Hi girls!

Sherie: ARGHHH!!! YES! we were travelling on the newell!!! i KNEW you lived close to that...i said to DH that i should of asked where you live and dropped by...i can imagine that it wouldnt happen too often for a BB girl to 'be in the area' lol! but i guess you woulda been hectic at this time of year anyways...

Arte: a bug collecter! that is really cool. i had one of those and spent hours and hours combing the garden.

Mum has read the trueblood series. she is a fan of that kind of thing (as am I) and we love the TV series. Mum said the first book was pretty good but after that it got a bit OTT...but that said, i will be trying to buy the series too LOL!

Jaz: ha ha ha! Leila has also been showing a bit of the 'tude. mostly telling us that it is 'really late' and we 'must go sleep now'. so bossy! kinda sorta love it too though...so going to regret that LOL!

MD: you tuned your senses right....coonabarabran proved most *interesting* for us.

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as i mentioned to MD our return trip for the most part was successful. until the part between Coonabarabran and Gilgandra where the song 'We are Sailing' came into my mind.

I (of course ) was the one driving, we came around a bend and saw the darkest meanest clouds i have only ever seen during cyclonic conditions in Fiji. my stomach began to sink...

we were travelling behind a Nolans fruit semi truck and little did we know that he would be our saving grace that day! basically about 5kms after we saw the first big clouds the truck started flashing his hazards and slowed to about 10kms/hr. and that's when i saw that the creek had burst and was fast flowing across the road. luckily it was only to the halfway mark of the hubcaps so although scary it was nowhere near what we were about to face.

for about 20ish kms we had to negotiate (with no way back or option of stopping because it was driving rain and the water had flowed so much that it was impossible to know where the road and the paddocks started IYKWIM. there was sooo much debris. i ran over a number of road signs that had been torn up. twice (!) the bonnet disappeared under water and i lost traction of the car as it got picked up by the water. at one point a truck travelling in the opposite direction went past and the whole car was covered. i was so so terrified. talk about white knuckles LOL! leila got scared at the last one as she must of picked up on my anxiety (and that of DH and my mum!). at one point i told DH to unbuckle DD from the carseat because i thought we had lost out. the poor car was making the worst noises and was constantly on the verge of stalling.
but thanks to Paul the truck driver, he guided us through and i could see that he was checking on us in his mirrors, so that gave me some hope. i love that man LOL! we eventually got out and all the cars and trucks that had just gone through all stopped and we all got out and just stared LOL! eventually we all got together and had chats and spoke about what we just got through which was really needed. even the truckies were sweating bullets!

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BUT all through the trip back home i needed to pee...often...