It’s Friday morning we’ve got to be in Avalon by tomorrow lunch time, that’s a little over 550km’s or 8hrs away on the road that we came up on-easy. Rule number II of road tripping, always take a different route and see something new. So after numerous cups of tea and the thought of using the drop loo we have a route Highway 15, 800km’s just under 11hrs now that’s a challenge but first lets see what this look out point is all about!
“Cccaaww its a bit green here!” that was the best I could come up with! It was staggering just a never ending vista of thousand upon thousands of trees, to be exact now I’ve had time to look it up 68,722 hectares now if your a farmer in the southern hemisphere and reading this you will probably know that you can loose a lot of cows in a field that big, but for the general group of us its 700km2 or just plain feckin big! 1564 metres above sea level and below are deep rolling valleys clothed in forest. Just a magnificent panorama stretching to the north, east and south and is framed by the Pacific Ocean 70 km’s away. We just stood there the three of us drinking in the view knowing we should hit the road but unable to pull ourselves away!
It was a long day driving and to start with the roads were so promising, but slowly as we moved out of the park lands and into the middle of nothing we were back onto the two lane 110km speed limit highway hell, we pass a turning for Bathurst and every muscle in my body is straining at make the exit but I can’t Stijn and Hannah would murder me! The Bathurst 1000 or ‘The Great Race’ is a 1000km motorsport event held each year in October where all the Aussie Ford & Holden lovers meet, drink about 300 gallons of beer and watch V8 cars going around in circles – but its for another day-another road trip.
So we stop off in Singleton instead, not that I’ll complain – sounds like a bloody great place to stop! But I’ve said it before… Feral. Now not that I think anyone would want to seal our POS because it was a piece of shit but here it could be passed off as cross country luxury mobile palace so military precision shopping is required no time to dilly dally we’re in and out within 3 minutes and back on the road out of town.
We land in Hunter Valley – the home or garden of Aussie Wine, so looking forward to this we can stop off in a vineyard get smashed buy lots of really good wine and see if we can park the POS in the car park for a free night’s camping. Lovely idea, just a shame its dark and everything is closed, oh well lets start the look for a place to stop and camp – illegally I’m sure! Success in another park with a big sign which clearly states ‘No Camping’, we all take the opinion that if we are up early enough and someone calls by we can blag the ‘just arrived about 15 mins ago trick’ the votes are in and its agreed, lets make sure its a nice car park as we have the difficult task of eating and drinking everything that is left in the fridge.
Right we’ve got 220km to go and we need a quick top up on the suntan before we go to the wedding, time to get on the road and see if we can make Palm Beach for lunch but first we need to get our story straight for the ranger who has just pulled into the car park!
“Morning ranger, I presume your coming over here because I might have done something wrong!” a proven line I’ve used before!
“Ohhhhh yeaaa, ya might have its no camping overnight here”
“ohh”
“Ohhhhh weeelll where you guys off to”
“eehhh ahh Sydney we have a wedding to go to” with a puzzled look on our faces
“ohhhhh noiceee – well I’ve gotta cut some grass, you guys have a good trip”
With the second nicest telling off from an official we have the POS packed up and we’re off and running, the sun has his hat on and our friends are getting married – its going to be a great day!
the bean hunter 