DUBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

.. otherwise known as DUMBO!

So our long weekend began on Friday morning when we all got up to pack (!) and get going to Dubbo.

We were all very excited.. and true to form, even though it was a 2 night trip, we had 2 big bags, Josie's suitcase, two fridge bags and a bathroom bag! Comparatively it was a lot better than our US trip.. but still..

So away we went.. at about 1130am (I had desperately wanted to leave by 10am but it was not to be). Our first stop was Uncle David's house where we swiped his GPS. That GPS turned out to be a godsend! More on that later!

After having secured the GPS, I was horrified to realise that the Nintendo DS that I had borrowed from Jacqui for Josie to play on the way was almost out of battery and while I had a charger for it, it wasn't a car charger! Josie was told quite firmly that she had to ration her DS use and I was SO surprised at how well she did that. Every time I reminded her that she should take a break from it, she handed it over without a problem. On a couple of occasions she actually handed it over without a reminder from me. I was very impressed, considering how little impulse control our daughter has! ;-) The DS lasted to about the Blue Mountains. After that Josie was quite content to look at books and draw. In fact she was just an angel on the way there. I don't remember her complaining at all (although I may have just blocked it out ;-). We stopped a couple of times at Hungry Jacks, to have lunch and for a toilet break, where she could play in their playground. I think this broke up the journey somewhat for her. She was just magnificent on the way there.

The journey there took about 9 hours. 9 hours! This was mostly due to the long weekend traffic. The huge long weekend traffic! Having said that the GPS was wonderful. We were able to bypass chunks of the traffic by finding parallel roads and just taking them. She (the GPS) would freak out when we would do this. She was quite happy when we stuck to her instructions, but when we strayed, she became quite irritable, however, once we did take other roads, she was very helpful in finding our way back to the highway!

We got to Dubbo at about 830pm. Josie was already asleep by then, so we basically put her in her room, shut the door, and melted into the tub. I had specifically booked an apartment that had a spa. It wasn't a round type spa, it was long, but it did have bubbles. We couldn't turn on the bubbles cause it was too loud, but the bath was larger than a standard bath, so we both managed to relax in there for a while.

On Saturday morning I woke up with a bit of a sore throat. I figured it was probably from the dry, dusty outback air.

We got ready and headed out to the Western Plains Zoo. When we got there, the queue of cars waiting to get in was down the road. We got the the end of the line, and 45 mins later we finally drove through the huge zoo gates.

The Western Plains Zoo is just beautiful. Its huge, with animals everywhere and I don't know how people do it all on foot. We took our car around. We managed to see lots of animals and Josie loved it all. I will post some photos on Flickr soon.

Unfortunately, after about 4 hours there my throat started to hurt a lot more, and by the time we got back to the hotel, my tonsils had swollen so much that lying down I could not breathe. I lay down for much of that evening, and when it came time to go to bed, Tony had to prop me upright with about 4 pillows so that I could sleep and breathe at the same time. It was the most uncomfortable night of my life. I woke up every 15-20 minutes and the time just crawled. By about 6am the swelling was down a bit and I was able to lean back, so Tony went into Josie's room (she had woken up), got in bed with her and they fell back asleep. I figure I must have kept him up half the night. Once he left, I removed all the pillows, left mine, lay back, and slept till about 8am. It was bliss. My back was aching though.

That morning (Sunday) we packed up and headed off back to Sydney. The GPS once again was great in helping us avoid the Back-To-Sydney traffic, but the trip, even though it was only 7hrs this time, was difficult. Josie was quite restless and sick of the whole thing. In the last 2 hours she basically kept repeating "I wanna go home!! I wanna go home!!" over and over again, to the point that Tony and I were just ready to leave her on the side of the road and make her walk!! ;-)

We finally made it home at about 530pm. We were all exhausted!

I went to work Monday but left a bit early to go see the Dr.. took Tuesday off to recuperate and am now back at work with very little of my sore throat left and my tonsils back to normal. Yay!

It was a nice trip.. but I think next time, anything over a 5 hr drive, and we'll just fly ;-)