23. The one when we got locked-up

Total distance travelled: 19,828km (+1,272km)

After a couple of hectic days packing, cleaning and saying farewell to all our dear Nhulunbuy friends, we departed 14 Feldegg Ave at 3:30am to conquer ‘The Track’. We were very thankful to have our friends, the Smiths, in convoy to tackle the track with, as if something goes wrong, there are no towns and no access to assistance for several hundred kilometres.

Thankfully, besides a small puncture creating a slow leak in one of our brand new rear tyres, our journey along the track was largely uneventful. Poor Matt did, however, have to change that tyre in 40 degree heat at a Katherine servo. While it was a less than desirable

situation, we were able to count our blessings that nothing more major had gone wrong in our now-4 trips of the track in 2021. Matt and I also reflected on how well the kids handled this setback, as early in our trip, whenever things went wrong (like the van’s oven door breaking), the kids would get really grumpy and want to go home. With this hiccup, they didn’t complain once and actually got out of the car to thank Matt for changing the tyre… progress worth celebrating!

When we finally arrived at our van, we were relieved to find it practically as we had left it, with only the wheel chocks missing and the entry step out… for Katherine, we'll call that a win! Due to covid cases in Katherine at the time, we chose to press on in our travels and make it to Victoria River Roadhouse, where we booked a basic cabin for the night. After 15 hours on the road that day, ‘relieved’ doesn’t quite capture how good it felt to get out of the car and fall into bed! It was a heroic effort from Matt, who did all the driving and hard work!

Thankful to have been given late checkout the following morning, we took our time waking up and repacking the car (waiting for the torrential downpour to decrease) before making it the rest of the way to WA. Thankfully, this leg of the journey proved less challenging and eventful, save for a few flooded sections of road. Current restrictions meant there were no other cars at at the border checkpoint, so we had our covid tests and headed straight to our quarantine cabin

at the now-familiar Discovery Parks, Kununurra.

We went into quarantine with a plan and created a daily schedule in the hope that the structure would prolong everyone's sanity. The average day looked something like this:
8:30-9:00am - Breakfast
9:00-9:30am - Devotion time
9:30-10:00am - Active game time (handball, volleyball, cricket etc…)
10:00-11:00am - Quiet time #1 (reading, journals, maths, colouring...)
11:00-11:30am - Morning tea
11:30-12:30pm - Board/card games
12:30-1:00pm - Exercise class (Nike Training Club)
1:00-1:30pm - Lunch
1:30-2:30pm - Switch/screen time
2:30-3:30pm - Quiet time #2
3:30-4:00pm - Afternoon tea
4:00-6:00pm - Movie
6:30-7:00pm - Dinner
7:00-8:30pm - Card games, showers, bed!

While we didn’t stick to the schedule religiously, we really found the structure helpful - the family activities, movie and Switch times gave us something to look forward to, while the quiet times reassured the more introverted among us that a break was coming!

We actually found ourselves quite enjoying quarantine. The forced rest was wonderful after a fairly hectic couple of months and we spent so much quality time together as a family. Yes, it had its moments, but on the whole, the kids handled it like troopers and we still all like each other!!

Both Christmas Day and New Years were spent in quarantine. It wasn’t off to a great start when we had to make the difficult (remote) decision to have our poor cat Bella put down on Christmas Eve. It was hard not being able to say goodbye and a very sad day, but we were all thankful that at least it didn’t happen on Christmas Day.

While it was sad not to spend Christmas with family, we made it special by putting up decorations sent to us by the lovely Mr and Mrs Reeves, had a ‘grazing’ lunch (consisting of plenty of treats), did a Christmas Nativity Escape Room, had a family Switch tournament and watched a Christmas movie. It was a cracker day!

New Years was less eventful… in fact we didn’t realise it was New Years Eve until fairly late in the day and didn’t really do anything to mark the occasion! On New Years Day, we actually got to venture out of our cabin, as we had to have our day 12 covid tests. We were thankful to only wait an hour (as some had waited more than 3!) for

our tests at the run down Kununurra Hospital, which was obviously short-staffed to deal with the results of some over-exuberant NYE celebrations. Then again, the empty sanitiser bottles, windswept leaf litter and scattered hospital equipment around the waiting area suggested NYE wasn't entirely to blame.

As seems to have been the hallmark of our trip, we made it out of Nhulunbuy just at the right time… The track out was closed just 2 days after we drove it, due to flooding from a massive storm and the WA border closed to Territorians 6 days after we arrived. Nhulunbuy has sadly since recorded its first covid case also. So, timing wise, we have much to be thankful for!!