Away at last

Did you ever think we would get here?!
Lance Brooks, the pessimistic optimist, January 2026

We left North Head and immediately caught the morning traffic across the Spit Bridge and along Military Road. Over the Harbour Bridge (Lance does not like the tunnel as why waste a chance to take in one of the best views in the world!), then onto the M5. Lance’s brother Paul rang. The conversation took us through the Southern Highlands where we had to hang up while we took our first service centre stop. This stop was mostly for me to have a wee but we also filled the tank with diesel and put 2 litres of AdBlue in. AdBlue basically washes the diesel “clean”. It also causes the car to stop working if you run out of it so its important to keep it topped up. The service centre naturally had a whole world of fast food options, and we bought coffees, a toastie, fruit yoghurt and a croissant. No chips!

Off we set down the Hume Highway again. This time we spoke to Michelle and the kids. Along the way Lance hit 115kph and at that point the van started to sway- note to selves – don’t drive too fast.

Our next stop was the first rest area at Lake George, where we admired the view.

We quickly moved to rest area 2 for me to wee (again) andwe noticed that the AdBlue was going down rapidly. Oh no our first car trouble! We went about 500m to the lookout and the AdBlue was down again. We needed to check this quickly. Into Canberra and we stopped at the first petrol station we saw. They had an AdBlue pump so Lance filled it right up. It took 12 litres! He also bought chips. From now on we will make sure we regularly fill up the AdBlue.

Next bit of symbolism was a visit to Parliament House, really just a drive by with a photo op.

Symbolism ticked off we moseyed on down to Bredbo. We always like to stop at the pie shop when we travel to the Snowy Mountains.

After eating one pie and half a sausage roll each we moved on to do some grocery shopping at Jindabyne. Dinner breakfast and lunches bought fo the next 3 nights and we finally were on our way to our destination for the next couple of nights – the beautiful Tom Groggin Campground, 25km past Thredbo. We had spent many happy times here as day visitors and had always wanted to camp here.

It is set in a beautiful valley on the banks of the upper reaches of the Murray River. The open fields are full of kangaroos. Rosellas and kookaburras flit around possums come out at night and there are apparently rainbow trout to be caught in the creek, but not by us.

We found a spot in the sparsely populated campground and began our first set up for real. Check lists in hand we followed the protocol perfectly and soon had the basics done,