Avoiding Armageddon.

---

Just looked at the last blog and have made a note to self that I will have to ensure I (Geoff) look at what the editor (Marg) does with my work...

We left you at Dalmeny last time with the weather still threatening; local readers will no doubt have seen the devastation from the torrential rain in the NSW central coast and Lower Hunter region, and we were keeping a close eye on that. There were many roads in the area that were closed/impassable and given that the water was going to head towards the coast we chose to stay put for 3 days. Geoff tried to catch up with a clubbie driver in Narooma and who hosted to a clubbie gathering last at his motel last November only to find that he had departed for a holiday on a cruise ship. Nothing seems to work... We did do a trip up to Batemans Bay to have a look around, and availed ourselves of a $6 lunch at the Moruya Bowls club. It is if no relevance that we spent $20 in fuel looking for the bowls club, but when you on the search for a bargain, who’s counting the cost? Weather conditions further north were not really improving, so we decided to go around the worst of it and head inland.

Margaret was happy when we cleared Batemans Bay and turned towards Canberra where she had new scenery to look at! It was not long before we got the first inkling of what our (Geoff’s) decision was to mean. There is a section of the Kings Highway (road to Canberra) that traverses the Great Dividing Range (GDR) and while the road surface is superb (what else would you expect of a road of that name that goes to the country’s capital) there was a very long section that just went up, and up and up. We normally travel in 4^th gear but 3^rd soon was found wanting and second was also not up to the long pull – 1^st gear – I was waiting for the caravan to rip the tow bar off and fly off into oblivion. Marg was hoping that we did not stop and travel backwards down the mountain and over a cliff top! We finally reached the turn off to Goulburn and were then running along the back of the GDR so the road was windy and rain showers continued. The early settlers found gold all along the GDR and the little towns that were established early in the 20^th century have not changed a bit since then. Some buildings have been maintained or restored; some are derelict – even if inhabited.

Pressing on as we knew this route was going to take a lot longer in time and distance, we went through Goulburn and headed towards Bathurst. This part of the trip was on a road that could only be described as the “one less travelled”. It was narrow, winding, up and down steep valleys, raining at times and the final straw was a section that was unmade and deeply rutted both laterally (corrugated) and longitudinally (could be rivers when in the wet season). We called it a day at a place called Tueno. Tueno has a general store, a church, 2 houses and a sports ground which also provides a space for free camping. Done deal, set up the satellite dish and put head on pillow.

The weather continued to be a problem and the next day it was Sydney’s turn. The radio told us of fierce storms that hit across the city. There were towering clouds all around us heading towards Sydney and Geoff remarked that one of them looked as if it had had the bottom torn out of it. But that was not our greatest concern when the little light on the fuel gauge came on and we were still 35kms short of Bathurst, with no known fuel stops between. OK, perhaps we should have topped up at Goulburn, but it didn’t look that far on the map. What we really did not take into consideration was the amount of steep climbs involved in the route that we had chosen; for most of the previous day the trip computer was showing a fuel economy just under 24lts/100kms. We pulled over, and armed with a jerry can, Geoff hitched a ride to source some fuel. He got a ride with some young blokes from Canberra – an architect, a builder, a plumber and an electrician, who were going into Bathurst for a day at the races. They even drove him back – in the scheme of their day it was just a minor detour, but we were extremely grateful. It had been a hard days driving and we called it a day at Scone (pron: sc-oh-ne, i.e. not the thing you eat) at a cheap caravan park, but when you have your own bed, it really doesn’t matter.

Rain greeted us the next day – just for something different, so packed up quickly and headed for Armidale. At the back of our collective minds we are thinking that we should be doing a lot more exploring of these old towns that we are passing through, but we are treating this part of the journey as a transit or detour stage, besides it was raining and also very cold. The decision to go as far North inland, is partly driven by the extent of the weather damage along the coast and partly (only a very small part) (Ed. bullshit) by the fact that there is another clubbie person building a car from the same source as my clubbie. I had arranged a couple of days ago to visit him (didn’t bother to tell the wife) and Sunday was the best opportunity to do that. We arrived at his house at 1.30 pm and it was 8 degrees with a wind-chill making it feel more like 5 deg! Marg did an admirable job talking about the similarities (her focus was on the similar cost as you might expect) between the 2 cars, but after about an hour she was making insistent sounds about leaving. We made tracks for the low cost showgrounds camping area at Glen Innes -due North, but with a better looking route back to the coast.

The morning dawned and we thought some vandals had painted the windows while were asleep. The on-board weather station was showing 5 deg inside the van and 3 deg outside, but the view out the windows was blue and the sun was shining; what had happened while we were asleep – had we returned to gods own country and were on the front lawn at home? This surely could not have been the NSW we said goodnight to 12 hours ago, but on venturing out it was still the place where we stopped. The van even got a wash at the showgrounds, and we headed off along the Gwyder Highway. Geoff has memories of this road going back 47 years when travelling from the other end (our current destination) he fell asleep and ran off the road, cart wheeling once and barrel-rolling the car back onto the middle of the road facing from whence he came. It had been a torrid time in Coolangatta prior to going in for his National Service that was the root cause. Anyway, the highway from Glen Innes was remarkably good...until we came to the sign that said “Steep Descent – Trucks and buses to use low gear for the next 18 kms”!! They were not lying as it took nearly 25 minutes to negotiate our way down the mountain. The upside was that the trip computer was showing a consumption of 14.2 lts/100 kms, which is entirely possible as I don’t recall using the accelerator once in those 25 mins!

We ended up in Grafton with our final destination for the day (and a few to come) was Minnie Waters some 50 kms South. We have been here before and it is a lovely place overlooking the ocean.

Hope all our readers are well, more next time.

Geoff & Marg

---

Photos

Batemans Bay
Looking North - not very promising

Minnie Waters
Safe haven

Minnie Waters
After nearly 2 weeks of rain, this looked promising.

Minnie Waters
That's real blue sky - no Photoshop here!

Minnie Waters
Home away from home - with the towels out to dry!