Rubyvale to Home

We left Rubyvale the next morning to travel further east to visit our friends in Rockhampton.

It was on that morning that we received the phone call to say that my Mum was going downhill fast.  We contemplated just driving home, but that would take at least three days, so asked our friends to see if they could get me on a flight home. That was Saturday morning and the earliest they could get a flight from Rocky was on Monday evening.  They then tried Gladstone, about an hour and a half south and were able to get me a flight on the Sunday in the late morning.

So, we did finally get to see our friends, if only for one night.  We had been trying to get there since early May, but life seems to have conspired against us this year.

My flight home was good, with a stopover in Brisbane.  On boarding both flights they announce that the flights were full, so I was very fortunate to have been able to secure a seat.

Including our drive from Rockhampton to Gladstone and my train trip from Sydney to Bathurst, it took 13 hours to get home.

I did make it in time to see Mum, before she passed away the following day, something that I will be forever grateful for.

Mick, meanwhile, had to drive home in the wet.  It took him four days, as there was no longer any rush.

He found a couple of nice free camps along the way.

His final night on the way home was at Gulgong Showground and it finally stopped raining and provided a beautiful sunset.

And that ends our second attempt at a Queensland holiday this year.  We don’t think we’ll tempt fate by going a third time.  We hope to get up there and finally spend some quality time with our friends next year.

In the meantime, there are other trips to go on.