrived then and not a bit later as the traffic was still chaotic and it is not much fun towing a van through the middle of the city with so much traffic. 

Setting up at the Sundowner Caravan Park in Melbourne

Our van - we are here for 10 days so all set up

We're parked in Sixth Avenue in the caravan park

Fortunately we could stick to the A1 all the way through town and out to the other side.  Our caravan park was about 300m off this main road so it was quite to find.  As we have 9 nights booked here, we decided to set up the van a bit more so have put out the awning, and attached the sides to give us a bit more privacy.   

 

Home baked cake for Dan and Chloe

I also wanted to bake a cake to take into Chloe to surprise her, so Steve got te Weber out and we went into baking made to bake her a lovely passionfruit lemon cake.

It was great getting in the day early, as Chloe was still working today, so we were able to get et up completely before heading into her place to surprise her.

We rang her from outside her apartments, telling her how excited we were and how we only had one more sleep to to until we were all together.  She fell for it hook line and sinker, so when we walked into her apartment she was really speechless.  It was so good to see her.  It has been way too long.  

Her husband Dan was still at work, so he got a real surprise to see us there also when he got home.  

We had a lovely evening with them, we out to dine for dinner at a lovely little Italian restaurant in Malvern not far from where they live.  They really live in a great area… so handy to everything.

It was midnight before we got back to the van park, and we still needed to have showers before hoping into bed…. I think it was close to 1am before we finally crawled into bed.

We actually had a bit of a sleep-in the following morning, as Chloe had to go to work so we weren’t able to see her anyway.  We did however bring a couple of baskets of washing home of hers last night so Steve and I spent the morning washing.  It was nice to be able to help her out in this way, as they don’t have a laundry at their place and have to take their washing to a laundromat.  

Basket loads of washing took us all morning

It pretty much took all morning to get all of theirs and our washing done, dried and folded and by then it was almost time for Chloe to know off work as she was finishing early today because of Christmas. 

She caught the train out to us and we picked her up and then headed into Chadstone, a huge shopping centre near Chloe and Dan’s to start our Christmas shopping.  Dan also met us there after work, and we were probably there for 5 or 6 hours getting it all done before heading back to Chloe’s where Dan and Chloe made us Apricot Chicken pizza for dinner.   It was another very late night for us as it was midnight again before we left Dan and Chloes.  Another half hour drive home, late shower and again it was close to 1am before we got to bed…