Trip 2 begins

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People talk about getting efficient at setting up & packing up their caravans, I am left wondering if we will ever get that way when it comes to leaving on the start of a trip. There just seemed to be a never ending stream of stuff (aka crap) moving from the house to the caravan... it took forever to pack it all & we're very lucky that we were able to arrange an upgrade on our ATM (how much stuff we can add to the caravan) or we'd be doing this trip naked.

Oh, did I mention we have a new caravan? We now call a 21 ft Galaxy caravan home. It is a much better setup for us and it is so nice not having to fold out beds & pop up the top when we pull over for a night.

After getting packed up yesterday & waiting to see if the weather was staying wet, we said farewell to Ryan's mum... yes we invaded Ryan's parents yet again for a month or so... and headed south down the coast. We have tossed up a way to travel with all the flooding happening in Queensland and northern New South Wales, but in the end we figured we just had to take a chance and go with our original plan.

Ryan had picked out a place for us to free camp, but on arrival it was a pretty easy 'no' and off we went. Option two was a rest stop at a place called Sleepy Hollow... now if you ignore the fact it sounds like the setting for a horror film... then you miss a place to base it on... though it wasn't your typical horror film type horror. 1) The toilets were closed and 4 porta loos stood in their place, yay for a toilet in the caravan, because the reaction of a young lady after opening the door of one didn't make me want to visit them. 2) It consisted of a small park, car parking, caravan / trailer parking and a truck stop. 3) We were maybe 50 m from the pacific motorway. 4) Truckies seem to ramp up activity at night. 5) The dogs had to sleep inside, which required toilet breaks.

I didn't sleep much last night.

Tonight we are in Ballina at the Lakeside Caravan Park. Lovely spot & they are happy to have the dogs... as long as they behave. We're in the dog section, so staying with a group of people that have dogs tagging along too.

They have a great kids water play area, Noah could go through the whole thing and not get into water much deeper than his waist. Best of all... waterslides, they are only small, but Noah has found a new favourite. Though, who wouldn't love a slippery slide in a pool... awesome combination, whoever thought of it was a genius.

No photos at the moment, but will look at changing that tomorrow. Time for bed now, Noah fell asleep during a walk this afternoon, so he's been asleep since around 5 (QLD time) and is yet to wake, regardless of how much we tried. So, no dinner, no before bed milk and I think there will be a very early wake up time.

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