Gismo Queen and her King

Day 25 - Macedon to Langwarrin and Narre Warren North

Now, I'm a Melbourne girl and love this city and it's extended towns, including the many I have lived in. But today, two things reminded me of why I don't live here anymore.

We had a nice, slow morning in the van, as it rained quite heavily outside. When it eased, we dashed for the house to have morning coffee with Eleanor. Pip flew out to India early this morning, Emily was sitting an exam (on her birthday! Poor girl) and Stu had just left for Adelaide for work.

A bit after 11am, we headed off for the south eastern suburbs. First planned stop was Langwarrin, to catch up with Brendan who Greg used to work with, and then to Berwick for catch up dinner with Lisa and family. However, two of the Thomas' were sick with a virus so we weren't keen on risking illness so changed our plans to meet with Lisa at her mum's place.

Our first "uh oh" moment was when the e-Tag didn't beep on the Tullamarine Freeway. Turns out they have batteries in them and after all these years (including many of little use!), it had gone flat. Then we ground to a halt on the Monash Freeway.

Traffic. This was one of the reasons we left Melbourne. When I started work at City of Whittlesea in 1999, my commute took me 37 minutes. By the time I left in 2017, the same commute was taking me 1.5 hours. All because of traffic. Caused by my second gripe of the day - urban sprawl.

We sat and crawled on the Monash for an hour. All to go a couple of  kilometres to get past an accident. We didn't get to Langwarrin until 2pm! A quick stop at a bakery for a snack in lieu of lunch and then a lovely catch up with Brendan and Brenda, who were supposed to have been in Tassie a couple of months ago with their caravan, but Brenda was unwell and unable to travel. She is looking much better today.

Then it was a trip down memory lane travelling on Dandenong Hastings Road to head to Narre Warren North. A trip I did countless times in my childhood, but that is unrecognisable to me these days, with the urban sprawl of factories right to the road edge. There were a few still undeveloped properties that had the glimpse of past horse properties which almost triggered memories but then the urban sprawl took over at the next property and my memories were lost. However, pulling into Marg's driveway in Narree Warren North grounded me again - a driveway I have pulling into for 40 years!

It was lovely to catch up with Marg, then Lisa arrived with coffees and afternoon tea, and then Karen and her daughter Sienna arrived and it was great to see them. Marg really is my second mother, as I am her third daughter. So we spent many happy hours of the afternoon just chatting - and eating!

By the time we left, the traffic had eased and it was actually an easy drive back to Macedon. Not enough to suppress the pain of traffic anf urban sprawl that makes me glad we don't live here anymore.

posted by Tracey @ 11:15 am