Mollymook, Canberra, Home

Wed 10^th & 11^th Sept Mollymook

Sometimes in life we are lucky enough to meet someone with whom we feel a connection. This happened to us last year on our cruise and we have missed our dining partners Angela and Joan since we got home. We were looking forward to visiting them and catching up and we certainly weren’t disappointed. They live in a delightful home backing onto a golf course. Behind it are some trees and they are full of colourful birds. Their home is a treasure trove of interesting art works and is comfortable and welcoming. It was hard to believe that a year had passed because the conversation started as we entered and didn’t wane until we left. On Thursday we had lunch overlooking the sea one day and met another of their friends, Roz, who was enjoying s coffee as she read her book. We all had lunch together and Roz returned to the house with us for an enjoyable slideshow of Joan and Angela’s most recent trip.



Saying our goodbyes.

 





Mick, Joan, Roz and Angela about to enjoy lunch.

 

Another lycra clad late sipper.

Fri 12^th – Sat 13^th Getting home

On our way we stopped off at Bob and Rhonda’s place and spent a very comfortable night in their unit. It was great to catch up with them because they have been very good friends of ours for more than 40 years. We have shared many holidays and good times together and have watched each other’s kids grow up and become independent. They have just done a lot of work on their house and have made some excellent improvements. Their bamboo flooring is lovely. In the morning we all went our own ways. Bob is practicing for another kayak marathon, Rhonda was playing golf and visiting a friend in hospital and we headed home.

We  unpacked the van, started on the mammoth pile of washing and then went to Sue and Bob’s place for dinner. It was good to be home again, especially as the sun was shining warmly.

Huskisson

Mon 8^th - 9^th Sept  

It was only a short drive down to Huskisson and we enjoyed it in warm sunshine with a blue sky; something we haven’t experienced much of lately. Almost immediately on getting set up we were once again startled by the scream of a plover guarding its mate.  Although there weren’t many in the park, it was obvious that most sites are yearly sites and the vans have semi-permanent annexes. There were also a great number of cabins, most unoccupied. Of the caravan sites, a number had been dug up and there were men laying new turf. That didn’t leave much choice for us and we had some difficulty finding a level site that we could get on to and was within hiking distance of the ablution block. We wound up on quite a large site with large vans and annexes right around us. Right behind us lying on the lawn was a dead rabbit.

 Huskisson is a beautiful little town on the coast with stunning views. Where the river meets the sea is a sheltered anchorage for several different boats and there were also a few larger boats. We watched a large school group going out on a dolphin watch tour.  The dolphins would have heard them coming from miles away. A couple of young blokes were fishing off the landing and there was a young mother trying to teach her son of about 4, how to look through binoculars. She also had a job convincing him that the thousands of tiny fish we could see in the water were not tadpoles, because as he said, “We have been reading about frogs and they look like tadpoles.”  I love the way those young minds are such sponges sucking up interesting bits of information. Behind us, only a few metres away, was a row of shops, mostly tourist type businesses. To do any shopping we had to go to the next town Vincentia, which had a shopping centre. It is another pretty town, stretched over a big area with houses hugging the steep hills above the coastline. You would need to have confidence in your brakes to get down many of the extremely steep driveways.

Corrimal

Fri 5^th September 

Our original plan was to drive down the Putty, through the Hunter Valley, to Windsor and then skirt around Sydney to the coast; however a bloke in the showground warned us that it is a nightmare negotiating out of Windsor and onto a non-toll road. With this in mind we told Karen to take us to Swansea in the hope she would avoid Newcastle. The first part of the journey went smoothly on excellent roads with light traffic. It was a perfect day for travelling. Once we got near the coast things started to deteriorate. The traffic picked up, the roads narrowed and the intersections and roundabouts took over. Eventually we got to The Entrance. “That sounds nice,” we agreed and soon found a sign to a caravan park that was on the shore and with lovely views of the lake and the ocean. We followed the signs down narrow streets, over horrific speed humps that almost took out our towing hitch and came to a dead end. Luckily it was a car park and we were able to turn around. The only entrance to the park that we could find was a boom-gate that required a swipe card. We could see no sign of an office. So we retraced our steps and decided to go down to Patonga and stay there a couple of days. Well we had to cross a mountain to get there. It was very steep and windy and windy, and the weather was starting to deteriorate, but I was able to enjoy the wildflowers at the side of the road and even saw some waratahs. When we got to the bottom we found ourselves in a large, open park that was on the coast. While Mick went in to register I noticed that many sites were roped off – under water. It was pouring rain at that stage and the wind was howling. Mick came back - $50 per night – for that! No way! So we retraced our steps back over the mountain and told Karen to take us to Wollongong, hoping we would miss Sydney and the toll roads. I think we missed the toll roads however we were in heavy traffic, surrounded by heavy traffic (mostly trucks) for about all of the 3 hours it took to skirt around the city. There were traffic lights, all red, about every 100 metres. It will be many lifetimes before we go there again!

However all’s well that ends well. We found a reasonably priced caravan park on the coast at Corrimal Beach. At the entrance was a restaurant where we went for a delicious dinner of a seafood platter for two – fish, prawns and squid with salad and chips, all beautifully prepared and freshly cooked; and only $24. Then to finish off we were brought a pot of tea on the house, a lovely way to spend a gruelling day. Between our van and the restaurant was a pair of plovers, one sitting on eggs and the other on constant guard, We had to walk past them to get from the van to the restaurant or to the amenities block so we were run at by that screaming plover several times until it realised we weren’t a threat and then just kept its eye on us.

 

On Fathers’ Day we went for a drive down to Wollongong to see the sights. The entire beachfront is full of coffee shops. One can’t imagine there are enough customers to keep them viable, but there were certainly plenty of people in them. We sat up on a hill watching the start of a yacht race. In the foreground were cyclists riding along the pathway and stopping off and tethering their bikes while they had their coffee. We thought we might get some fish from a nearby fish market, but it was way out of our price range. By that time it was starting to rain – we can’t believe the weather in NSW. It has rained every day we have been here.

Singleton

Thurs 4^th  September

It was a good thing that we decided not to move out yesterday. We would have had to fight a gusty head wind. As it was, today was beautiful and calm with a blue sky and very light traffic. At Narrabri we turned off for Gunnedah and enjoyed the green crops for a fair bit of the way. There were large areas being prepared for cotton and there were also big areas that were being taken over for mining. In the Upper Hunter Valley there were many horse studs. The Emirates Estate stretched along both sides of the road and must have had $trillions invested in it. We went through oddly named places like Tin Hut, Baan Baa, Willow Tree, and Currabubula all of which were quite small, most with only one shop, if that. We had lunch in Quirindi, a bigger town with a long street of shops. We decided to continue on to Aberdeen (where they hold the Highland Games) for the night. We found a big sign indicating the caravan park and because there was a double white line we had to go further along and u-turn so we were on the correct side to turn in. We went down a narrow lane to the end where there was a boom-gate to the park, only to be confronted by a tiny sign stating that they had no sites. Not only that, but the place was deserted and we couldn’t find anyone to open the boom so we could turn around to get out again. Poor Mick had to back out until he could find a driveway to turn around in. There was no way we could have backed out onto the road without either killing ourselves, someone else, or ending the day behind bars. We ended up in Singleton with a powered site at the showground. There were several people working on he oval, preparing for a dressage event at the weekend. Opposite us was a camper with a very odd looking bloke in it. Every time we moved he was looking out his window at us – Creepy!

Moree

Fri 29^th  Aug – Tues 2^nd Sept.

 

We have had almost a week of beautiful, sunny, blue sky days in Moree where there was nothing to do apart from lazing in the thermal pools, chatting to other people doing the same, sitting back in a deck chair and reading in the sun and chatting to other people doing the same. Do you get my drift?

On Saturday we bought a leg of lamb at a good price and have enjoyed several meals off it – our first roast lamb in quite a while. Tom Cruise wouldn’t have got a look in. Our only other shopping has been to the Op Shop to replenish our book supply.

Once again the caravan park is being extended. For those who have stayed in the Gwydir Cara Park before, what was the west fence has now been moved over and there are lots of new powered sites there.