Day 39 – Home and stats

Last nights blog was a bit slow to generate on the phone so here is a wrap of yesterdays activities and some stats about our trip. You know me I have to generate some stats about what we did.

We spent yesterday shopping after leaving the Berwick Show Grounds Leigh (the NavMan) took us to the Ikea in Springvale a shortish drive from our overnight location. After entering another service entrance like we did in Canberra we quickly recovered to the correct intersection and parked in an empty carpark. The shops here opened at 10AM and we were slightly early but about 5 minutes latter people were whizzing in probably above the speed limit out on the road and you had to be very careful you did not get run down on the Ikea carpark race track!

Sharon was in heaven and I must admit there was some cool stuff in Ikea but shopping is shopping and I glazed over very quickly. I did notice a few things we could do with and found a nice chair so we ended up with a trolley full of stuff once we left after a couple of hours. Packing it all into the camper was interesting but I kept an eye on package sizes and got it all tucked away nicely inside.

Next stop was the DFO at Moorabin and this was even more exciting (sarcasm). I did manage to pick up a couple of things for myself though. We got an SMS message from TT-Line that there was 2 cruise ships in dock and it was mayhem there so boarding was commencing at 5PM as they were expecting long delays. After we had a late lunch and finished shopping we headed down towards Bay Street but Leigh took an interesting route and we ended up in some shopping street choked with traffic. Not all bad though as we got some sushi for tea and stretched our legs before heading down to the pier.

The 2 cruise ships in dock were massive compared to the Spirit, it looked like a toy boat beside them. Carnival Spirit was docked behind Spirit 1 and Solstice was on the other side of the wharf and it was massive. We did not a good picture of Solstice as it left before we got into the queue. They had us corralled in the entrance letting just a few at a time through to check in.

The guy who did the security check was a complete tool. He kept asking me to open the boot of the camper and I could not make him understand I didn’t have a boot! He made me pop the bonnet but forgot to open or look under it. He looked in our gas cupboard and side storage and made me open the door to the camper once I got through his thick head the door was on the side not the boot. Some strange questions like do you have a knife or axe??? I told him I had a whole draw full of knives in the camper and he just gave me a stare… He told me I had to leave all my alcohol in my vehicle for the night (or what?). Eventually we checked in and made it on board.

We met the couple doing the 7 peaks bike ride on board and they told us they just made the last peak before the stamp office closed and they were very pleased with themselves doing them all in 7 days. We ate our sushi with a glass of bubbles to celebrate another successful trip on the top deck wit the sun setting. Smooth sailing and suddenly it was time to get off again. Several people holding up everybody not turning up to their vehicles. The quarantine officer wanted to look inside our fridge but after seeing all the Ikea stuff packed in front of it they gave up and ushered us through to the guy handling the gas cylinder return. I am sure he did not want to be there as it was just an effort to un-lean himself off the fence to serve us. Eventually he moved and gave me the bag in slow motion.

Customary ETC breakfast on the way back home so we can stare at the mountains before it’s all over. Arrived home around 9:30AM and started the massive unpack. Will be some days before we are back to normal again. Cupboards are bare, fridge is empty and load after load of washing banked up from our last few days. Somebody has mowed our lawns – thanks to who ever did it as I can’t get anybody to admit to it yet.

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