Today we drove from Sydney to Melbourne. I’m going to keep this brief as I need to rest. I’ve developed a bad cough on top of my completely stuffed nose. I’m wondering if the smoke inhalation turned into a cold or I just have it bad. I’ve used my inhaler a few times and that really helps. We are going to a pharmacy in the morning to get some advice. Luckily, we purchased travel medical insurance so if worst case I need to see a doctor, that can happen. For now we are laying low. I’m drinking lots of hot tea and chilling.

Since the drive from Sydney would take us about 9 hours we got on the road by 8:30 a.m. We stopped at a rest stop along the way, before the really bad smoky stretch to get gas and lunch. Everyone else had this idea too and it was very crowded but we got our food no problem. From there we were trying to drive through the worst of the smoke. We had to drive through some hazardous air quality areas to get to Melbourne.

Along the way we saw signs to watch out for kangaroos and koalas. I was fortunate enough to spot a kangaroo under a tree! A real live kangaroo! It was licking its forearms. They do this to keep cool which was a good idea since it was over 100 out.

Jacob did a great job driving and we made it to our hotel. We missed it on the first try and did some loops but eventually found the parking garage. Our hotel is awesome. We have a view of the city. The receptionist was surprised to hear we’d driven all the way from Sydney today.