Category: Roadtrip NSW 2022

Today’s post is brought to you by the letter ”B”, in case you hadn’t figured that out already.

I’m also concerned that I’m a bit light on for blog fodder today, so this could be short, or I could ramble. One of those options probably wouldn’t be a bad thing, BTW.

You may recall that yesterday I spoke about the upper shower block at the Bulli Beach Tourist Park. Water saver heads, flick mixer taps, getting probed in places you don’t want to be probed. So last night I did a further recon of the morgue lower shower block, just to confirm my options.

The lower shower block has even worse, smaller water saver heads, although it does have both a hot and cold tap, neither of which is located in a position that could discomfort.

So on the balance of things, I decided that I was no better or worse off at either shower block, and rather than make a decision about where to shower, I just showered at the van.

Showering in the van has both benefits and disbenefits. A “disbenefit”, for those of you that don’t recognise the word, is a “disadvantage or a loss resulting from something”. I like to think that this blog is both entertaining and informative.

The disbenefit of showering in the van is that you cannot stand in the shower and have a nice long 30 minute shower. Well technically you can, but the water runs cold after the first 5 of those minutes and then it gets very cold and unpleasant.

The benefit of showering in the van is that if you have that horrible realisation that you have forgotten a vital piece of clothing, you can leave the shower, walk through the kitchen, past the lounge/dining room and into the master bedroom, and back, and only add about 6 steps to your daily step count.

This morning at the unreasonably early time of about 7.00am, not long after I’d woken, there was this awful noise coming from the neighbouring property. It sounded like a whipper-snipper being tortured.

The first thing I thought was ”that guy is making enough noise to wake the dead … and then I realised … he was mowing the cemetery next door … and I thought to myself … gosh, I hope not 🙁

Yesterday we got to watch everyone else packing their stuff down in the rain to go home after the long weekend. Today it was our turn, except we are not going home … well, not yet anyway.

Everything packed and stowed and locked and connected, and we pulled out of the Bulli Beach Tourist Park at 9.01am.

We unfortunately did further grievous damage to the beautiful lawns at the BBTP, but there is not much I can do about that I am afraid.

I got a bit of a fright this morning. We set the GPS for Bega and this refined older gentleman said something like ”I’d be delighted if you would consider turning left at the next street, in 300m”. Who the heck was that? He sounded like he should have been serving tea and crumpets for the Queen.

And then I remembered. Karen, gone. Brandon, here now. I’d forgotten all about Brandon.

Once again I feel the need to say that the NSW motorway system is excellent. It is just as good at the USA’s Interstates, and far better than anything Queensland has. Long entry and exit lanes allowing traffic to merge safely, smooth and fast dual carriage ways, little if any traffic jams, fast flowing traffic.

At about 10.30am we stopped at the side of the road for a coffee and stretch. My phone tells me we were at Tullarwalla, but I can neither confirm nor reject that suggestion. That’s just the geo-tagging details that my phone recorded against the pictures.

It was a bit of a wild goose chase just trying to find a rest area that actually existed and was safe to stop. But that’s a whole other story for another day when I’m really short on content.

Now, where was I? Fast smooth roads, entry/exit lanes, like the Interstate … and then we hit Nowra.

Not unexpectedly, we had to run out of beautiful motorway at some point and end up on narrow two-way roads, but what surprised me was just how bad the roads became. Potholes, corrugations, poor patching, broken bitumen, sunken areas … it was awful. You find yourself constantly swerving to avoid big holes in the road, or worse – risking shredding a tyre or two.

Swerving to avoid potholes is not a great deal of fun on narrow roads, particularly when you see whites of the eyes of the drivers of oncoming vehicles, wide with alarm because there is a car and caravan taking over half their side of the road.

When you add to that the usual assortment of maniacs, psychopaths, kamikaze pilots, and trucks that sit just a couple of metres behind your back bumper, and it was a pretty exhausting trip.

We stopped for a quick lunch in Batemans Bay at about 1.00pm and decided that we would make it quick and keep rolling towards Bega.

Batemans Bay is a pretty little spot, and certainly one that we would like to come back and spend more time some day.

We kept rolling through constantly changing countryside until we reached Central Tilba.

Now, if you are not a fan of River Cottage on the telly, you might as well jump over this bit as it will be meaningless to you.

MBW is a big fan of Paul from River Cottage, and all of the stuff he does in the local community at Central Tilba … and by an incredible coincidence Central Tilba is on the way from Batemans Bay to Bega.

So we took the turnoff.

As you can see from the photo above, the roads are quite narrow. And windy. And steep in places. Narrow, windy, steep. Not a great trifecta.

We drove into Central Tilba and MBW spotted the parking area, and pointed to the right and said ”quick, turn here!”

It was possibly more like ”QUICK! TURN HERE!” but I can’t be sure so I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.

Now I just want to quickly explain something about Newton’s first law of motion: the law of inertia.

Specifically it says that ”… an object moving at a constant speed and in a straight line (like a caravan) … will remain moving at a constant speed and in a straight line unless it is acted upon by a force …”

What that means is that 3.0 tons of Elsie plus 2.8 tons of Percy, when moving at a constant speed, cannot quickly and easily do a 90 degree right-hand turn in a different direction towards the parking area.

So we continued on along impossibly narrow (and beautiful) country roads through Tilba Tilba (no, that’s not a typo … the next township is called Tilba Tilba) until we approached the highway again, as it was completely impossible to turn around.

And we encountered a problem.

Google Maps is saying “turn left in 300m”. Brandon is saying “turn right in 300m”. MBW wanted to go to Central Tilba and walk the same streets that Paul from River Cottage has walked. I just wanted to get to Bega, have coffee and take off my shoes.

Anyway, we turned left and went back to the start and did another lap. Glad we did too as it is a very pretty little township.

I got coffee in Central Tilba, so it wasn’t a total loss 🙂

Another hour down the road and here we are in Bega. The main things that we wanted to see are closed temporarily – I don’t know why – and by the time we found the showgrounds where we are staying tonight, got level, got disconnected, and went for a quick drive, it was dark.

Dinner, blog, shower and bed. MBW is playing MasterChef catch-up again, so I’ll settle in with a good book, me thinks.

Today was only 373km but it took us all day to do it. Mind you once we passed Nowra it all got a bit slower … and we weren’t in a rush.

Tomorrow we will start heading back towards Canberra. We still have no idea when we need to be back home, so I’m hoping for the best.

You can see on the map above that the distance from Bega to Canberra is only about half the distance from Bulli Beach to Bega, so it should be a cruisey day. Time to stop and smell the roses … or donuts and coffee if we are lucky!

We passed 2,000km today somewhere just after Central Tilba and still having fun!!

Glad to have you along for the ride.

Ciao

#RoadTripNSW2022

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

I chose to call this post simply ”Grand Pacific Drive”, because I would likely exceed the character limit if I named all of the places that we went to today.

MBW tells me that the Elsie’s speedo says we did a paultry 211km today, yet it feels like we were in the car all day. Despite the low kilometres, we had an amazing day exploring the GPD.

Firstly though, I need to get a couple of things off my chest.

Number #1: Road rules in NSW are either very different to Queensland, or they are made to be broken.

Number #2: I clearly need to raise my expectations.

I will explain both of those throughout the blog, so please pay attention.

Yesterday – I think it was yesterday?? – I mentioned that the ground here at the Bulli Beach Tourist Park was very boggy. I mean, I know that there has been a great deal of rain around Sydney, much like in Queensland and Northern NSW, but my tiny brain is probably having trouble accepting the fact that I am just down the road from Sydney.

In any case, and for what it’s worth, the ground here at the BBTP is very boggy. I wasn’t being particularly aggressive or careless when we set up the van yesterday, but I did a bit of damage.

That’s really unfortunate, because now it is boggy AND muddy when I walk around the front of the van.

The BBTP is a pretty little park, right on the beach. We are not right on the beach, but the park is. We probably didn’t get a beachfront space because we used our Senior’s card to get the discounted rate and they probably figured that we were too old and crotchety and incontinent to appreciate the view. Either that, or it was the fact that we didn’t ask for one.

I guess I’ll never know.

We do have water views though. We just need to look out Percy’s window at the people in the tent behind us, and we can see all of the water lying around on their site. I’m telling you, it is wet and boggy.

The park has interesting neighbours too. Dead people. A whole big field of them. Fortunately they don’t make too much noise.

Yep, that’s a whole sea of gravestones on the background. There seems to be a lot of dead people in NSW, and – of course – I have a view on that also. They probably all die from despair because we keep beating them at State of Origin, but that is just my opinion.

Anyhow, today was the Grand Pacific Drive drive day. And what a day it was.

We had a super sleep in this morning. 7.00am on the dot I opened my eyes and looked at the clock, and decided it was time to get up and start the day.

MBW and I have this little game that we play. Whoever uses the toilet last when the little red light (= full) comes on, wins! And the winner gets to empty the cassette … except I get to empty the cassette every time whether I win or not.

It probably doesn’t seem anywhere near as much fun as it sounds, but you do what you can to stay happily married.

The other important thing about this is that I know from Day #1 that NSW just love their reclaimed effluent. (Yikes! I said that those two words should never be used together in the same sentence, and I just did!!) So rather than just discard it irresponsibly, I carefully and lovingly tipped it into the BBTP dump point so that they can reclaim it.

There may be no ”I” in team, but there is one in urine! And there is two of them in narcissist, but that is a whole other rant for another post.

Anyhow, where was I? Sleep in, woke up, toilet cassette, reclaimed effluent (ugh!), breakfast, dishes and we were off.

I’m fairly certain that I gave my hands a really good wash in there somewhere too. I hope …

So we loaded up Elsie with all of the necessities for the day, and set off to the Sea Cliff Bridge which is as close to the start of the GPD as we were going to get.

And what an amazing bridge it is!

We parked Elsie, and got out and walked. Almost from one end of the bridge to the other.

Sorry about that, but someone obviously went to a great deal of trouble and expense to build that bridge, and I thought it appropriate to capture it photographically.

From there we drove back towards the BBTP and stopped to buy some food for dinner tonight and dropped it all back to the van.

We then headed off south to explore the GPD, going through various small (and picturesque) townships on the drive.

First stop was the Wombarra Cemetry which has the most amazing views of the ocean that any dead person could possibly hope for.

I have a working theory that this prime piece of real estate was used as a cemetry because the ground was not good for much else. If these graves could sink into the ground so badly, I wouldn’t want to be living in a house there.

MBW seems to have it in her head that she wants to look at all available lighthouses on this trip. I’m not entirely sure why, but I think it has something to do with lighthouses being built on a pretty point near the water and we can get some nice photos.

Nope, I don’t really understand it either 🙁

We lost probably the best part of an hour trying in vain to get close to a lighthouse near the ’Gong (Wollongong), and all roads that we tried to use were closed because of a triathlon on today.

So it was an exercise in futility.

We found a shopping centre instead, parked and went in. MBW saw the words ”Clearance” and ”70% off” and that was it – we needed to look.

We finally escaped, and went on to find a BCF nearby, so I was able to get the gas bottle filled and get an o-ring for the BBQ hose. You may recall that was something that I really need to check off my list of things to do from the last couple days. Job done!!

We stopped at Lake Illawarra at Shellharbour for lunch.

Next stop was the Kiama Lighthouse and blowhole.

We kept puddling along the GPD, stopping at various vantage points to get out and take a photo, but I won’t bore you with all of those details.

A very pretty drive and a beautiful part of the country.

Weather was unpredictable with the day starting sunny and cool, and eventually changing to rainy and cold.

We were told that we must stop in Berry NSW, which we were told was a very pretty place. And what a pretty place it was. A really quaint, pretty little township … that had a donut truck! Donuts and coffee available at 3.00pm – it was a sign 🙂

So all in all, a really nice day. Nothing particular to do and all day to do it. A relaxing day with MBW seeing the sights and enjoying some time together.

And coffee and donuts. Bonus!

From there it was a straight run home back to Bulli for dinner, coffee, shower and listening to the rain fall on the roof of the van.

I started this post saying that road rules seem to be different in NSW. It seems to be a national sport here to cross double white lines anywhere, any time, and at every opportunity. Maybe it’s OK to cross a double line to get into a shopping centre at a particularly dangerous point in the road with no visibility, but everyone does it here with reckless abandon. I don’t get it – or maybe I’m just Mr Obedient. Who knows?

And someone needs to explain to me the flashing yellow turn arrow. What is that about?

I also started the post saying that I needed to raise my expectations.

MBW was over the moon that she got to see and walk the Grand Pacific Drive and check that off her list of things to do.

I was pleased that I got the gas bottle filled and that I got some o-rings and check that off my list of things to do.

See what I mean about setting my expectations too low?

Tomorrow will be a drive in the country, maybe over towards Mittagong. I’ve mentioned Mittagong so many times on this trip it would be a shame not to actually get there at some point.

As I said earlier, today was only 211km of mostly aimless driving around … and without Percy hooked up on the back, the fuel gauge barely moved. That 211km was also backed up by over 13,000 steps – mostly on the Sea Cliff Bridge and walking around Berry. Hopefully that will offset the damage that the donuts did.

If I remember, I’ll tell you tomorrow about tonight’s dinner (vegetable stack) and the amenities block/s here at the BBTP. If I remember.

Oh, and it’s Anzac Day tomorrow too, so an opportunity to spend some time reflecting on the sacrifice that so many made for our freedom. We need to remember that more than anything else.

Looking forward to it. I hope you are too.

Ciao

#RoadTripNSW2022

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

Righto, I’m just going to come straight out and say it.

NSW drivers are really aggressive. And scary. Far more so than Queensland drivers, in my humble opinion anyway. I’ll need to work up to explaining that allegation, but let me set some context first, so I’ll back it up a bit.

Lunch yesterday was a late one at McDonalds a family restaurant in Yamba. More than my RDI of grease, fat, salt and sugar you may recall.

So we weren’t really hungry by the time we were set up at the Nambucca Bowls Club and the restaurant had opened for the night … so we went for the cheapest thing on the menu. Not because we couldn’t afford it, but rather because we figured that cheap = less food.

That was the theory anyway.

So we ordered two chicken burgers. Chicken burgers that came with chips.

In case you’ve lost count, that’s two meals in a row that came with chips yesterday. Not exactly ideal dietary choices for a couple who use their National Seniors cards every time that they can, and one of whom has his blood pressure managed with pharmaceutical support.

You know how sometimes you order a burger and when it arrives at the table, you figure that you are going to have to dislocate your lower jaw to be able to get your mouth around it? This was one of those burgers.

Not exactly ideal for a couple on the wrong side of 55 who had previously partaken of a late lunch at McDonalds a small family restaurant.

So we got back to the van about ready to slip into a diabetic coma and just needed coffee to close out the day. Nothing fancy, just coffee.

Guess what? We forgot to pack coffee. Bugger. No problems, we will just use the pod machine.

Guess what? The pod machine needs 240V, and we did not have 240V. Bugger again.

So we had a cup of tea. MBW had the usual Vanilla Chai, and I had a cup of my new Jilungin Bush Tea that is supposed to help me sleep.

So no coffee, and a “soothing and relaxing” cup of Jilungin Bush tea and we were off to bed … and I slept the sleep of the dead. I don’t know if that was the lack of caffeine, or the tea, or a relatively guilt- and regret-free day, but I slept like a log.

One of those ”close your eyes and 10 nano-seconds later it’s morning” sleeps. One of those ”I’m pretty sure that I didn’t even roll over all night” sleeps. You get the idea.

Woke this morning and looked out of the window, and this is what I saw …

The next thing I did was check my phone, and this is what I saw …

You will forgive me for not feeling particularly optimistic about the day.

If you’ve ever wondered what life in the van looks like, here is a glimpse.

Anyhow, we did our ablutions, had breakfast, and went in search of coffee. Fortunately by the time we were ready to go, my optimism was slowly coming back.

I had another run-in with the territorial Plover in the middle of the park, but we got everything connected and we were on the road by 8.00am.

Fortunately we remembered to relocate the BBQ out of the back of the car and into the caravan before we left. I know I didn’t mention it yesterday, but that stupid BBQ rattling around the back of the car for 459km and about 6 or 7 hours nearly drove me mad. Every time we stopped we vowed we would move it, and every time we got back in and got back up to 100km/h, we realised that we had forgotten again!

Anyway, that problem was now sorted.

First stop was Kempsey, about 50km down the road from Nambucca Heads. We found a McDonalds McCafe small coffee shop and had our first caffeine fix for the day. Actually, our first caffeine fix for quite a long time.

Then we fueled up Elsie and kept heading towards Taree.

We had started the day listening to the Country Fried Chicken playlist on Spotify, but MBW switched it over to a Slim Dusty playlist. Why you ask? Because we were heading out of town to have a look at the Slim Dusty Centre just outside Kempsey.

We used our Seniors cards to get the discounted entry into the centre, and spent a very nice hour or so browsing around.

We got back on the road, and I have to say again that the motorways in NSW are excellent. Smooth, wide, two lanes, 110km/h … just a pleasure to drive on. And absolutely no stress that you have to get out of the way of other drivers – you just keep plugging along in the left lane and let the other drivers blast past.

We had periods of dry weather …

… but mostly the view out through the windscreen was pretty disappointing.

Which brings me back to aggressive NSW drivers.

It was wet. I mean, it was really raining cats and dogs. I did the safe thing and kept my speed down to 90km/h or so, but we had people towing huge vans go roaring past us like we were standing still.

All of them with NSW number plates.

The NSW Police have a special deal this weekend – get done for speeding and lose double the demerit points. Not even double demerit points would slow these idiots down.

And then there are all of the geniuses (genii?) who drive dark cars and fail to turn their headlights on, so you don’t even know that they’re there until you get sucked into their slipstream as they fly past.

An then there were the morons who have no hesitation to put on their blinker (or NOT put on their blinker) and cut in front of you, only to then stand on the brakes.

I nearly had a ”code brown” a couple of times 🙁

One thing that I have noticed about NSW drivers is that when they overtake you on a dual carriageway road, the instant that their rear bumper draws level with your front bumper, they indicate and start to move across in front of you.

It’s pretty scary, but you come to realise that’s just the way that they drive. They don’t do it because we keep beating them at the State of Origin, or because we live in the Promised Land … it’s just the way that they drive.

We stopped at the Taree Service Centre for a quick bite of lunch (cheese and crackers), and I have to say that is the busiest service centre I’ve ever been to. Cars everywhere, trucks everywhere, and cars parking in the ”caravan parking only” bays just made it almost impossible to park.

I’ve often wondered if it is possible to get through a KFC drive-thru with 18’6” of van on the back, and I very nearly found out today. The drive-thru was my only other option if I couldn’t find a caravan bay. Fortunately that’s a theory I didn’t need to test out.

Lunch over, back into Elsie and we took a wrong turn getting out of town and had to cross a bridge – twice. First time because we thought we were going the right way (we weren’t), and second time because we had to retrace our steps.

Crossing a bridge can’t be that hard … can it?

Not a great deal of room either side of the van, so that was very nearly ”code brown” #2. Steady as she goes …

We survived unscathed, I’m pleased to report.

Other than rain, more rain, idiots, and more idiots, and a really nasty bit of congestion (traffic, not nasal) around Heathbrae, it was plain sailing all the way to The Entrance.

For reasons that I don’t understand – although most likely related to the last week of NSW school holidays and a long weekend – the traffic was nuts heading into The Entrance. Not only was the traffic nuts, but the owners/managers of all of the caravan parks would be delighted to get us onto a powered site at their park for the princely sum of (up to) $99 for the night, and they did it with a straight face. Like that is normal. Huh?

Dunleith Caravan Park has a two night minimum, but considering that the park is mostly empty they decided that they were happy to take our $55 for a powered site for the night.

Power is good, after a night off the grid and a day of heavy rain. The solar panels on the roof have trouble keeping the batteries charged when the sun doesn’t show its face all day. But 240V will top them all up nicely. And the radios, phones, iPads and various other power-hungry devices we carry with us.

Van unhooked and set up, and we went off to find a Coles to buy coffee and other essentials for dinner, then a quick drive to look at the Norah Head Lighthouse.

And what a pretty lighthouse!

I’d show you a photo of the caravan park, but by the time we got back it was fully dark. So I’ll take one in the morning.

Another long day today. We left Nambucca Heads at 8.00am and finally settled in to the van for dinner (after shopping and the trip to the lighthouse) at about 6.30pm.

456km covered today – it doesn’t sound like much, but it was a long day. A great day, but a long one.

Tomorrow will be a bit shorter as we are only heading for Mittagong – maybe a couple of hundred km. We will stay there for maybe three nights so that we can have a bit of a break, see the local sights, and do the Grand Pacific Drive. We will do that over a couple of days.

We do have to stop for fuel again in the morning, and we need to get one of the gas bottles filled. And I need to get a little rubber o-ring for the BBQ hose so that I don’t accidentally create a fireball when I light the BBQ because the connector is leaking gas so badly because it’s missing a little rubber o-ring.

But other than those administrative jobs, it should be a quiet day. I might even stop at a local Bunnings because … just because. Do I need a reason to stop at Bunnings?

Elsie has been behaving herself. Percy has been behaving nicely also. Hopefully I have been behaving to MBW’s expectations, but I guess I’ll find out at my next performance review.

I’m having fun and I’m pretty sure that MBW is having fun too. And I trust that you are enjoying the trip vicariously through the blog.

Time now for a hot shower and a cup of my ”soothing and relaxing” Jilungin Bush tea, then off to bed. Roll on Saturday.

Ciao

#RoadTripNSW2022