Epilogue

We came for 6 months and ended up staying for 7 years! Narrandera sounded like a great place to be - it had a 50 metre pool with a slide, a clinic with a GP Anaethetist/Obstetrician, another GP Obstetritican to share the load and a friendly hospital in which to practice - seemed ideal - and it was! Within a couple of months we had scoped the local real estate scene, found a house with property, had a new child (Cole), traveled up to the Great Barrier Reef for a visit with Mormor and Morfar and started into practice without much ado. The next few years saw us compete in no less than 4 full ironman events (2 each) and at least a half a dozen half ironman competitions. Jen became the Riverina Champion for senior women in the Wagga Marathon and managed to podium in almost every triathlon she entered, bringing home third place in the Laguna Phuket triathlon in Thailand to cap it all off. We had a third child (Piper), became as involved as was timely possible in the community and eventually got the kids off to schools in the area. We were blessed with great friends and colleagues and will fondly remember the many Rides for the Path, NarBug weekly rides and visits to Bright, Sydney and Shepparton for organized events, the Narrandera Swim Club and open water swim, WadeStock and the many gourmet dinners with the table of 10 to 16 or more. It was a chapter in our lives that we will never forget and what better way to cap it all off then to take on the great circumnavigation seemingly so part and partial of the Aussie dream. Although loosely planned (we knew which way we were going to go and when we were going), as serendipity would have it, we couldn't have asked for a better trip. When asked what was the best part, we typically struggle to answer, having had so many varied and incredible experiences. On a top 10 list, in no particular order, we would list these as the highlights: 1) Swimming with the whalesharks in Exmouth, 2) flying over the Kimberleys, 3) hiking into the incredible valleys and rocky outcroppings of Kalibari, 4) Seeing Ulhuru ... from all sides, 5) visiting Cradle Mountain in Tassie and hiking its shores, 6) Sailing the Whitsundays and seeing some incredible beaches (Whitehaven), 7) four-wheel driving around Fraser Island, 8) taking in the Dinosaur Trail in North Queensland, 9) Seeing the staircase to the moon and enjoying Broome (Cable Beach/Cape Leveque), and 10) Hiking into the incredible gorges around Kununurra, WA and swimming in the waterholes at their bases. There are probably more to add but these experiences figure fairly prominently in my memory. Our tour of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos was pretty spectacular as well, as was the final trek across Canada in the Be Mary with Grandma and Grandpa. In the end we had sufficiently sophonsified our need to travel...at least in the near future, and keenly engaged ourselves in settling down again in a spot we hope to be for many years, Collingwood, Ontario. As in the past, we head into the future with no expectations and without reservations - life is what you make of it - so we're just facing a new canvas. To all those who made our experiences so memorable over the past 7 years, we offer our sincerest thanks and dedicate this book of my blogs to you.