The End. Or Another Start?

I've been sitting on this post for a little while. Perhaps I've been in denial a bit. Not wanting to admit the trip is over. But it is, and it's time to focus on, not only finishing the blog but kickstarting our new house and resurrecting our life in The Marsh.

It won't be the last post, so keep an eye out on travel tales and reviews, but this is my thoughts at the end of our first Big Trip...

Hooking up for the last time...

And so it begins.

The end that is.

With only two more nights left in the van on this adventure of ours, and tomorrow out of action for blogging due to a wedding, this will be the last blog from the road.

Some say "gee that's come around quick". Others "you guys finished already?"

Me? I just sit back and smile and just try and think of what we've done, what we've seen and what we've learnt.

I think truthfully we've been on the "wind down" now for a few weeks, ever since purchasing our house from the road. It gave us an end, a horizon. A target to move closer to. And since then, the mindset, the attitudes and approach to our adventure has changed, well from my perspective. We moved away from the "adventure" feel and the feeling of "on holidays" has returned.

The feeling you get when you pack up at the end of a summer holiday or getaway. That's what I'm feeling, but with more a sense of relief than anything else.

Don't get me wrong. I could keep going and continue for another lap. The travel and the distance is intoxicating to me. I want the blue line on our trip map to squiggle all over the bloody country!

But it's time for our little crew to rest its heels. Time for the next chapter. To find the next adventure. Or at least start saving for it.

So relief is a definitely a defining emotion of the moment. As is accomplishment. It's a challenge doing what we've done. Sure, an exciting and on the whole, amazingly positive one, but a challenge nevertheless. New experiences and levels of stress, concern, uncertainty, unknown and danger have been felt and learnt from.

I was saying the other day to my mate (and cousin) that life in the van is so "emotionally concentrated". Your happiness is magnified. Your fun is multiplied. But so is frustration. And weariness. Patience. Tolerance. We've had to understand our own levels of them, and learn to adapt and where possible improve them to make our life in a 20ft box possible.

So we'll do our last pack up tomorrow, before heading off to the wedding, and early on Sunday we'll hook up and hopefully successfully climb out of Kangaroo Valley, before rolling down the Hume, Bacchus Marsh bound.

It will be quite the end. Our biggest driving day planned started with possibly the biggest climb we've asked the Rock Truck to pull the Big Green Lizard up. It's kind of like our final push to the line to claim "gold".

And whilst we'd like to perhaps take a more relaxed approach, it is an effort required to start the next stage of life. One we're very excited about.

I suspect on the way though, we'll talk and regale tales about our trip. Of what we've done and the places we've seen.

Oh... the places we've seen.

Still smiling...

A huge day on the Hume...