Let me start off today by telling you that I think my bromance with Brandon might be over. Brandon upset me today by doing something really thoughtless.
Let’s just say that Brandon is on his first warning, but I’ll tell you more about that later.
If you have no idea who Brandon is … or Elsie, Percy or MBW either for that matter, then I’d suggest you go back to Day 1 and start again. It might help.
If you have been back to Day 1 and it didn’t help, then … sorry for wasting your time.
The other thing that I need to get off my chest is that I’m sick of the rain. I’m sick of getting wet, being wet, smelling wet and wearing wet clothes. I’m tired of constantly playing jiggery-pokery with the windscreen wipers because it is either pouring rain, drizzling, or we are copping a whole bunch of spray from one of the multitude of trucks on the road.
I’d just like to see the sun come out for a couple of days.
Last night we stayed at the Yass Soldier’s Club in their carpark/RV parking area. No cost to stay the night but you must be fully self-sufficient as there is no water hookup, no power, and you can’t drop grey water on the ground.
We also ate in the club and the meals were absolutely fabulous. Worth the drive to Yass just for the pork ribs and loaded fries.
I know that I’ve told you all of this before, but I’m not ready to forget about those ribs just yet 🙂
This morning it was raining. What a surprise! It was only raining lightly, until I was ready to raise the legs, hook up Elsie, and connect all of the cables, WDH, etc … and then it started to rain very heavily. So I got wet 🙁
We headed out of Yass quite early this morning – around 8.30am. Not super early, but earlier than we have achieved most other days.
First order of business was to fuel up Elsie, and there was a service station just outside town. There was a truck broken down in the driveway into the fuel stop which wasn’t a problem, but then we heard him on the CB saying that he had run out of fuel. On the driveway into the fuel station. That was clearly very bad planning!
Today we headed towards Bathurst, with the intention of staying at Bathurst for the night. Our preference was the Bathurst showgrounds, as the caravan park didn’t get great reviews and was quite expensive in comparison.
Traffic wasn’t too bad and we made it to our first stop at a place called Boorowa around 9.30am. The roads are two way, but still fairly narrow with limited opportunities to overtake. Not that I needed to overtake anyone, but there were a few people who were obviously keen to overtake me and there was nowhere that I could stop to let them past.
And when you see a road sign that says ”rough surface”, you know it’s about to get bad so it was a challenge just to stay on the road without trying to make space for anyone else.
The other thing about Boorowa is that it takes the same time to get there from Yass as it takes a cup of coffee to work its way through your system, and for your kidneys to have processed it ready for evacuation.
Double bonus. Other cars got to pass me, and I got to pass that coffee.
Other than Boorowa being a functional stop, it was also another really pretty little town with a lovely courthouse and bridge.
The place that we really wanted to get to this morning was Cowra, about another hour up the road towards Bathurst.
I’m not sure what it is with naming towns in NSW, but someone clearly lacks imagination. Boorowa, Cowra, Nowra, Bowral … they all start to sound the same after a while.
Cowra has an art gallery that gets good reviews. While we are not normally ”art gallery” kind of people, we thought it was worth a stop. As we drove into town we also noticed some coffee shops, bakeries and other things that we wanted to look at, so we parked Elsie and Percy in a back street, got out our umbrellas and went for a walk through town in the rain.
Cowra seems to have called itself the centre for world peace – or something similar – so I’m not really sure what that was about, but we did see a peace bell that is obviously related.
One of us rang the bell.
We went through the art gallery, got coffee and sausage rolls, and then found a little ”Boots and Belts” shop that sold Akubras. We have been looking for a while and never found a style or colour that we like, or something in our sizes.
But in the sleepy little township of Cowra NSW, they had exactly what we wanted, in the colours we wanted, in the size that we wanted, and the prices were right too. So we bought some. We’ve seriously blown the budget this week, but what a way to do it!
Some of you may know that I am studying for my amateur radio licence. When you pass the exam you get a licence and a call sign – VK4xxx – and other licence holders call you on the radio by that call sign.
In the country, everyone talks on UHF CB channel 40 and you don’t have a call sign, so you are called by whatever best describes you. ”Caravan”, or “Car Carrier”, or ”Red Truck”
As we were on the last leg of the trip today towards Bathurst, we had a pilot vehicle pass us going the other way.
Pilot: “Hey Caravan, do you copy”?
Me: “Yes”
Pilot: “There is a 4.3m wide load coming your way in about 500m. Then a 3.5m wide load 500m behind him. You might want to pull off the road”
Me: “Roger that”
Thanks for the warning, and pull off the road we did. The roads are quite rough and narrow, and the last thing you want to encounter on a blind corner is a 4.3m wide load that is using all of his side of the road, and a good chunk of yours too!
I also saw a road sign at one point that said ”Speed cameras used in NSW. Thanks for driving safely”
Have you ever thought about how disconnected those two statements are? If you are driving safely then you don’t care about the speed camera, and if you need to be warned about the speed cameras then you clearly aren’t driving safely. I don’t get it?
I’m also puzzled at how little imagination NSW people have in naming streets.
Wheelbarrow Road
Boardinghouse Street
Mount Agony Road
And today’s contribution: Chicken and Hen Crescent.
I’d be ashamed to tell anyone where I lived if I had a house in Chicken and Hen Crescent. In fact, I’d probably get a PO Box and get all of my mail delivered there.
Somewhere around Cowra we called ahead to Bathurst to secure a spot at the showgrounds, only to find that they are closed. So we looked around and decided to stay a couple of nights at a little place called Blayney, about 25 minutes before Bathurst. Quiet, sleepy and quite cheap – only $30/night for power and water with the senior’s discount.
Unhitched, lunch, and we were ready for a quick trip into Bathurst to see the sights. And the first thing we saw was Mount Panorama … and we did a couple of laps.
A 7 minute lap isn’t anything to be proud of, but it was as fast as I was allowed to go – 60km/h and speed cameras discouraged me from going faster.
With that excitement out of my system, we went into Bathurst, did a bit of shopping then back home to Blayney for dinner and some domestic chores.
We are here for a couple of nights, with the plan to go up into the Blue Mountains tomorrow.
MBW finally found out that she doesn’t need to be back in Brisbane for her training until Friday 06 May, so that means we have another week to continue exploring NSW and back into Queensland. Woohoo!
So let me tell you how Brandon upset me today. As we were coming out of Yass we merged onto the dual carriageway road towards Gundagai, got up to speed with the wipers going flat out, and then Brandon casually announced that we needed to be in the other lane to turn right across the highway in 30m so we could go towards Cowra.
In the pouring rain, with cars and trucks all around us.
I refer you again to yesterday’s lesson about Newton’s first law of motion: Inertia, and the inability to make a caravan change direction at short notice.
A little more notice would have been nice Brandon. Anyway, he’s on his first warning, so we will see what happens tomorrow.
Only about 200km from Yass to Blayney today, but then we went to Bathurst and did a couple of laps of Mount Panorama, then back again, so a shade over 300km for the day.
A couple of things really surprised me today. Firstly how big this country is and how it just keeps going. When you consider that many of these towns were established in the mid-1800s, I have no idea how early settlers managed to find their way in a land that just keeps on going and going and looks the same.
The second thing that surprised me was just how steep the road to the top of Mount Panorama is, and how tight the corners are. I did it at 60km/h and it was challenging, but at the Bathurst 1000 they go around much faster. That is skill!
I’m going to wander over and have a hot shower now. I did a quick recon of the Blayney Caravan Park shower block and I’m pleased to report that they have fully adjustable waterfall shower heads, so I’m feeling hopeful.
See you tomorrow.
Ciao
#RoadTripNSW2022
Hope you were not too cold in Blayney. It is said to be a very cold place. Enjoy the rest of the trip.