Leaving the Brinkmans


Well the sad day finally arrived that we were to be off on the next leg of our journey not knowing when we might see our lovely family again. 
On Saturday Abigail and Dennis drove us back to Wagga to catch our train later that evening. We sorted out the logistics of cars and numbers of people and Dennis sacrificed his few hours off so that the children could spend the last afternoon together. (Thank you Dennis!- Did you make work in time?) 
Wagga Wagga train station

We had to fill in 8 hours before we could get on the train so we went to a wee zoo, and a playground – how many will we visit in this trip we wondered! We walked around town to the supermarket to get some food for dinner and the train ride and ate it in the mall. It was quite a funny sight really – the eleven of us hanging out on a bench just by the supermarket eating carrots, cheese rolls, mandarins and donuts for dessert. It was getting close to Fern’s birthday and because we were going to spend almost the whole day on the train Josh decided we’d better have a little celebration there and then. He bought some birthday candles and a lighter and popped one into each of the donuts we were about to devour and we all sung ‘Happy Birthday’ to Fern there in the mall with the cleaner behind us cleaning the floor with a noisy vacuum cleaner and the supermarket staff packing up for the night looking on.
Phoebe, Salome and Esmae outside the train station

At 8:30 we still had three hours to fill in before the doors to the train station even opened so we piled all the children (8 of them) into the car - which was parked with all our luggage into a trailer – to watch a movie from the lap-top Davida had thoughtfully brought along. It was quite a sight seeing them all packed into the car together to watch a DVD!
All the children piled into the car to watch a DVD


Fun with a trolley to fill in time


When it was it was finally time to say goodbye there were many hugs and a few tears shed and then they were gone. 
It wasn’t long before we heard a wail from Fern as she realised she’d left behind her precious ipad in their car and so after some frantic calls they were back again to the save the day!
Thank you Abigail, Dennis and family for such a wonderful, adventurous and fun-filled stay with you! You made us feel so welcome and loved. We will miss you very much!

The next leg of our journey was from Wagga to Sydney – a 7 hour ride on the train from 12:30am – 7:30. None of us were relishing the thought of this part very much. But this time we came much better prepared. We brought our sleeping bags with us and travel pillows and earplugs, oh and eye mask thingys so we could be as comfortable as we could be. Dennis (the king of magic potions) had given us some herbal sleeping drops which aided in our comfort too and we managed to get through the night with a bit of sleep thankfully!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
There are lots of things I am enjoying about the Netherlands and some that are surprising. I'm amazed at the playgrounds they have for children scattered around almost every housing block - there is a smallish one on a square of grass at the end of most streets and then a big fenced in one at the end of the block. They are well equipped with wooden and unusual structures. But no public toilets which I find hard to understand! The roads are rather narrow and often don't have a center line to differentiate between the right and left side but on most roads (other than highways) they have red concrete to indicate the bike lane which takes up a good portion of the road. I like that the road is well planned out for biking as a main mode of transport. One of the roads with red on both sides for the bike lanes I am so impressed with the beauty of the houses here! We've spent the past few days visiting small villages which are only a few kilometers apart and every single hous
Read more

Indonesia - the most friendly place in the world

Image
Bananas hanging in the market This is our very last week traveling! We are counting down the days now to when we'll be back in New Zealand and onto familiar soil yet again. No more back packs! No more of the totally unknown and having to find our way around. We'll be back in the land of hot showers and flushing toilets too. But it does mean no more new and exciting sights and dinners out, No more fascinating wildlife or hot tropical days. These things I will be missing. Exquisite jungle flora At a huge 400-year-old tree in the jungle Indonesia has been full of surprises. The first being how friendly everyone here is! Maybe it's because we're western and fair-haired, but within our first minute of arriving in Medan people wanted to help us and everyone smiled and wanted to say hello and ask our names and to introduce themselves. We got a bus from Medan airport which took us through the city to the last stop, a huge mall, where Josh wanted to get a
Read more

On the Road again

Image
From the train at dawn. Phoebe on the back of the truck Tuk-tuk we rode to Ao Nang. Our week in Bangkok was over, so it was time to say goodbye to our comfortable room and the street we had become happily familiar with, though I think we were all pretty keen to leave the city even though it wasn't all so foreign as it was in the beginning. Josh had one last visit to the dentist and we were very glad for this as the appointment came with a complementary drive to the train station which was about 2 hours away. We had tickets for the overnight train, a 12 hour trip through the night to Krabi, a coastal city. We were all dreading this trip and braced ourselves for a long night of discomfort in the cheapest seats we could find. We were allocated tiny seats meant to fit two people and positioned right next to the stinky toilet. But the good thing was that the train wasn't too full so we ended up being able to spread out a bit. Even so, the tiny seats weren't enough f
Read more