Shake, rattle, and roll. Another day battling NSW country roads.
To be fair, we have been through some really pretty little country townships, but the price of that is driving roads that are sub-optimal (at best), and that have rearranged all of my internal organs and plumbing (at worst).
I’ve had a bit of a whinge already about the Mudgee showgrounds, so I won’t complain any more about it. Sadly I forgot to take any photos of the place, but it was like every other showgrounds that we stayed at – muddy.
On the bright side, the showers were amazing, with nice big waterfall-style shower heads with heaps of scalding hot water. They also had free washing machines, so we were able to do a couple of loads of washing. I’m pretty sure that my jeans were starting to crackle when I wore them, so they were certainly due for a wash.
No dryers though, so first thing this morning we packed down everything in the van ready for our departure, and took our wet washing in search of a laundromat so that we could dry it.
There was one thing that I really wanted to do while we were here, and that was to visit an historic township called Hill End that was part of gold rush history, but unfortunately we just didn’t have the time. It would have added a couple of hours and a couple of hundred kilometres to the trip, and we just didn’t have it.
Besides, who wouldn’t rather go to a laundromat any day to dry your smalls that look at an historic township.
Clothes dry, and we went into Mudgee to have a poke around. ”Went into Mudgee” makes it sound like an adventure, but it was really only a couple of blocks from the laundromat. Nothing is far away in Mudgee.
Mudgee is another pretty little country town, although it is unusual in that they have reverse parking in the main streets, rather than front-in parking. Lots of beautiful old churches and architecture to be seen.
MBW and went our separate ways for a short time, while she looked at craft shops (yawn) and I just went for a wander. I was bailed up by a couple of dudes in PPE wanting to know where to find a good pie shop … they must have thought I was a local, and I assume I must have had a ”why can’t we win the State of Origin?” look of despair on my face.
I must make an effort to smile more often so that other people don’t make the same mistake 🙂
We bought a few odds and sods, then headed back to the showgrounds to hook up Percy and head off towards Coonabarabran.
We wanted to stop in Gulgong (population 2,521) for morning tea because a reliable source (yep, the same reliable source that we were supposed to have dinner with last night but he didn’t show …) told us that there is a fabulous bakery there.
Gulgong is only about 35km up the road from Mudgee, but we hadn’t even gone 5km and we stopped at the Honey Haven to check out their … honey.
MBW said ”here, try this” as she shoveled a spoonful of something into my mouth from the testers jars. It was beetroot chilli relish, but I think it only had chilli in it. It nearly too my head off. And I’m sure that will be fun when it has made it’s way through my digestive system.
Onwards to Gulgong. Gulgong is a pretty little 19th century gold rush town that considers itself ”RV Friendly”, except that their streets are way too narrow to comfortably tow a van through the township, and every cross street has a deep gutter across the intersection which makes navigating a bit of a challenge.
The challenge is not to scrape your tow hitch on the ground as you go through, and even more importantly not break your suspension as you tackle it at a very wide angle and the car and van are twisting in different directions on opposite sides of the gutter.
First world problems.
Some beautiful (although likely non-functional) buildings that just begged to have their photo taken.
We found the bakery and had a pie and a coffee and … it was OK. The reliable source must have been thinking of a different cafe, me thinks.
We needed to get some fuel for Elsie. Prices in Mudgee were 20+ cents/litre more expensive than in Gulgong, although goodness knows why. Probably an element of supply and demand, plus all of the mining-related vehicles in Mudgee means that they can price gouge get a better price.
So we had already decided to get fuel in Gulgong, but there were only three possible fuel stations and the decision came down to which one was easiest to navigate into and out of, with Percy on the back.
Out of Gulgong, we had a song in our hearts and a tiger in our tank, so what could possibly go wrong?
Tallawang (population 165). That’s what could go wrong.
Actually it wasn’t Tallawang that was the problem. It was Dolly. If we are going to have a blame conversation, then I blame Dolly.
We were hooting along at about 80km/h and Dolly casually announced “take a slight left onto Tucklan Road”. And then “…stay on Tucklan Road for the next 29km”.
Allow me to present Exhibit A: Tucklan Road …
As you can see, Tucklan Road is not the type of road that you particularly want to travel when you are towing a van. Dirt, rough, narrow … should I go on? I certainly didn’t want to go on Tucklan Road any longer than I needed.
Oh, and nowhere to turn around. We finally found a spot about a kilometre along where there was some space either side of the road, and we executed a beautiful 17 point turn so that we were facing back the way that we had come from.
Bad Dolly.
This is what the road was supposed to look like. I also realised that I hadn’t needed to use the wipers yet today. Hooray!
A brief stop in Dunedoo (population 1,021) to look at some silo art and take some snaps to prove that we were really there …
… and onwards towards tonight’s stop at Coonabarabran.
We made an unscheduled stop in Mendooran NSW (population 275). I say unscheduled because despite feeling like we had been thrown around on a roller coaster for the previous hour or so and just wanting to get to Coonabarabran, we made a bet with each other: if the next town had a coffee shop that scored better than 4.7 on Google reviews, and it was open, then we would stop and purchase a hot beverage.
If none of the above were true (or perhaps any of the above were not true) then we would go without.
So the pressure was on.
Now with a population on only 275, it is reasonable to expect that it is unlikely to have a McDonalds McCafe, or even a choice of coffee shops … but we didn’t see any that I can recall.
But we did see a little crafty shop advertising cheese, and we do like cheese.
So we stopped and bought some cheese plus some finger lime, salt and pepper rub (which went very nicely on our salmon tonight, I must say).
I’m sorry to say that’s about all of the excitement for today.
We arrived at the Gateway Caravan Park at Coonabarabran (population 2,537) around 3.30pm. Not the most friendly soul who checked us in, but they did lose the State of Origin. It’s a quiet caravan park on the south side of town, with an entrance that you go sailing past if you are not paying attention, and then have to do a few right turn, another right turn, etc to get back where you wanted to be.
Here is a fun fact: Coonabarabran has a population of only 16 people more than Gulgong. Gulgong has absolutely nothing of interest and it felt like we had stepped back in time, yet Coonabarabran has several caravan parks, a Woolies supermarket, and several Op Shops.
How is that fair?
Into town to find the local Woolies and buy a few things (milk, bananas, veges for our vege stack tonight, yawn, zzzzzzz) then back to Percy for the night.
An interesting set of rules and warnings at the caravan park where we are staying, including:
- No pets in the cabins (penalty $300)
- No smoking in cabins (penalty $300)
- Tree limbs have a habit of falling, so park at your own risk (accompanied by graphic photos of caravans than now resemble pancakes)
- No late checkouts – be gone by 10.00am or pay extra
- No leaving the toilet block open
- Parents are responsible for their children’s behaviour
- Management reserves the right to charge you more money if you use excessive water or electricity
- No washing your car or van in the park because water is too expensive
- No noise
- No wiping snot on the walls of the bathroom (seriously – that’s what it said!)
- No bleeding on the floor of the toilet blocks (again, seriously!)
- No defecating in the shower (I hope you are not eating dinner …)
- Enjoy your stay (I’m not sure if that is a rule or just some pleasantness??)
I guess I’ll just have to find somewhere else to defecate.
I’ll take some pictures of the caravan park in the morning assuming a) I remember and b) I’m allowed to do so. I will need to check the extensive list of rules.
This is what today looked like. I hope that you are having as much fun as we are (even considering the restrictive defecation rules).
PS I just realised that we are at the Getaway Caravan Park, not the Gateway Caravan Park. There’s probably a rule for that too. I had all the right letters, just in the wrong order.
Ciao
#RoadTripNSW2023