We made it to Portland!

Hi everyone,

We finally made it to Portland after 4 days on the road.

It was a struggle to get away, we just had so much stuff. We ended up using the roof rack on the car which made a huge difference. We only left 3 hours after we had aimed for, which I thought was alright going, knowing us.

After leaving we needed to stop and pick upa tarp and proper ropes for the stuff on the roof, we evntually found somewhere, and as we drove up there was a huge bunch of mexicans on the side of the road. They were looking at us kind of funny, and kept motioning at us, which was all a bit scary., Turns out they were looking for work. Anyway, so Paul went and bought a tarp, which was all they had, and it was really thin. I was on the roof of the car and it flapping all around in the wind. Then some guy pulled over in his ute, and told us he had something much better. Turned out he had bags that are used to transport asbestos off site. They were really strong and we could just put our suitcases in and tape the ends up. Very handy. It rained monsoon style the whole way, and the only suitcases that got wet were the carry ons with the kids toys. On day 3 I checked the baggage and there was huge puddle at the bottom of that bag. So I just cut a slit at the bottom, a torrent poured out and then everything was fine. For once I was thankful that kids toys are all made of plastic - very easy to dry.

We saw somne really beautful scenery, especially the red forests. It was a shame that it rained so much, as we didn't really get out to look at stuff much. We did go for a bush walk in the red woods, in the rain, which was fine, except our shoes got so filthy and wet. It took more than a day for the kids shoes to dry, so because they only had one pair each, they didn't really get out of the car at all on the last day.

Anyway, heres a couple of photos from the trip:

Thats our car down the bottom there.

Threre were a few funny thing we saw - such as a casino in the middle of no where, in a huge big tent. Bigger than any circus tent I've seen, but a tent all the same. We figured there must be some by law about smoking in tents and Indians. Also funny was the sign advertising cage fights out the front.

The other funny attraction was a huge building on an Indian reservation advertsing the sovereign nation of elk valley. Seems we've now been to our second country.

Anyway, our house in Portland is quite nice. The only issue was that our car doesn't fit in the garage (stupid big beast), so I've paid to rent a car park in a parking complex about 5 minutes away.

Thats about it for now. Hmmm, bit of a boring blog. I'll do something interesting next time.

cheers,

Nicole