I was convinced I had updated you all within the past month or so when I was back in Penrith, but looking back it appears I hadn’t so I had better update as to what has been happening.
When I left you all I was in Gloucester, slowly making my way back towards Penrith to catch up with relations. I was going to go down the East coast and then cut inland, but looking at my trusty map book there were very few free camping places, and the ones that were showing were in National Parks, which Im banned from entering due to the dogs. So a quick change of plan was in order and I instead headed off to Cessnock where I stayed at the show grounds. This gave me good access to the Hunter Valley wine region. Cessnock has certainly grown since my last trip there lots of new buildings and large housing estates springing up everywhere. This seems to be a growing trend in all the larger towns I have stopped at or driven through. I suppose its a double edged sword, it good to see the growth and that there is good money and infrastructure, but its sad to see the towns changing so much and getting so much larger and busier. I guess that’s progress. Whilst at Cessnock I managed to get out the the Audrey Wilkinson vineyard at Polkolbin, which brought back many happy memories of my previous visit there in 2011 with Pat and Shelley. And I must say they do make a very fine drop of Shiraz as well, in my humble opinion and trust me Im no expert one of the finest Shiraz’s I have had the pleasure to taste.
On the morning I was leaving Cessnock I awoke to find that the caravan was parked in a small lake, some strange stuff called rain had fallen quite heavily during the night. So it was fun packing up the van whilst paddling around, the dogs were most unimpressed and it took a while to get them out of the van and into the truck. It was good to see the rain as everywhere was so very dry, but, t could have waited until I was out on the road before it decided to come down. As the East coast route was now out I decided to head North again and skirt around the northern edge of the Blue Mountains, and then loop around down the other side of them. There is a route through the mountains, but as I was in no rush, and I knew that route was very twisty and hilly I thought I would take the easy way out.
The next stop was at a place called Cassilis, now this was advertised as a Rest Area and truck stop so I was only planning to stay the one night. However when I arrived there was a huge area behind the truck stop area were camping was allowed, it was probably an area of about 10acres or so. This was back about 100metres at least from the main road and the truck area so it was very peaceful. In the end I stayed four nights and very pleasant it was too. Now Im sure I have mentioned it before but Im going to again, what is it about people who like to park up right next to. you. I normally park away from others if I can because of the dogs mainly, as not everyone likes them. Now when I parked up I was the only person there in, remember, about 10 acres of land, and yet when I got up to let the dogs out the next morning there was someone parked right behind me. I fully understand this safety in numbers thing when free camping but come on, do people have to get so close it feels like the caravans are semi-detached.
From here I drove up through Dubbo and the next stop was Ponto Falls camp area. When coming through Dubbo I could see there was a dust storm brewing and the sky got very yellow and visibility dropped quite a bit. By the time I got to the camp area it was in full swing, lots of wind and dust everywhere. It made the setting up of the caravan very tedious and by the time I had finished I had to rinse off in the shower as the dust had got everywhere and boy I’m mean everywhere. By the next morning it had passed and I was in a lovely spot right by the river. As to why its called Ponto Falls Ive no idea as there was certainly no falls of any sort I could see. What there was there though was hundreds of thousands Bindies. Now these for the uninitiated are little seed pods from some plant or other which have usually 3 spikes on them, so no matter how they usually land there is always one pointed upwards. Now its no problem to walk around on these for people with shoes although the do stick into the soles of your footwear, but for dogs they are very painful as the jab in and stick. So after this I had to keep to the well worn foot and car tracks when walking the dogs.
The next stop after this was just South of Orange, which was a huge area again with about 20 or so other campers of all types there. A very uneventful trip and stay before moving on back to Stu and Vickys house in Blaxland. Arrived on the same day as my cousin Wendy did, she had been over for a couple of weeks visiting and staying with friends before coming out to pay us all a visit, It was lovely to see her again and she was having a great time on her first, but hopefully not her last trip to the land down under. We all discovered that Wendy had a remarkable skill which none of us knew about, this was the ability to put endless items at the bottom of her bag for the trip home, without ever filling the bag up, things just seemed to disappear into this bottomless void. Anyway Wendy is was lovely catching up again, and hopefully don’t leave it so long until the next time. Now I only planned to stay a week in Blaxland, but then I paid a visit to the doctors to get a new prescription, and that led to blood tests, foot tests and a head to toe check over. So in the end one week turned into two.
I left for the next part of my trip which was a slow (one week) trip for Blaxland down to Bendigo to catch up with my son who was leaving Melbourne and heading back to Auckland for work. So it was back out through Bathurst, which was on the Monday after the big Bathurst 1000 V8 supercar race weekend. Man alive it was busy, nose to tail traffic in all directions. This was also the day the local Constabulary thought it wold be a good idea to conduct random roadside checks as well, which really didn’t help the traffic flow at all. I eventually got out of Bathurst and headed towards my first overnight stop in Cowra. This now meant I had been to Kawerau, Kawarau and Cowra, a lovely triple. On getting to the more rural parts of the State the number of flies certainly saw an increase. As I was only staying the one night it was manageable. The next place I planned to stop was Wagga Wagga (which always reminds me of Fozzy Bear from the Muppets), but I missed my turn in Wagga so carried on until I came across a town called The Rock. A lovely small town I parked up right next to the oval in amongst the trees. Not much in the town which looking As if it probably sparked to life sometime in the 1800’s due to the railway which runs through it. Although there wasn’t a lot there the local council were spending big money on putting in a brand new public swimming pool. Unfortunately it wasn’t open yet so was unable to give it the once over.
After this was it was on to Denniliquin for a couple of nights, where I had the first mishap of the trip. Parked right up next to the river again, this one actually had a decent amount of water running for a change. On leaving I had to move the caravan a couple of feet back so when I drove out I cleared the trees, for some reason I forgot one of the legs on the caravan was still down so that got nicely buckled when the caravan moved. The air was blue for a while thankfully there was no-one else in earshot. I managed to get it folded up into its resting place but knew a new one was required. Luckily I knew that there was a Jayco dealer in Bendigo. So I crossed over the border into Victoria at Echuca and drove on down to Bendigo. Met up with my sister Pat on the Friday afternoon and Ali arrived on Saturday morning. I had managed to get a new leg for the caravan and Ali and I put it on the van. Well when I said Ali and I, Ali did all the work grovelling under the van while I passed the tools. Thanks for the help Ali.
After a great weekend with fabulous hospitality (thank you Pat) it was back on the road again. this time heading North West towards Mildura. and made it as far as a small place called Nyah, again found a lovely spot amongst the trees and near the river which again had lots of water in it. Fairly breezy most days and large temperature fluctuations, one day it was 38c the next it was 17c. I managed to losemy Akubra hat which Pat had kindly bought for me earlier in the year. I was walking the dogs one evening by the river when a gust of wind took it clean off my head into the water. If I hadn’t been holding the dogs I would probably have managed to retrieve it. But, by the time I had got myself together it had floated out into the river and was lazily drifting downstream. A bloody good hat it was too.
From here it was up to Robinvale, I couldn’t find the place where I wanted to stay and the good old GPS was trying to take me down tracks where Im sure me and the caravan would have had great difficulty going. so discretion being the better part of valour I decided to carry on and find somewhere else. This let me to the Lake Benanee Rest Area. A lovely spot right on the lake shore, so that was me sorted for the next few nights. It was a good job I did stop there as when I looked at my map for the next leg to Mildura I discovered I was in fact going the wrong way. From here it was up to Mildura and trust me to pick a day to move when it was very overcast and threatening rain, but off I set anyway. Not 5kms into the trip down the rain came and it rained all the way to Mildura. where I was staying in Mildura was down a 1km stretch of gravel road, well by the time I got there it was a bit more than gravel, all the mud had churned up and it was a very interesting trip along. A couple of times I was convinced that the car was going one way and the caravan felt like it was trying to overtake. I managed to get down, well I got as far as I could when I pulled into a layby and promptly got bogged down. So there I stayed for the night. Next day dawned brighter and the roads seem to dry out fairly quickly and I managed to get the car out of the mud and move on to where I was supposed to be.
Stayed here until my birthday (officially a pensioner now) and moved on to Broken Hill, I’m actually at Silverton about 25kms NorthWest of Broken Hill, very limited phone and no internet reception. Silverton is where they filmed the Mad Max films, and there is quite a bit of paraphernalia still lying around the town. So I’m currently in the Isite (vistors centre) carpark in Broken Hill typing this. I stopped on the way up between Mildura and Broken Hill at the Coobah Roadhouse and truck stop for a coffee, and was regaled by the women behind the counter as to why Collingwood didnt make it to or win the Grand Final of theAFL.
Broken Hill has always been on my bucket list of places to visit in Australia. Its proper outback and quite an artsy kind of place. Im very pleased to have ticked it off my list, the next one is Alice Springs, but that probably won’t be until sometime next year.
So that’s you all up to date as to where I’ve been and where I am. Not sure where is next on the list, Im due to move on tomorrow, I may just wander down the Adelaide road and see where it may lead me.
Geoff1511 Travels 