Monday 21 August 2017

Travelling to Bathurst

Wednesday August 16, 2017

I leave as early as possible, 8am in this case.  Like last time I like this part of the trip best.  After Coonabarabran you leave the highway and arrive in much quieter country without the traffic, road trains and piloted oversize transport, of which I saw plenty on this trip.

As we are in August now the wattles are in full bloom and if I had been able to stop at the right places I would have been able to show you beautiful pictures.  As it is I could only stop at a spot where I saw a lonely wattle tree (and one further down at the back), but at least I have a picture to show.




By 9.30am I feel a coffee coming on so I stop at a rest area at Dunedoo (S32 0.943, E149 23.931).  I enjoy my cuppa, ring Vivienne to update her on my whereabouts and continue on to Gulgong where I want to find the listed (on GeoWiki) dump point for the toilet.  I drive up and down Salesyard Street, but to no avail.  I cannot find anything that vaguely looks like a dump point, so I continue on my way to Bathurst.  If I need to go to the toilet before Bathurst, too bad, I'll just have to cross my legs! ;-)

Towards lunchtime I arrive at Sofala and stop for lunch at the Joyce Pearce Memorial Park (33° 4.848'S, 149° 41.312'E).  I enjoy a quiet lunch.  I am a bit pressed for time, otherwise I would have loved to walk into town, because it seems a quaint little place to have a look around, but I would probably loose track of time...





I had a bit of rain earlier and the temperature is plummeting, so I change into something warmer before I continue on my last leg of the trip to Bathurst.  Last year this was a testing road for my motorhome, because I discovered months afterwards that the air intake hose wasn't attached and here the vehicle needs a lot of power as this is all hilly and steep in some places.  This time it's a breeze and I encounter no problems at all.

By three o'clock I arrive at Bathurst.  I have already seen the big sign on the mountain, advertising in huge writing (something like the Holywood sign) that it's Mount Panorama, the well-known race track. It's also easily seen on the aerial picture of Google Earth:




Since I have a bit of time to kill, Vivienne is out till 4pm, I search for a dump point.  I am not successful at the first one, nor at the second.  Darn! I find the local information centre where I am pointed in the right direction.  I was close the second time, but I had stopped where I thought the road ended.  I just had to drive a little further to the waste water plant, which I did and could finally empty the cassette.

As I had even more time on my hands I had a look if there were any caches in the vicinity and yes, there was one, which I searched for and found.


#1680 - A Step Back in Time








Luckily I didn't have a lot of trouble searching for this tiny container.  I could sign the log without even being noticed by the busy traffic along this road. I took a few pictures of the old tools, apparently used in the past for asparagus growing, and then I was on my way again. 

I finally arrived at my destination, just before Vivienne arrived.  It was great to see each other again.







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