30 June – Melbourne – home

Arrived this morning and through customs. Only $58.00 duty on the wine – bonus! A bit of a wait in Melbourne then an uneventful flight home. Early night in order!

Thanks for following our adventures!

28 June – Malibu – Santa Clarita – LAX

Up early to start packing up. 

We vacuumed and packed suitcases at the RV park, then off to Santa Clarita via Calabasas. We stopped on the way to drop the scooter seat off to get reupholstered (stitching had come apart in a big way) but the guy said he could do it on the spot, so we refuelled and waited an hour for the seat. Then to Twin Peaks RV Storage. Steve washed the big beast on the outside and Ros did the inside. It was very hot out so Steve had a tough job. We parked up and tried to get the cover on, but it was pretty breezy and it kept taking off like a sail. We were running out of time, so we left the covers off – Mick & Matilda are taking the RV in September so we figured it was ok without for only a couple of months. We had to repack the luggage as we were a bit over weight with a case of wine, so a bit of mucking around before the car arrived to get us at 6. We had booked a sedan (instead of the normal shuttle bus), but we ended up with a luxury town car, an extended Lincoln at no extra….very nice and comfortable J. A fairly quick run to LAX – about an hour, then check in and finding that the flight was delayed a bit to take off at 12.15am. 

27 June – Malibu

We decided to brave the public transport system and caught the bus to Santa Monica. The ride from Malibu took about an hour. We were looking forward to spending the day at Santa Monica sightseeing and relaxing on our last day. Sadly the sea fog covered everything and stayed all day. Arriving at the Santa Monica Pier we met a guy with tame birds doing tricks for tips. He had a wonderfully smoochy umbrella cockatoo called Whitey who had a cuddle with us both, a couple of macaws, an eclectus and an amazon.

That was a bit of fun. The pier itself had a fun fair with a ferris wheel and a roller coaster, but we decided not to go on them because the fog was like pea soup, but to come back later. 

The Pier is the end of route 66, so lots of Route 66 souvenir shops too. 

We had a bit of a wander around then into the 3^rd street promenade shopping and cafe district. We had sushi for lunch then took in the shops, the street performers and the occasional coffee to keep us fuelled up. We went back to the pier but if anything the fog was worse so we opted for the bus home. Wow – what an education! The bus was packed to standing room only with drunks, homeless, and generally odd people. Some idiot was keeping himself amused by activating the “stop request” for every other stop, much to the annoyance of everyone else. We avoided making eye contact….and any other contact!

26 June –Oceanside – Malibu

We left Oceanside and headed to Malibu. Not a very exciting drive, through LA on the highways. The drive along the Pacific Coast Highway was nice until we reached Laguna Beach and the highway although still 2 lanes, got very narrow so we were in grave danger of wiping side mirrors off the Mercedes convertibles parked along the curbs. In the mirrors Steve noted that we were only missing cars on either side by only about 3 or 4 inches! We were forced to head inland and stick to the freeways until Santa Monica where we were able to re-join the PCH again for the drive to Malibu. 

Malibu was nice – the RV Park was perched on the edge of a cliff above the highway and looking over the beach below. 

We booked a mountain view site and still got a nice view of the ocean, but some of the ocean view sites were amazing, right on the edge looking over the sea. We parked up and walked down to Malibu Seafood shack and had fresh from the ocean fish and chips.