Home.....Almost! Harvey

Sunday the 16th of December... We were up early and leaving Geraldton  in the mid-west sunshine and under bright blue skies. Mother Nature was working her magic on the final leg. Not a lot was said... Truth be known, all the lumps in our throats were too big.

We stopped at a roadhouse near Dongara to pick up a toastie... as expected, it was terrible. I won't miss roadhouse toasties.

We reached Indian Ocean Drive around 9 and we were mesmerized by the beauty of our deep blue Indian Ocean on one side and the powder white Sandhills on the other. It had been a while since we'd seen sand so white. ..

Beautiful Indian Ocean Drive

The vegetation was also getting a lot greener,  a novelty for us.

We felt like we were reaching very familiar territory when we starting to see the odd spattering of bush Christmas trees and black boys or grass trees for the politically correct.

A beautiful sight, the Bush Christmas Tree

The cricket and Kerry o'Keefe's "mutley laugh" kept our minds occupied. Richard decided just after Jurien Bay to put some music on and with Troy Cassar-Daley singing Going Home, the lumps got a little bigger.

"We're  going home to where the people know you by your first name.

We're going home to where the people treat you the same, as they always have, Home."

By around 11:30 we hit the Mitchell Freeway, we hadn't seen this many cars for a good while...

Where did all these cars come from?????

By midday we got the first glimpses of our beautiful city. We may be just a little biased but it is still among the prettiest Australian cities. We spotted some new buildings and some familiar old ones.

Once we saw the city we all lifted. We called into Applecross to pick up some beef swirls Richards favourite meal, he hadn't had them for nearly a year and my attempts didn't quite match up.

Hello Lucky Bay

A quick call in to to say hi to Ron & Lee (Pop & Huggy)....

The kids wait to see their Pop & Huggy

...then via Mark and Lisa's (only Mark was home) and Browny's where we got to see the kids, Bree, Josh and Matty and how big they have grown. I took this photo of the rig with the city in the background at the front  of Browny's house....

Big Red in the big smoke

Browny took this photo of team Bennett

By around two we hit the Freeway south, getting  more excited as each kilometre drew us closer to home.

It was all too much for Nina, she retreated to the land of nod for a while....

Chook has a cat nap

Just after 3 we arrived in Harvey. We dropped into town to pick up milk and bread before heading into the hills.
The boys were desperate to see their mates Anthony, Matthew and little Andrew... so we drove up to their farm.
We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful welcome than to see the boys running down the hill when they saw our car. Within seconds Jack, Harry and Nina were out of the car running up the hill to see their mates.

The boys were so excited to see each other

After giving each other cuddles they realised they were cool dudes and acted accordingly.
Anthony and Matthew hadn't been counting down to Christmas this year, they had been counting down until the Bennett boys got home... too cute!!
Nick and Ange were there about to host a Xmas party and so we thought we'd stay for a drink and head off, but as is the case with us and with everyone was having so much fun, we ended up setting up the van with a million dollar view and staying the night.

A Vista Ridge View

A Vista Ridge sunset

So it was the day we almost got home, but not quite.

What's another night when you've been away for a year?