12th November We are Home

12^th November 2014

We are home.

From Singleton we drove to Sawtell a small coastal town just short of Coffs Harbour spent two nights there and then on Monday 10^th we continued north expecting to spend one more night on the road before getting home but as it turned out we made such good progress and gaining an hour crossing the border that we decided to continue all the way home, it’s always nice to get home.

The caravan park at Sawtell is first class, well set out with plenty of shade trees if you want them, amenities are excellent, quiet and peaceful. It is a short walk into the township (village) where there is the usual choice of restaurants, takeaways  and numerous places to enjoy the now days habitual coffee. There’s an array of small shops baker and butcher and small boutiques and a popular pub on the corner that sells great meals. Ten minutes away by car in the next small town is a large shopping complex that has it all, WW, Coles Aldi etc.

The Coffs Harbour region is a very attractive part of the NSW coastline, we will probably come back this way sometime and spend a bit of time exploring the various little centres along the coast. In fact I think the bulk of the NSW coast is very attractive.

Nancy hasn’t had any coughing fits since being home so cutting our trip short was probably the right thing to do.

I’ll post some pics later.

7th November 2014

7^th November 2014

Tonight we have stopped at a very mundane caravan park in Singleton. We left Canberra yesterday morning our time was up and none of were interested in extending in fact none of us really liked the place. Nancy is still crook with some sort of virus that started as a head cold and is now sitting on her chest although she is not coughing up anything (she’s even crankier than normal), and she just wants to get back to Queensland and some warmth. During our week stay in Canberra we managed to catch up with relation of Nancy’s for a BBQ lunch and that was a great afternoon. We visited the Telstra Tower, Glass Works, Portrait Gallery, National Gallery, National Museum, Old Parliament House, New Parliament House and the War Memorial twice. We obviously didn’t waste any time and appreciated what we did see but by the end of the week we were ready to move on. Personally I was disappointed with Canberra’s visual appearance, nice tree lined streets but grass on verges and in all the parks was half a metre long and looked dreadfully untidy. Our ‘Capital’ on show. Scruffy would be a good description.

From Canberra I suggested we should head back to Sydney as it was the quickest route north but I was outvoted and we headed for Bathurst (warmer???). Last night we stayed at Bathurst where I had the pleasure of checking out 40 or 50 vintage and classic motorbikes whose proud owners were enjoying a four day rally, these beautiful old machines all working and in show room condition were being rallied at different venues and they were all staying at the caravan park – it made my day. 

After a mild overnight frost, at least that’s what I told the others we set our course to head through Mudgee and on to the Golden Highway to eventually bring us out on the Pacific Hwy north of Newcastle. We drove through some very scenic countryside both before Bathurst and up through Mudgee but it was steep and slow going and by the time we got to Singleton we had gone through a tank full of fuel and driven most of the day. Nancy sheepishly admitted we should have gone directly from Canberra to Sydney so I told her not to worry I had enjoyed the scenery, just needed a bank loan to pay for the fuel. Tomorrow we will pull up somewhere on the NSW coast for a couple of days hopefully I can get some WiFi.

Jenolan Caves Location

Bingo it's working

NSW Government House

NSW Government House

Captain Arthur Phillip RN 1st Governor of NSW 1788 - 1792

Note the abseilers getting ready (idiots in red)

Three Sisters from Echo point

Mother Son and three sisters

Blue Mountains 

From Echo Point

31st Oct 2014

Friday 31^st Oct

No wonder we are all sneezing it went from 30+ degrees to 5C overnight and back up to around 30C again today.

Armed with a couple of trees worth of pamphlets from a very well organised information centre in the city, we headed to the ‘Old Parliament House’ where we had a light lunch (yes it was that time we had a late start, at 5C you have no show of getting Nancy out of bed until the place heats up). Then we joined a guided tour that turned out was just us three and a very nice and knowledgeable lady guide.

From here we went to the Australian War Memorial and were just in time to join the last tour of the day. World War 1 main display is being re-vamped and overhauled for the want of a better term and unfortunately won’t be re-opened until December however there is a temporary section that is very interesting and although I feel fairly well informed regarding ‘The war to end all wars’. I still get astounded when reading the statistics of every nation involved at the total waste of young lives and the futility of it all and countries continue to do it somewhere in the world for one supposedly honourable and just reason or other.

Are wars and epidemics such as Ebola just another form of attrition in the scheme of things.   

We stayed for the closing ceremony and Last Post that the Hon Dr.Brendan Nelson introduced as a daily commitment to the memory of our fallen in all wars and although it is a short ceremony it is symbolic and no less meaningful than a full blown ANZAC service and the large crowd that gathered for it was testament to that. We plan on making several visits to the War Memorial but will keep them short so we don’t become museum-ed out.  

I have found a strong WiFi in the Canberra Visitors Centre across town so will be able to up-date periodically. I'll try photos next.

30th Oct 2014

Thursday 30^th October 2014

Getting away from Lane Cove at 9.00am we had a straight forward run down M2 and M7 to Canberra although we were punching into a pretty strong wind on our starboard quarter and that makes vans move about a bit and increases fuel consumption considerably. Stopping once for a rest break and the obligatory coffee we finally arrived in Canberra and found the Fyshwick Caravan Park sometime early afternoon. None too soon as far as I was concerned by the time I had set everything up including the tent I was feeling quite grotty with this head cold, virus thing that seems to be hanging on.