Urunga to Yass

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Time to head home. We’ve had a great holiday, but it’s really not the best time to take a holiday with so many other people taking time off around Christmas and New Year and, of course, the school holidays. Everything is more crowded and more expensive than it would be at a less popular time of year. It has been great though with the birthday party providing the catalyst to spend NYE in Sydney.

We have long talked about witnessing the Sydney fireworks firsthand just once in our lives but, until now, have not made it happen. With a celebration on in northern NSW on the 6^th of Jan it provided the perfect opportunity to turn it into a road trip and do the fireworks and then continue north to the birthday party.

We were up early (before 6.00am!) to say goodbye to Lachie before he went to work. We ‘could’ have kept going then and had our breakfast and showers to get on the road super early BUT we decided to go back to bed for an hour and then get going. Even with our extra hour of sleep we were on our way by 9.00am which we feel is a civilised hour to be underway. Unless there’s a good reason to be on the road earlier, we usually aim for about 9.00am.

After all the rain there has been in Victoria, we have been keeping an eye on news about road closures. When we checked yesterday it was indicating that there are road closures in north-east Victoria and around Seymour but all local roads. There has been nothing to indicate that the Hume Highway is impassable so we were setting out feeling confident that we would make it home without encountering any flood related road closures on our route.

We planned to make our first stop at the BP near Port Macquarie, but we didn’t have its exact address programmed in so, somehow, we missed it?!! Not to worry, we weren’t in urgent need of fuel, so we continued to Taree where we pulled off the motorway and headed towards the Taree Services. It was Ampol fuel at the services area, so we continued further into town where we found the BP servo. It was a tiny two bowser servo BUT they had Ultimate Diesel which is Bernie’s first choice for the truck. We used the facilities which seemed to be suffering from some sort of insect plague. The ladies reeked of fly spray and the basin was covered in the corpses of ants. I guess someone was going to return later to wipe up the bodies??? Or perhaps not, since the toilet itself could have done with a clean. Not the dirtiest one I’ve ever seen, but not the cleanest either.

Back on the road with me at the wheel. I need to get some hours driving the truck in preparation for our next road trip when we will be crossing the Nullarbor. The only time I generally drive it is from our friend’s place in Pascoe Vale South along Bell Street to Preston after card nights. That’s only eight kilometres every few weeks or so. I haven’t even driven it between Preston and Drouin! It’s not that I don’t like driving it, I’d just rather be a passenger … and I do have this worrying inclination to get drowsy in the car regardless of whether I am a passenger or the driver!

With me still at the wheel the threatening black clouds decided to unleash upon us around the Karuah National Park. That was a bit unpleasant, but the truck does handle very well in the wet. I think I would have felt much less comfortable in my little car.

Upon our approach to Raymond Terrace the traffic came to a standstill. The Pacific Motorway is great these days except for the bit around the Hunter River which is an absolute bottleneck. After crawling along for several kilometres Bernie noticed the Heatherbrae’s Pies sign and told me to turn left and take us in to Heatherbrae’s. It was time for a stretch and some lunch, and a driver change anyway, and I was very happy to finish my driving spell since it had been pretty much the wettest we have experienced for the whole trip.

With Bernie back in the driver’s seat we set out on the next leg of our big driving day! It was tedious again navigating across the Hunter River and through Beresfield but once we were back on the M1 (Pacific Motorway) heading south Bernie was able to set the cruise control on 110 km/hour and chew up the Ks.

Back at Wahroonga we started our journey AROUND Sydney. We drove through Sydney on the way and definitely felt that there was no need to do it twice! The M1 feeds into the Ring Road so it was easy to navigate onto the M2 and M7 heading west to Colebee where the M7 starts heading southwards.

Having learnt last year about the Light Horse Interchange at the junction of the M7 and M4 I was keen to try for a 110km/hour photo of the memorial to the light horsemen that has been created in the median strip. A challenge to say the least but I managed to capture a few shots of the red poles that represent the Australian Light Horse on parade.

For anyone reading this account who might be interested in learning more about the sculpture parade the NSW War Memorial Register provides a description and some background information:



https://www.warmemorialsregister.nsw.gov.au/memorials/australian-light-horse-sculpture-parade-light-horse-interchange-memorial



The M7 Westlink eventually feeds into the South Western Freeway before becoming the Hume Motorway (M31) around Casula. We made good time through/past Campbelltown, Berrima and Goulburn … where we resisted the urge to call in at the Big Merino! We have enough photos of the Big Merino, ha, ha.

Finally, after about eight hours on the road we arrived at the Colonial Lodge Motor Inn where we checked in for a one-night stay. The motel is a little out of town which was a good thing because we benefitted from stretching our legs walking into the centre of Yass for a meal. We enjoyed our last meal on the road at the Merino Bistro at the Club House Hotel on Comur Street. While we were in town, we photographed several of the beautiful historic buildings in Yass before walking back to the motel. It will be another long day on the road tomorrow as we plan to make it home by tomorrow afternoon.



Steps: 7,885 (5.28kms)

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