We left Renner Springs at about 3am to avoid the heat and headed for Mt Isa. Arrived there in the arvo and it was very hot and dry.
First thing the next morning Shaun started making phone calls to find the VW dealer he was told could look at our faulty air con. Unfortunalty we were told the wrong info back in NT and there was no dealer in Mt Isa... the closest one being Townsville, Emerald or Mackay :( So after a few cranky words exchanged by Shaun and VW Aus we decided to head home and get it fixed in Mackay.
We had our last meal with the Perfects at one of the local bistros and then we took the kids to an awesome free water park to cool down while Shaun went back to the camper to try to get some sleep. We thought we'd drive through the night again to avoid the heat.
We were all pretty down in the dumps now as this was not the way we wanted our trip together to end :( it really didn't feel right packing up camp and going our seperate ways. I felt like we had left someone behind!
The kids were also very emotional... I found Caleb by himself very sad and teary, he didn't want to leave his mates.
So after our final sad goodbyes and Caleb leaving a note for Benny at his camp we headed off for home at about 7pm.
It was a very quiet and sad last leg of our trip :( I think we all had a bit of the blues heading home. And to top it off after Shaun and I sharing the driving through the night, we got a flat tyre on the camper about 80kms from home! It was 8am in the morning and on the Mt Coolon road.
So after changing our second flaty of the trip we were on the road home. We arrived back home to our place and Uncle Marcus at 10.30am. Felt very surreal being back 'home' after being on the road for 3 months and only just moving house prior to leaving.
Our 3 month Aussie adventure was everything plus more than what we expected! We'd had an amazing time with the Perfect's creating lots of great memories and we feel very lucky to have experienced it. It has definitely given us the travel bug as we can't wait to take our lil Brady bunch on the road again!! :)