Day 76 - A LONG Drive Home

We left Nathan's Nan's place today to start the crazy long drive home, I so should have had Nathan drop us off at the airport. I had already directed us in the wrong direction once before we were across the border and into NSW. Our first pit stop was just outside the QLD border so we could eat some lunch. The rest area was so green and pretty and had an enclosed park, not that we stopped for long enough to let Maddie play. It was a shame that the rest stop was switched to porta-loo's while they upgrade the roads, they were steamy hot and gross inside.

A little further down the road we came across the Macadamia Castle and just had to stop. With Maddie's love of Castles and my love of Macadamia's it was a no brainer. I wonder how well the castle will run when the highway bypasses it. The Macadamia's were so tasty I want to go back for more, pity its such a long drive!

Maddie had a bit of a nap, nothing worth being excited by, but it did mean less time to try keep her entertained. Most of the time we have been away she has sat in her car seat like this, it doesnt look comfortable to us and it certainly doesnt bode well for poo's. It cant be too bad though if she can fall asleep like it, and its nice that there is something to catch her head when it falls forward. There is definitely a flaw in childseats, when kids go to sleep there is nothing to support their little necks.









I had hoped to take Maddie to the Big Banana on the way home, but by the time we got there is was closed, so with our nifty apple maps we found a park and hopped out for a quick play. Maddie was so excited to be out of the car and raced around as much as she could in the short time we had stopped.







From there, we were back in the car and headed towards Port Macquarie where we decided to stay the night. Silly me thought that it wouldnt be a problem getting accomodation at the last minute as it was Sunday and not school holidays, but because it was Sunday, no one had staff on to answer their phones! We ended up checking into the Mantra Quayside, and wow was that a nerve wracking experience.

As there were no staff on Duty they sent someone in to set up the room and leave a key in a safe for us, with the instructions to call when we get there to get the safe code. OMG it was dark and a ghost town, and it took ages for someone to answer the phone. When they did, I opened the safe to find the envelope with my name on it, only to discover there were about 20 envelopes in there with no names on them. The poor girl on the phone was a little startled but picked one of the numbers and told us that hopefully that was the right one and there was hopefully going to be a cot in there. We were so nervous we only took up the nappy bag with us when we went to check the room, thankfully it was the right one and it was AWESOME!!! If we are ever up that way again we will have to stay there, the room was spacious, clean and the bathroom was lovely.