My Family Jeep

I had a really nice relaxing afternoon, just me, the Jeep, my camera and some gravel roads. My husband and I are toying with the idea of settling around where we are now and I’ve been out on the hunt looking for some land to build the dream home. We’ve hatched the brilliant plan of building a garage for the RV with a basic bathroom and living in that until the house is built.

I took a much needed break from the kids and took a drive out in the country looking at some lake front lots that are for sale. I stopped and took some photo’s of one lot and of course couldn’t resist taking one of the Jeep. It’s a shame this block turned out to be so small because it is definitely somewhere I could see my family living. The area we are looking at is around Beaver Lake in Arkansas.

In the spring of 2005 we planned a scenery filled trip to Nelson’s Bay via the Central Coast Highway. Taking the Central Coast Highway can be painfully slow but it’s a beautiful scenic drive. We started out early in the morning and headed North towards Gosford from there we got off the freeway and headed towards the coast. We made the short trip over to The Entrance; the weather and amazing views made to a wonderful start to the day. We took some time to walk on the beach, watch the Pelicans and take some photo’s. We hopped back in the Jeep, made a drive through Wyrabalong National Park and got back on the Highway heading North.

It has been a long time since that trip and my memories are a bit sketchy. I do remember that we took our time, stopped at numerous beaches, stopped for lunch at Swansea and then headed inland on The Pacific Highway into Newcastle. I had booked us into this great hotel right by Lake Maquarie, we checked in and headed out to the store to pick up a few items we left behind. This is where things went wrong.

We come out of the store, hop in the car ready to get back to the hotel and shower before heading to dinner. Shane hopes in the drivers side, turns the key and the Jeep won’t start. We had only had the Jeep a couple of weeks at this stage and we had not yet arranged for an auto club membership. A couple of phone calls and a few hundred dollars gone we sat in the Jeep waiting for the auto club. I spotted a bottle shop and walked over and got a bottle of red with a screw top lid. We sat in the parking lot and sipped red wine out of the bottle while waiting. This was our second trip that we had taken together where something went wrong. We take things as they come and make the best of the situation.

Pictures from The Entrance

The very first trip we took in our old ‘97 was up into the Blue Mountains just a couple hours outside of Sydney. It was a sunny day but a bit on the cool side; nothing that would stop us from dropping the top. we had no real agenda for the day, we just knew that we were heading West and at some stage we would turn back around and head home. We got out of Sydney and started up into the mountains and stopped for a true Aussie lunch of meat pies and sausage rolls. After that we drove until we found a road that looked interesting and turned down it.

We drove down this little dirt road for about an hour before we hit a locked gate and had to turn around and head back. We passed some gorgeous scenery, stopped at a wonderful park, took tons of photo’s and just enjoyed a relaxing day enjoying the country side.

I had taken many trips to the Blue Mountains over the years and had done all the touristy things including the Three Sisters, Jenolan Caves and Wentworth Falls but that leisurely drive through the Megalong Valley was by far my favorite.

A picture of a cloud because I was riding in a Jeep and could

The locked gate

The beautiful Megalong Valley

An old farmhouse

The picture that inspired the blog banner, unedited version

In 2005 I managed to get my boyfriend, now husband, hooked on Jeeps. I told him stories about all the good times I had in my old one and all it took was getting him in one for a test drive; he was hooked. It was a typical day in Sydney, blue skies, not too hot and not too cold. We drove over the Harbour bridge to this indoor car lot just a stones throw from the inner city that mostly specialized in exclusive cars. The car salesman knew what he had to do to sell that Jeep. The top was down, he handed us the keys, his toll pass and told us to take it for a long drive and to make sure we went over the bridge.

We headed over the bridge and by the time we made it to the other side we knew this Jeep was going to be ours. The day was absolutely perfect, Shane was behind the wheel and I could tell by the look on his face that he was quickly becoming a Jeep person. I think this was the day I realized he was a keeper. We drove that Jeep around for a couple of hours before we finally took it back and made a deal on it. All of a sudden our summer plans changed and we were planning road trips and looking up trails and Jeep friendly beaches. It was a great summer full of a lot of weekend getaways and many days just driving because we could. Tomorrow I’ll post about our first trip out of Sydney into the Blue Mountains.