Apparently I snore. Yes, I find it hard to believe also, but MBW assures me that I do.
I’ve asked for proof, and the only proof that she has been able to give me so far is when she kicks me awake in the middle of the night and says ”you’re snoring!”, but of course by the time I’m awake I’m no longer snoring – if in fact I ever was – so that hardly counts as evidence.
Last night at about 10.30pm I was awoken by the screen of MBW’s phone. This morning she says ”you want proof that you snore? Listen to this …” and proceeded to play a video of snoring sounds with no video – just a black screen. Apparently that was me snoring, but I still don’t believe it. It could have been random snoring sound effects downloaded off Spotify. I’m sure that there is a Spotify snoring playlist if I look hard enough.
I have a theory about the snoring … I think that MBW is just bitter that even when she wins the ”who was using the toilet when the light came on?” game, she never actually gets to empty the cassette. That’s why she has started this vicious rumour about me.
Maybe I should just let her empty the darn thing!
Anyway, I need to roll back to last night. You may remember the post about the $85 of tolls that we paid to bypass Sydney? Apparently it is normally about $7.50 for a car, but when your overall length exceeds a certain limit – like when you are towing a caravan – the cost goes up to around $25 or $26.
So we thought we needed to get creative and find a way to save a few dollars, so dinner last night was a vegetable stack.
That’s cauliflower, zucchini, pumpkin, mushrooms, eggplant and corn on the BBQ, with some haloumi going on at the last minute. It was pretty good, but it would have been better with some protein. I do like meat.
Actually – because those tolls put an unexpected dent in the budget – if you could spare a few dollars I’d appreciate it if you could send them through to the BBTP.
Actually no, that won’t work because we are leaving tomorrow. Maybe you could send them to Canberra, attention Scott Morrison, and I will collect them from there? That probably won’t work either because ScoMo will probably just think it’s extra tax and keep it.
Leave that with me and I’ll figure something out.
There are two shower blocks here at the Bulli Beach Tourist Park – the lower one and the upper one.
I’ve been to the lower one a couple of time and it’s a bit grotty, lots of cobwebs and dead bugs everywhere, and all of the fittings are stainless steel. Showers, sinks, even the little shelf where you put your stuff after you disrobe.
It’s kinda got the feeling of something between an industrial kitchen and a morgue. Or at least what I imagine a morgue to look like. Easy clean surfaces, so you can hose away all of those nasty body fluids and other stuff. If you are careful you can probably save and reclaim effluent.
So long story short, I decided to give the upper shower block a try last night. It was much more ”friendly”, in a “much less stainless steel” kind of way, if you know what I mean.
The only problem with the upper shower block is that they use these stupid water saver shower heads that basically point straight down at the floor, and cannot be adjusted.
That means that you either satisfy yourself with a shower that only gets you wet below your knees, or you have to back up really close to the wall to get wet above your knees.
Backing up really close to the wall then has its own unintended consequences – either you accidentally back into the flick mixer tap handle and turn off the water, or worse, you get probed by the tap handle in places where you don’t necessarily want to get probed.
So a less than satisfying experience, but I spent the time instead fantasising about the meat that I didn’t get with my vegetable stack. Out of the shower, dried off and dressed and I came out of the shower block to see rabbit stew … er two rabbits jumping around on the grass.
Weird. And creepy. That’s what a lack of protein will do. You vegetarians need to be careful.
Back to today. Anzac Day today and it was cold and wet. MBW decided that she was going to have porridge for breakfast, so I went outside and fired up the BBQ to cook myself some bacon and eggs and mushrooms.
Fast broken, and we needed to do some cleaning up as we are heading off tomorrow. We selected “The Ultimate Housework Hits” Playlist, turned it up loud, and got the housework done in no time.
The first song on the playlist was ”Don’t go breaking my heart” by Elton John. Good advice for a happy marriage.
The second song was ”Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi (“Whoa, we’re halfway there, whoa, livin’ on a prayer …”). Also an appropriate song, but we are not halfway there yet!!
Dishes done, Elsie packed and we set off for a lovely drive in the pouring rain Southern Highlands of NSW. We had decided to set off on a big looping clockwise circle down and around to Moss Vale, then back up through Bowral and Mittagong, and back to Bulli.
Just as we were packing Elsie though, we had an unexpected visitor.
We had decided that we would go via the Macquarie Pass, but Google Maps was absolutely adamant that we needed to go a different way … then we found out why. The Macquarie Pass was closed. Google Maps is one smart system.
So we set Elsie’s GPS for Dapto and blasted down past the Port Kembla Steelworks and past the ’Gong.
We decided to Google ”top 10 things to see and do in Dapto”, and guess what? There aren’t 10 things to see and do in Dapto. The #1 thing that seemed to be available was the jetty, so we headed for that.
And a very pretty it is too … except that it is all barricaded off as they are obviously doing some work on it. It’s a sad day with the top #1 attraction in Dapto is closed. We did sneak around the barricade and had a look anyway, and got some nice photos despite the rain.
Now there are a couple of things that I really need to tell you, because they could be important later. One will certainly be important later in this post, and the other will likely be important on Saturday 21 May 2022.
The first thing is that Elsie’s GPS has a selection of voices that will give you directions. Since Elsie joined our family, we have tolerated Karen’s voice … but we have been getting tired of Karen lately. I don’t know if she is not very smart, or what it is about her, but we were just tired of her.
Apologies to all of the Karen’s out there. Don’t take it personally.
Instead we chose Brandon to give us directions. Brandon is a older gentleman, very refined, maybe a bit British, and certainly born with a plum in his mouth. We decided to give Brandon a chance.
Actually I think that if MBW hadn’t found me, she would have gone for someone like Brandon. Just my opinion.
So Brandon gave us directions to our next destination , Jambaroo.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that Dapto and surrounds, along with Berry (that was yesterday), have a proliferation of “Vote Labor” signs in every street. Not one ”Vote Liberal” sign. Not one.
I suppose that is because the whole area probably feeds staff to the Port Kembla Steelworks, and so I imagine all very working class. That probably makes me sound a little bit upper-middle class, but if you had Brandon cruising around with you giving you directions, you’d probably feel a bit upper middle-class too. If Bob Hawke was giving us GPS directions, I’m sure that I’d feel differently. But Bob isn’t an option. Just Karen and Brandon, and we don’t like Karen any more. Remember?
#Note to self – avoid discussion on politics and religion – too controversial 🙁
I’ve also noticed – and I think that this is the appropriate place to mention it – that NSW are not very imaginative when it comes to naming streets.
Either that, or the guy with the job of naming streets starting with ”B” has a terrible stutter. Bong Bong Road. Baan Baan Street. I’m fairly sure that I even heard Brandon snicker when he said those ones.
Driving out of Dapto, MBW made some random comment about Dapto Dogs and ”one of those racing apps adverts” … and it turns out she was correct. One of those Shaquille O’Neill Same Game Multi advertisements that you see on TV mentions Dapto. And Dogs. I need to pay more attention because the Same Game Multi peeps will be so disappointed.
We felt oh so special having Brandon give us directions to Jambaroo. Population 1636 and an elevation of 10m. That’s an important fact.
Absolutely nothing to see in Jambaroo, so we asked Brandon to take us to Carrington Falls on the way to Moss Vale. We made a pact that we would only get out to look at the falls if it was not raining, so that was a safe bet.
The climb up to the falls was steep. I needed to use Elsie’s ”go fast” button to unleash a few additional horses, and I noted with some horror that the fuel economy was north of 50 litres/100 km for most of the climb.
Carrington Falls has an altitude of approximately 370m, so when you consider that Jambaroo was only 10m, we had climbed 360m or so in a very short time. And likely used quite a bit of fuel. Lucky Percy wasn’t along for the ride.
We got to Carrington Falls around 10.30 am and it was pouring rain. But we had come this far …
Does that look like someone who is excited about a bushwalk to look at a waterfall in the pouring rain? I think not. But the words of Elton John were still echoing in my head ”… don’t go breaking my heart, I wouldn’t if I tried …”, so I put on a smile and trudged onwards.
They were spectacular, although I confess it was hard to tell if they were hard to see because of low cloud, fog or mist from the falls.
It was 13 degrees when we climbed back into Elsie, cold and wet. We needed coffee. So we continued on to Moss Vale and found a McDonalds quaint little coffee shop where we got ourselves a couple of hot beverages and then went for a walk through town.
Another very pretty little country township.
The trees are all changing colour and everything is so pretty.
From Moss Vale, it was a short run to Bowral. Keeping in mind it is Anzac Day, all of the shops are closed until 1.00pm so we had a look around Bowral and went into Wollies at 1.00pm to get a few supplies for lunch.
Bowral in the NSW Southern Highlands is where Jimmy Barnes lived for many years, and I can understand why. Such a pretty place and still so close to Sydney via the motorways – it is just beautiful here. It was a good opportunity to change the Spotify playlist to a Jimmy Barnes concert.
Bowral is also the location of the Don Bradman Museum, so we swung by there and got some photos.
I’m not entirely clear on the significance of Mary Poppins at a) the Don Bradman Museum or b) in Bowral generally, but she had an umbrella and it was pouring rain … so I guess there is a loose connection there …?
We went to the Leighton Gardens for another of our famous tailgate lunches and had a look around the gardens. Yet another very pretty garden in a pretty part of the world.
By this time it was about 2.30pm and we needed to get back to prepare for moving on tomorrow. We jumped onto the Princes Hwy, set Elsie for 110km/h, pointed her at Bulli, and asked Brandon to take us home.
Back by 3.30, all fueled up and the kettle was on for another hot caffeinated beverage. Early dinner tonight and MBW plans to catch-up on MasterChef.
Tomorrow we plan to head down towards Bateman’s Bay and we will likely stay in Bega for the night … but that will be as much a surprise for us as it will be for you. MBW still doesn’t know when she needs to be back for training for working the elections, but we are hoping it can be pushed as late as possible so we can come back through Queanbeyan, Bathurst (with a side trip to the Blue Mountains), through Orange, Forbes and Parkes (although not necessarily in that order) and home through Lightning Ridge if the planets are aligned.
It has been nice seeing some really pretty countryside in and around the NSW Southern Highlands, but I confess I am looking forward to getting onto some country roads and seeing more of the country.
Today was a big looping clockwise circle, that turned out to be exactly 200km. Not 199km and not 201km. 200km on the dot!!
Thanks for tagging along, and don’t forget to send a few dollars to help us pay off our tolls. Maybe I’ll set up a GoFundMe page 🙂 ??
Editor’s Note: After reading through today’s post, I realised that I only mentioned Mittagong once briefly, despite prattling on about it for the last few days. It seems that Mittagong is hardly even a place – it is almost an extension of Bowral, just like Balaclava is. One of those ”blink and you’ll miss it” kind of places.
Kinda makes me glad we didn’t stay there now …
Ciao
#RoadTripNSW2022