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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