Day 3: The Entrance > Bulli Beach

There are so many adjectives that I could use to describe today:

• Fun.
• Rewarding.
• Exciting.
• Disappointing.
• Stressful. Certainly stressful.
• Expensive. For sure, it was expensive.
• Tiring, but a good tiring.
• Wet. And boggy.

Plus on top of all that, I was asked a question for which there is no correct answer.

But I wanted to start by telling you about my morning ablutions. Now I know what you are thinking … this is all getting a bit weird hearing about Geoff’s morning ablutions, but there is a purpose for it.

And I promise not to do it again.

But before I can tell you about my morning ablutions, I need to rewind even further to last night.

Yesterday was a big day. We drove 450km or so yesterday and we were tired and vowed we would have an early night. Dinner, coffee, ”soothing and relaxing” tea, shower, bed.

If you need more detail than that, you will need to go back and re-read yesterday’s post.

The one thing that we still really needed to do was work out where we were going to stay for the next few nights. I had said Mittagong, but there was only one caravan park in Mittagong and it is the last weekend of the NSW school holidays – and a long weekend at that – so we weren’t feeling confident.

MBW, being the super sleuth that she is – did some Googling and found the Bulli Beach Tourist Park where we could stay using our Senior’s card for $107 for three nights. Compare that to the (up to) $99/night we were quoted at The Entrance.

So we did the deal. Booked online, gave enough personal information to allow someone to steal our identities, and sacrificed a goat … and we were booked! Yay!

By the time we got into bed it was rapidly approaching today, so no reading – just a kiss goodnight and zzzzz.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because in one of my previous posts I’m certain I said we were heading to Mittagong, and it turns out we are not. We may do a day trip to Mittagong, but I can’t promise.

It seems that I say a lot of things that are incorrect or inaccurate. Sorry about that.

So as a result of the late night we had a bit of a sleep-in. That’s if you consider 6.39am a sleep-in. We got up, I took my morning medications, cleaned my teeth, and trudged off to the showers.

After two days of showers that lasted no longer than 30 seconds each, I decided to treat myself to a longer shower at the amenities block. The men’s facilities has two doors, and my key would only open one of them, so I took that as a sign. Speaking of signs, the sign on the door said ”maximum occupancy 2 people”, which made the two showers and two toilets seem like excess.

Especially when only two people are allowed in their at the one time.

It turns out that there was a workman in a little room off the back of the men’s toilets – no, I don’t know because I didn’t ask – and he was happily jackhammering and banging and smashing things, with the customary music playing far more loudly than it needed to.

Anyway, the workman plus me made 2 people, so I figured we were at capacity.

I chose one of the two showers for no particular reason and disrobed. The first thing I noticed was how small the shower cubicle was. If you could imagine a broom cupboard – a very small broom cupboard – that contained the shower, hanging space, and a little seat/shelf to put your stuff, that was about it.

There was not enough room in there to swing a cat, so it’s lucky I didn’t have one with me.

In fact, it was so small that if you dropped your soap you’d almost be unable to bend over to pick it up. You’d probably have more luck stepping outside and reaching in. Seriously small.

So small that it was virtually impossible to have a satisfying splash around in the shower and also keep all of your clothes dry.

The other important thing to note here was that while I was in a state of disrobe and trying to enjoy a hot shower – the lack of hot water is an entirely other story – old mate in the back room was banging and smashing and jackhammering … all of which is extremely disconcerting when you are wet and naked and vulnerable.

Anyway, you’ll be pleased to know that all’s well that ends well, the water finally got hot and the building did not collapse and leave me standing there all wet and naked, and I got back to the van to take some photos of the park and have breakfast.

It is a very pretty park, and right on the water. A lovely place to spend a night.

The sun was even shining on our van, which was a good sign 🙂

I was feeling very optimistic about the weather today. Two days of rain and today was blue skies, so I put on my rainbow socks to celebrate the end of the rain.

We had breakfast, hooked up, did a whole bunch of backwards and forwards to get out of an impossibly tight spot and drove the wrong way up a one-way road (inside the park) to get out.

Over the bridge, through the town centre, and we were on our way to Bulli Beach!

On the M1 motorway towards Sydney and Wollongong and it was nice to be able to sit on 100km/h and not have to deal with rain, spray from other trucks, and wet roads. I did, however, have this very unsettling feeling like I was in a very slow car on the Bathurst 1000 circuit, because once again everyone was just flying past us like we were standing still.

We just sat in the left-hand lane and puttered along at our own pace, enjoying the view.

The M1 has been cut through some serious rock, and the views and scenery are just amazing.

I’ve said before that the M1 feels just like driving on the Interstate in the USA … and that feeling is only amplified when you see an exit to Brooklyn, Wyoming, or Torronto.

We may be a lot of things, but we are certainly not consistent in the time we get on the road each day. Today was about a 9.15 blastoff, and we were heading along the Sydney bypass road by noon before we got into probably the longest tunnel that I have ever been in. This one must have gone on for 10km – pretty impressive!

The amazing thing is that your eToll works in the Sydney tunnels just like it does at home. You hear that little beep and you know that you are a few dollars poorer.

On the last stretch between Campbelltown and Bulli Beach there was a very steep stretch of road heading down to the beach. It was one of those ”trucks and busses must use low gear” declines. Elsie’s brakes felt a bit spongy by the time we got to the bottom and when I got out at the Tourist Park shortly after, all I could smell were hot brake pads.

We got into the Bulli Beach Tourist Park around 1.00pm – 1 hour before the allowed check-in time apparently – but as the park was mostly empty we were allowed in.

The usual jiggery-pokery and we were set up. Lucky we opted for a concrete slab site, because they have had so much rain here and the ground is absolutely waterlogged. In fact there is a tent on a site just along from us, and they have a moat around them!

I’ll show you pictures of this park tomorrow.

A bite of lunch and then I was asked the question for which there is no correct answer …

Before I tell you about though, if you are not a fan of MasterChef and you don’t know who Reynold is, then you may as well save yourself some time and skip over this bit. Bye for now!

MBW has always wanted to see Reynold’s dessert bar called Koi, at Chippingdale in Sydney. Reynold is the dessert king.

So after lunch, MBW asked me this: ”Do you think I’m crazy wanting to go to Koi for some dessert?”

Argh! The impossible question that can only end – at best – in disaster, or at worst in driving back to Queensland alone!

”No darling, if you’d like to go to Koi, I’d be delighted to take you there.” To be completely honest, a small part of me wanted to go there too, but shhhh!!

So off we went. Only a few important things to do on the way – get fuel, get gas for the empty gas bottle, and get an o-ring for the gas hose.

The trip to Sydney was far more fun without Percy on the back. Elsie was able to zip along with the cruise control set to 110km/h … incidentally other drivers still blasted past us even when we were doing the speed limit, so that ”double demerit points” special offer clearly doesn’t work.

We got to Chippingdale unscathed, and drove through some impossibly narrow streets crowded with impossibly stupid and ignorant people. We found ourselves eyeball to eyeball with a guy in a Mercedes ute in a one way street, and I’m pretty sure that he was the one going the wrong way. Either that or I seriously misunderstood the Google Maps instructions.

A bit of swift – and likely illegal – manoeuvring and we secured ourselves a parking space just a short walk to Koi.

Not cheap, but then you are paying for one of Reynold’s creations, and he is pretty famous these days. That is a raspberry and lychee baked cheesecake and two coffees that set us back $40, but it was very good 🙂

For those of you that ducked off because you aren’t a fan of MasterChef, welcome back!

After Koi, we went for a walk down Spice Alley. Basically a whole bunch of Asian and Vietnamese ”street food” shops together in an alley, along with a whole bunch of street art.

From there we went back to the car, got fuel and had an initial look at the Grand Pacific Drive from one of the lookouts. Very pretty and I can’t wait to do the first part of the drive tomorrow.

That’s just a teaser for tomorrow.

Back to the van, dinner, showers and getting ready for bed. I have some important thoughts on Sydney roads, but I’ll save them for tomorrow in case it’s a slow news day.

Oh, and remember the two important jobs for today? Gas bottle and o-ring? Yep, neither of them happened, so they have been postponed to tomorrow 🙁

And it’s getting cooler too. Jeans and a T-shirt today, but I’m sitting here feeling quite cold now so tomorrow will definitely need a jumper of some sort.

Tomorrow should be a great day, as we head off on the first half of the Grand Pacific Drive – the thing that we really came all the way, deep into NSW to see.

Just to close off though, one of the adjectives that I used to describe today was “expensive”. Cheesecake and coffee for $40 at Koi wasn’t the worst of it.

We have been keeping track of costs during the trip and I made the mistake of looking at the toll road charges for bypassing Sydney – almost $80 of tolls there and MBW doesn’t know about it yet … but I suspect she will know very soon.

Almost $65 in just 6 minutes! It makes the Logan Motorway look like good value in comparison.

Still, it was probably better than dragging Percy through the centre of Sydney. That would have resulted in far worse psychological damage and stress.

Not a huge driving day today – only 344km, but as you can see it was down to Bulli Beach and then back up into Sydney, and back again. No stops at McDonald’s, I’m happy to report.

Although coffee and cake is certainly cheaper at McDonald’s.

That’s about it. Thanks for tagging along.

Ciao

#RoadTripNSW2022