The thought of traveling for five or more hours, on my own, to Albany was daunting to say the least, especially given that I was to have four young children in the car with me. Memories of the time I had set out on a similar journey to collect my mother from our home town of Wellington in New South Wales came rushing back. I fell asleep on the freeway in Sydney near Blacktown and rolled my car. Although I walked away with just a small scratch on my foot, it had really shaken me up. I was just a green 23 year old who had never driven a long trip before.
I can appreciate my husband's anxiety, as he knew that I hadn't been sleeping well. I'd been on a creative bender - so inspired that I couldn't rest. All I wanted to do was create art pieces. I don't know how many times he asked me the week before I left, "Have you been sleeping? When did you last get a good night's sleep." He even threatened to disable my car!! So you can imagine how that lack of trust was working on my subconscious.
Then there was the memories of my mother's fatal car accident to contend with. Each car we passed was a potential deadly weapon. She'd done nothing wrong, but was hit head on by someone who did.
So knowing all that about me, I'm sure you can appreciate that I felt a little anxiety myself, very well suppressed mind you, as I reassured him that I was perfectly capable of going the distance and that if I felt at all like I might go to sleep at the wheel I would pull into the nearest town and find a bed for the night.
And as I started out on the adventure of a lifetime, knowing that I couldn't back out because I'd arranged a house swap and my visitors were arriving as I was heading out of town, all I could wonder was do I really have it in me to drive all that way on my own? Don't I need someone stronger than me to be with me and hold my hand?
The funny thing is this is just another realm of my coming to know myself. Coming to know that I am a capable woman, that I can make choices and that they can be good choices.
Suffice to say, I arrived safely in Albany. The sky didn't cave in. In fact, apart from a quick stop off at Mt Barker Hospital to check if my daughter would survive taking too many travel sickness tablets (she'd been popping them every time she felt sick without my knowledge!) we had a very uneventful trip. The roads were very sparsely traversed by others, so we almost had the whole countryside to ourselves.
Stopping when there was a scene I just didn't want to miss capturing, the twin screen portable DVD player I purchased was a real Godsend. It kept my children focused and I only got one or two "Are we there yets?" from my youngest daughter.
And now we are here, the adventure continues. Having miscalculated on the funds side of things, we are having to live very meagerly, but there is so much you can do that costs nothing when you are on holiday and we have been so blessed with our accommodation. I don't know where I have ever had access to a better range of "girly" DVD's, board games and the good old computer and computer games! We definitely got the better deal in the house exchange!
Here is the view out of our front yard...
And a view of the beach where we went swimming yesterday...
And here is Catherine and I at the beach. I met Catherine through the Women Can International site on Ning.com and she's also a member on this site. It was great to meet her in the flesh as she lives in Albany.
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