The Road Not Taken: Aussie Adventure

The last time our family was together was about 3 years ago when we celebrated Eid in Adelaide. For most of Eid there would be one or two of the children missing... So for this year's Eid I wanted all of us to be together again and the likeliest place to converge was Adelaide again where our eldest resides. It was quite difficult to plan at first because the youngest was still in Egypt and his date for the flight home was quite late into Ramadhan and at times uncertain as he had to wait for exam results to make sure he didn't miss any resits... Anyway, Alhamdulillah he was finally home 24th July half way through the fasting month. Then when we started booking flights for the 4 of us (hubby, Kak Lang, Adik and I), we discovered that most flights to Adelaide and Melbourne were already full. Unfortunately for us, the Eid holidays coincided with the school holidays and apparently, Malaysians just love visiting Australia! We secured Adik his ticket to Adelaide since he was being paid in full (thanks to the two big brothers who sponsored...) while the rest of us would have to be on standby (*sigh*). The hubby finally found a few seats still available but going to Sydney... an idea dawned upon us to travel on a motor-home and Bang Long (who is always on the look-out for a great deal) found one which needed to be relocated back to Adelaide ($5 a day) and fitted exactly to our dates of travel! So, Bang Long would fly to Sydney (and so would Adik who already had a ticket to Adelaide - that was a bit of a glitch but he wouldn't want to miss all the fun) and drive all of us to Adelaide (all of us had to drive the monster actually - except Adik who doesn't have a driving license yet). So, sit back and relax (...~~an irritating~~ cliche from MAS pilots..*groan*) and enjoy the pics!

Arriving at KLIA late afternoon to catch 10pm flight to Sydney

Arriving at Sydney Airport early morning..

Here comes our ride..!

Checking out the interior and taking pictures before we mess it up...lol

Adik praying in a field before sight-seeing..

Here we are at the famous landmark in Sydney

The only place we visited in the city...we even forgot to buy any souvenirs from Sydney!

No need to ride the bus...just have a picture taken with it!

While the hubby went Corelle shopping, Bang Long and I shopped for food for the long journey. You can buy your chicken at Lillydale, it's halal ok

Wow...MasyaAllah, cauliflower in purple, green and yellow!

Picking up dessert..

THAT is very clever! (We will heal you. We will save your sole. We will even dye for you)

Dad's cooking while the other two are just posing for a picture

And this girl is posing big time - the salt-shaker hasn't even been opened yet!

Here's a picture of one of our iftar meals...(minimalist by Malaysian standard!) Fry some chicken in a bit of oil, then dump in ready made sauce (Indian, Chinese, as long as it's halal..) and voila, you have a meal!

And this is one of our pre-dawn meals: toasts, sausages, scrambled eggs, baked beans, chicken left-overs...

Hubby driving...

Bang Long driving...

Guess who's driving...

Relaxing in our little home away from home (Bang Long updating his ~~Facebook status~~ online business)

Adik had never seen snow before, (Kak Lang had experienced dustings when we passed through East Turkey in our journey from Tehran to Egypt in 2008) and since it was and still is I think, winter, we headed towards Melbourne so that the kids could frolic in the snow at Mount Buller... And we were not disappointed, the youngsters had a great time while we, somewhat 'elderly people' thought we were going to freeze to death... By the way, the second son, Bang Ngah managed to leave his restaurant in Melbourne for the day to join us having err...fun. Here are some interesting pics:

At the bottom of the mountain..

Excited to see the snow by the roadside as we climb higher..

Near the top..heavy snow

Parking area

Adik and Kak Lang

Having fun on the toboggan

It was a weekend, unfortunately and the wait to hire gears was exhausting..

Here we are, at the top of Mount Buller (you can see the hubby looking pretty miserable..lol)

Adik, Kak Lang and Bang Ngah (who drove from Melbourne for the day to entertain his younger siblings)

Ready to snowboard...

Looking like a pro...lol

A ride on the cable car

Enjoying the ride (freezing cold I bet..)

In the shuttle bus - glad to be huddling together for warmth!

Surreal...

Cooking food for breaking fast in freezing temperature..

Next part of the journey was the Great Ocean Road, stopping to view some spectacular sights. Even though we've been through this road many times but it would be the first for Adik and the stops were mostly first time for some of us, too.