Getting ready to go again

It is now only 6 weeks before we fly out to Melbourne and pick up the Prado and caravan and get everything ready to take off on the second part of our planned four part journey around Australia. It has been really lovely being back in New Zealand and catching up with family and friends but we are both getting itchy feet again and can't wait to hitch up the caravan and hit the road.
There have been some changes in our family's circumstances since we returned from Melbourne in October. Our son Stephen has decided to move his family back to Nelson in New Zealand from Melbourne and they take possession of their new home this week. Our grandsons Oliver and Nicky both started at their new schools at the beginning of the school year while our daughter in law Sarah did all the house hunting and Stephen stayed in Melbourne to finish his job. It will be great to have them all back on our door step.
Our daughter Nicola and her husband Adrian decided after a trip to Darwin in October that they would move to Brisbane after Nicola was made redundant from her job at Hewlett Packards. The family move there on 5th April in time to get Brodie and Kaley into their respective schools for the beginning of the second term. Nicola already has a job to go to and Adrian has interviiews lined up. We will miss them all a lot as they were only 10 minutes away from us. We will see them all when we fly home from Brisbane in October.
Our plans for this trip are to fly into Melbourne on 28th April and then take a week in Melbourne to catch up with friends etc. After stocking up the van once again we will head to Adelaide via Ballarat then up the centre to Alice Springs and Darwin. We then plan to cross the top via Heartbreak Hotel, Barkly Homestead and Mt Isa to Cairns. We're really looking forward to this part of the journey as it is totally outback country and something we have never encountered before. We plan to go up to Cooktown, weather permitting, and then back down the coast road to Brisbane. The mileage on the Prado will certainly have increased after this trip.
We hope you will enjoy catching up with all our news as we travel across this wonderful land.