After what seems like several decades of driving, I have now safely arrived in Sydney. The Kombi was running in tip-top condition, which translates as "slightly above walking pace, while using lots of petrol."

The big excitement of the last few hours was dealing with what might have been a typhoon. There was torrential rain on top of torrential rain. There was so much rain that several cars ahead of me slowed down to walking pace, which meant that after several decades of driving a Kombi, I finally managed to overtake something. It was a fine moment, let me tell you. I'm already thinking about having a commemorative plaque made. Something along the lines of:

Due to the extraordinary weather conditions, and a temperamental car radio, I kept listening to some horrendous commercial radio station because they had regular updates on road and weather conditions. "Road and weather conditions," I remember thinking, "that could come in handy around here." Only after arriving in Sydney did I realise that I'd spent hours listening to road and weather conditions for Ulladulla.

Ulladulla, for those who don't know, is on the Pacific coast, quite close to the Victorian border. The closest I came to Ulladulla on this trip was waking up at home, in Melbourne, yesterday. I may as well have been listening to road and weather conditions for St. Louis, Missouri, or the Sea of Tranquility, the Moon.

...

I'm staying in Oatmeal with the Lion Princess. She has two children, one of whom is Kahlia. Kahlia is five, on a scale of years, and five thousand, on a scale of decibels. I'm sure she's a lovely child, but I felt obliged to cower outside with my hands over my ears until she went to bed. For a while there I seriously considered retreating to Ulladulla, and checking out the road and weather conditions for myself.

Kahlia also turned out to be a enthusiastic source of cool jokes, such as "why did the cow cross the road?" Answer: "to go to cow class." This produced a reaction of puzzled silence.

So I'm in a kind of suburban exile, but at high volume, and with an endless supply of strange cow-crossing-the-road jokes coming at me. 'Tis good. All things considered, I'd much rather be here than in Ulladulla.