Sydney - Wild Pear Cafe, Dural - South West Rocks

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This morning, we woke to the news that there have been a number of cases of Legionnaires Disease linked to Sydney CBD. Yup, pretty much in the zone where we have been wandering around the last two days. So, we heard this on the news and then Bernie’s father rang us to make sure we knew about the Legionnaire’s outbreak in Sydney CBD. Ah well, now if we end up developing respiratory symptoms it will be a toss-up as to whether we have COVID or Legionnaire’s Disease! Hopefully we will succumb to neither.

After breakfast downstairs in the dining room, it was time to pack up again and get all of our luggage back into the car … with no luggage trolley in sight to facilitate this! We manhandled our bags back downstairs where Bernie left me in charge of minding our bags while he went to retrieve the truck. Eventually Bernie was back with the truck, and we loaded our gear in. Once again Sydney’s one-way streets made it quite the challenge to bring a vehicle from the parking garage to the hotel.

Bernie programmed the SatNav for Dural and we were off, over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and then heading north on the M1 and M2 before turning off onto the A28. In West Pennant Hills we took the New Line Road through Cherrybrook to Dural. We were making good time, so we took the opportunity to stop at the Woolies in Dural to stock up on some breakfast supplies. After having breakfast included in our tarrif at the Holiday Inn we will be back to self-catered breakfast from tomorrow.

With the car fridge re-stocked we made our way along the Old Northern Road. We slightly overshot the Wild Pear Café not realizing that it is co-located with a nursery. When we saw all the pots and plants, we didn’t realise that the café is nestled in amongst the garden supplies. After a U-turn we arrived at our rendezvous with Gabriel and Yin right on time.

In his email last week Gabriel told us that The Wild Pear Café boasts a Masterchef connection. He wasn’t sure of the exact connection, but a Google search has informed me that one of their chefs, Larissa Takchi, became the youngest ever winner of the 2019 series. We don’t know how busy they used to be BEFORE 2019, but the restaurant was already packed at noon today!

Bernie ordered a burger and, after my first choice of a Reuben sandwich was unavailable, I decided on the smashed avo … with an absolute mountain of bacon on the side! At least it was an open sandwich, so I only had one slice of bread, ha, ha.

We enjoyed a lovely catch-up with Gabriel and Yin sharing the travel adventures we have enjoyed since we met in South America in 2016. The group of people that we met on that trip were such a great bunch that we have stayed in touch and caught up with several of them since, despite being geographically dispersed around Australia.

All too soon it was time for us to start putting some serious kilometres on the odometer if we wanted to reach South West Rocks before dark. Before we could really get underway, we had to retrace our route through West Pennant Hills to the Cumberland Highway / Pennant Hills Road. We were happy to reach Wahronga though where we were able to turn onto the motorway (M1) heading north.

We enjoyed an entirely uneventful journey over Mount Kuring-gai and the Hawkesbury River and to the west of Lake Macquarie. The run up the coast is fantastic … but for the section around Beresfield. The motoway comes to an end there and we had to turn onto the A1. It was probably a good thing in that it provided a good opportunity to take a rest break and refuel at the BP Truckstop.

We continued on the A1 with considerable evidence that this bottleneck will be removed … when the by-pass works are completed. In the meantime, you have to head south-east through Taro to Hexham before crossing the Hunter River and passing through Heatherbrae to resume travelling northwards on the Pacific Motorway.

For much of the rest of the drive, we were retracing sections of the road trip that we completed in June/July 2023 although this time we didn’t venture into Bulahdelah where we enjoyed a couple of days exploring the surrounding area last year! After crossing the Macleay River at Frederickton, we turned off onto the Macleay Valley Way. After more than four hours on the road we were homing in on our destination for the next three nights.

We finally arrived in South West Rocks about 7.20pm. We had anticipated arriving after 7.00pm so Bernie had contacted the staff at the Rockpool Motor Inn to advise that we might arrive after reception closed. We had been told that the restaurant would still be open so there would be people about and it would not be a problem if we were a bit later.

After a big day on the road (460km / five hours driving time) we were happy to get checked in, unload the car and venture no further than The Rocks Restaurant at Rockpool for our dinner! Somewhat revived with a meal we did venture out for a short walk around town just to ensure we managed some exercise for the day!



Steps: 7,815 (5.27kms)

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