Saturday, August 7, 2010

The Finish Line

G'day, all. This post is being written in Hobart. And for the first time since early February, we are no longer homeless wanderers.

This morning at 6:58am we drove off the Spirit of Tasmania ferry in Devonport, and by 10:30 we were in Kingston Beach unloading all the stuff in our car into our home.

The drive down from Sydney was uneventful (we don't count LK and me having "discussions") and it showcased Australia in its winter. No snow on our route, but the fields around Canberra looked wintry, bare branches and brown grass on the ground. Leaving Albury yesterday morning, we drove through thick fog until we exploded out into brilliant sunshine about an hour above Melbourne.

We had a lovely moment as we sat through what now seems to be an inevitable delay in boarding the ferry. My phone rang. The reception was very scratchy, and I could hear a voice saying, "Don't you know who this is?" Finally the signal was clear enough to recognize Judy, whom we had met on our cruise from Singapore to Athens.

That seemed like ancient history, but of course it was just one of the early stages of this whole mad journey. It was great to hear Judy and her husband Wally welcome us back to Oz - and their timing couldn't have been more perfect than catching us with only a few minutes left before we physically left the mainland. They're a fantastic couple and it is really great to think that we will continue our friendship beyond the couple of weeks of the cruise.

The ferry ride was uneventful. Or perhaps I should say, from all I knew it was uneventful. I had briefly thought of posting my final blog entry as a mainlander from the ferry itself, but a couple of wines and I was out cold till the loudspeaker told us it was 6am and we would be docking in 40 minutes.

Driving south through the island, I must have commented how lovely Tasmania is half a dozen times. Mother Nature certainly helped, with a rosy dawn lighting clouds in pink and faint blue as they stretched across the mountains. We passed many sheep paddocks where dozens of ewes were minding their newborn lambs. And at one point, we had a jaw-dropping view of long white clouds settling into a couple of valleys among the rolling hills.

But the real prize today, of course, was Kingston Beach. There wasn't a cloud in the sky as we drove up to our new home, and the bays glistened in the early morning. It was this view that knocked us out when we first saw the house, and I can only hope that we are still knocked out by it ten years from now.

We're in a Hobart hotel right now. Furniture gets delivered on Wednesday. Errands to run until then - including buying a fridge and some tools. I wonder if LK would notice if I slipped a chainsaw into the basket....

We are both very, very happy, very buzzed and ready to make this house our home. Our love and thanks to all of you who helped make our long journey such a wonderful experience.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Every Taswegian needs a chainsaw - I am sure LK wont mind