There’s a track winding back to an old-fashioned shack, along the road to Gundagai. That’s where we are tonight. Gundagai.
But before I can tell you about that, I need to rewind to yesterday. Last night to be exact.
We made ourselves beautiful and left the van around 4.00pm last night because we were going to the Sydney Opera House to see Keith and Krysten Getty perform Sing!
So off we went in Elsie. Because MBW has broken her foot, our transport options were pretty limited, so we booked parking at the SOH parking station. That meant leaving the relative safety of Lane Cove and going through that stupid tunnel again, and then across the Harbour Bridge.
I’ve never driven over the Harbour bridge before. It was pretty exciting.
I think it was Winston Churchill that said something like ”… those that do not learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them …”.
Dolly has a similar saying. Those that do not listen closely to her clear and well articulated directions are doomed to do a go-around.
And that’s what happened. I didn’t believe Dolly that I could turn left into that street, figuring that I’d turn at the next one, she would say ”recalculating route”, and we would turn a few corners and the world would be a happy place.
Alas, no.
If you don’t listen to Dolly’s instructions, she sends you BACK over the Sydney Harbour Bridge to do it all again. A bit like going to jail, not passing go, and not collecting $200 🙁 I felt like I was being punished.
So back we went to where we started …
… and then a few more ”left turn”, ”right turn”, ”take the fourth exit at the roundabout” and back on the bridge we go for another attempt at getting to the Opera House …
Now you may not know the Gettys – they have written some very well known Christian worship songs and they were doing a performance (aka a singalong) at the SOH. Funnily enough we have seen the Gettys in concert previously – last time we were in New York we saw them in Carnegie Hall. That was pretty amazing.
But last night’s show at the SOH Concert Hall was even more amazing, and better than last time. They performed with their band, and let the audience on a journey of Christian music encouraging the audience – 2,600 of us – to join in. It was very special, and I think I have a taste of what Heaven will be like!
Dinner at Wahlburgers with friends before the show …
… and a photo opportunity before the show.
I’ve never been in the Sydney Opera House before, and I have to say it is pretty amazing. Considering it was finished being built in the 1970s, it is a pretty amazing building with fabulous acoustics. Sadly MBW and I didn’t get seats together for the show …
The show didn’t finish until after 11.00pm and we needed to get out of the city and back to Lane Cove … but Elsie needed a big drink, and experience tells me that it is better to go looking for fuel when Percy is not on the back … so we fueled up and got back to Lane Cove some time after midnight.
Which brings us to today … although technically yesterday didn’t finish until well into today anyway..
We were up by 8.00am (with insufficient sleep) to officially commence Wednesday.
If I had to choose a theme song for today, I would be hard pressed to choose between “Love is all around” (Wet, Wet, Wet) … because it was raining, or ”Livin’ on a Prayer” (Bon Jovi) … but I’m pretty sure that Bon Jovi will win it because getting through the traffic with the van on the back, in peak hour, in the rain … we were living on a prayer!
I might have mentioned Sydney traffic in a previous post … I can’t remember … but they are a crazy lot. Roads that seem to go nowhere and everywhere at the same time, leaving you with a sense of confusion and being lost, combined with aggressive drivers, plus towing Percy, plus rain.
Quite a bit to deal with.
There are three little words that make MBW go all weak at the knees … Factory Outlet Sale … and we saw them when we passed DFO. We didn’t stop.
We kept going on an endless succession of turns, highways, motorways, main roads, back streets, neighbourhoods with speed bumps and ”Local Traffic Only – 40km/h” signs. Sorry officer, I was only going where Dolly directed me. Roundabouts and merging lanes. Right turn, left turn, take the third exit … ARGH!!!
Then finally Dolly said those magic words. ”Stay on the Hume Highway for the next 339km”. We were out of Sydney!!
It was tough going today. I think the mercury peaked at about 8 degrees, so we had the heater on in the car.
Get out your calculator and add this up for me:
Cold weather + heater going full pelt (warm and cosy in Elsie) + rain on the windscreen (white noise) + late night and not enough sleep + no coffee = ??
It equals a recipe for disaster, that’s what it equals!! I could easily have curled up in a ball and slept all day.
We stopped at Goulburn for a bite of lunch, plus the opportunity to drop into their Bunnings (a REAL Bunnings, not a pokey little shopfront) to buy a red Anderson plus. Goulburn is an ”RV friendly” town, but it is diabolically difficult to find somewhere to park Elsie and Percy for an hour or so and not block traffic.
After lunch we played the final game of Russian Roulette with trucks going at 110km/h in the rain to finally get into Gundagai at around 4.30pm. A quick dash out to see some of the sights before it got dark …
… and we were back at the caravan park to do some blogging, and have dinner. We really need an early night to catch up on lost sleep.
MBW has spent the night catching up on MasterChef, and I got dinner ready (if you can call reheating leftovers ”getting dinner ready” … but someone needed to do it).
This is a pretty amazing tourist park, with undercover parking for the vans. Very swanky. I’ll show you some photos of that tomorrow, along with some pictures of our adventures in Gundagai tomorrow.
This is what today looked like. 392km and 5h 31m driving.
Not a great deal of news again, sorry, but that’s about it for now.
Ciao
#RoadTripNSW2023