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.