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I note our last part of our travels as relayed to the group ended at Lake Liddell where we stayed three nights. The
lake is quite large and my guess is that it is used as a source of cooling water for the large coal fired stations in the
area .. including the one on the opposite side of the lake. There is further coal related development going ahead in the
district, which includes a large railway coal unloading facility which we passed between the highway and the camp spot.
From there we travelled back to the New England Highway, then south through Singleton, Branxton and to Greta. Our
mail was waiting in the small Post Office there, including the bill for the trailer registration. I used the convenience of
paying for the registration at the Post Office. The receipt they give is, of course, evidence that it has been paid.
After going through our mail, we continued on as far as Maitland, where we turned north and made our way to the
camp spot at Paterson. We knew this spot from a previous visit and remembered the hassle with overhanging trees. Had a
friendly visit from the local police enquiring if we had been at a local motorhome chapter meeting at Gresford. Apparently,
some hoons had done some damage at the site and he was wondering if we saw anything. He knew the name of the chapter
involved, so I looked up the "Wanderer" magazine which lists "chapter contacts" and passed on the phone number of their
president. Hopefully, the hoons will be found!
From Paterson, we continued eastwards via various backroads to their junction near the southern extremity of
Thunderbolts Way. It is only a short distance from there down to the Pacific Highway where we wanted to visit a new motorhome
facility which John, VK6ZN had "found" a couple of weeks previously. We took a chance and turned west and found a rest area
which we parked at and I asked directions. Murphy prevailed, we should have turned east! Travelling in that direction we saw
the facilty from the wrong side of the divided highway. It was necessary to continue another kilometre or so, in order to
find a spot to turn around.
So, we were there at last, and lo and behold, the caretaker was Morrie .. whom we had met about ten months ago at
the Casino Motorhome Village where he was Entertainments Officer. He is also a ham radio operator and he told us the details
of his leaving the other establishment and what is happening where we were now. Apparently, and rather obviously, it had been
built as a fish farm (little expense spared from my later observations). It has been bought up by a group of "interested
parties" including Tom Fox whom we met. He has an Explorer motorhome parked there and lived near by. Morrie took me on a
tour of the place via an electric golf buggy. There are about ten large drive through sites, but we were parked up near the
newly built clubhouse complex which overlooks a man made lake .. rather nice. A large are has been recently cleared for bush
camping and apparently they want to revive the fish farm. It is good to see facilities being built for us travellers.
John, VK6ZN had suggested other nice camp spots in the vague vicinity and we were eager to visit some. First on the
list that we visited was Lemontree Passage boat ramp where we stayed one night. It is not busy during the week, but
apparently quite busy at weekends. We had interesting visits from two other motorhome owners who live in the district.
Returning south from there we visited the RAAF Museum at the Williamtown RAAF base. Quite a good display including a Meteor
.. an aircraft type which 22 Squadron had in the early sixties. I spent some six years in the Airforce Reserve as a radio
tech (air) with principally these, but including other aircraft. However, this particular Meteor wasn't one of ours.
On down to Stockton, where there is an amazingly large reserve on the northern side of the mouth of the Hunter River,
also Newcastle Harbour. It was an interesting spot to park for three nights watching the activity .. principally the massive
size coal ships entered and leaving the harbour. Six tugs were observed guiding one ship. The tug skippers handling of their
vessels was beautiful to see. It was then necessary to retrace our route a little and go to Walsh Point. This spot, another
large reserve is on the eastern point of an island to the west of the harbour. The Hunter River flows to both the north and
south of the island. It is all heavy industrial with many wharfs, loading facilities and vast overhead conveyor systems ..
I guess for coal. Anyway, the grossly under-utilised reserve gives a good view of a lot of the harbour and Newcastle City.
Retracing our route again, we passed Williamtown RAAF base then took the road via Raymond Terrace, Maitland and back
up part of the New England Highway to a camp spot we had noted on the way down. It is about 6 km west of Branxton and as it
is off the highway we thought it would be quiet. However, the truckies have discovered it and our overnight stay there wasn't
as quiet as we had hoped. Just a little way further west along the New England Highway is the commencement of the Golden
Highway which we took. We had a diversion to Singleton and return in order to try and purchase a particular oil filter so as
to be ready for the next oil change. The guy there was extremely co-operative in photo-copying a couple of pages from their
maintenence handbook .. the wiring diagram of the exhaust brakes of our vehicle. As previously mentioned, we have had
intermittent exhaust brake problems going back some years. I had traced out a lot of the wiring the hard way, and why I
hadn't thought of trying to obtain access to a maintenence manual before, I am not sure. Probably due to previous difficult
experiences in trying to obtain said manuals!
Continuing west along the Golden Highway we were amazed to note we were still in coal producing areas and, what is
more of a concern, a lot of trucking on the road hauling, principally, coal. We passed through Denman and another 36 km to
find a rest area where we stayed the night. There are interesting rock formations immediately past the rest area. They
probably have a technical name, but they consisted of long 30 to 40 cm square pillars each one piled up on the other. They
protrude from the side of the hill at an angle of about 25 degrees from the horizontal. I imagine some ancient cooling
process caused the solid rock to crack into those pillar like sections.
From there we passed through Merriwa and onto Dunedoo. We had been told of an overnight camp spot in the town. This
is a wide street between the main street and the railway line. There is a nice park area, with facilities, between this
parking spot and the main street. We did some convenient shopping and settled down to a quiet afternoon. The silence didn't
last as around nightfall trucks started arriving in order to park. They were coming and going all night and we figured this
spot to be "number two" noise wise. Clybucca Roadhouse (where we stayed some four years ago), north of Kempsey, being "number
one"!
It was necessary to backtrack a few kilometres from Dunedoo to pick up the Castlereagh Highway heading south. After
a short distance we came across a reserve at Birriwa where we decided to stay the night. The next day we continues south,
with the highway bypassing the main street in Gulgong. On through Mudgee where there was (to us), no apparent rest area.
This, despite the fact that there had been a large motorhome rally there a few months previously. One would think these
councils would provide some facilities in return for the business generated by a large rally. The facilities provided
should then maintain the towns popularity with future travellers.
Off soap box, and no obvious place to overnight in Mudgee, we continued south checking out Windamere Dam. We
travelled in 1.5 kms to day picnic area where camping, lighting fires or littering attract a $600 fine! Further south and a
short distance along the Kandos Road is Cudgewong Waters caravan park. We stopped at the entrance and noted it seemed full of
parked caravans, the water level was quite low, and there was a boom gate across the entrance .. thus not attractive, and
after discussing the situation with some locals who had also stopped there, we continued on. Ilford has a camp spot off the
highway and alongside a community hall where we stayed two nights.
We were now intentionally travelling slowly (slower than our normal slow speed) as we had arranged for our mail to be
forwarded to Wallerawang. So we only travelled some 15 km to another bush camp spot where there was lots of fire wood
available. The weather was cold and the firewood enticed me to make a fire, which we kept burning all afternoon. Plans were
made to grill some lamb chops late in the afternoon after our 5-30pm radio sched. However, around 4 pm we decided it would be
far too cold later, so the cooking was then done on the copious supply of beautiful the coals we had generated.
Another 11km south (remember our slow rate of travel), we stayed the next night in Capertee rest area. From there we
continued south to the turn off to Wallerawang and Portland. Figuring our mail wouldn't have arrived as yet, we bypassed
Wallerawang (Wang to the locals, we found out later) and went to Portland. We did some shopping there, noticed the massive
sized old Portland cement works and continued west via back roads to Sunny Corner Reserve. There was a group there apparently
mapping the forest with the aid of the GPS in preparation for some 4 wheel drive event.
The next day we travelled south to the Great Western Highway, which we followed east, turned off and found "Wang".
The Post Office was closed for lunch, but we found a conveniently placed doctor whom would see Sue almost immediately re
organising her routine blood tests. in the mean time we visited the Chinese takeaway for an intake of Chinese tucker. After
the doctor we visited the Post Office and discovered our mail hadn't arrived. So we went to check out Lake wallace and its
immense surrounding parkland. I asked a groundsman if it was OK to stay overnight. He said, "no problem, just choose a spot"
The next day, we checked the mail, it still hadn't arrived. So we headed off to do battle with the Lithgow traffic
as, the doc couldn't take Sues blood and it was necessary to visit a path. lab. We made enquires at the Lithgow Info. Centre
re available parking. They directed us to a spot behind the main street, but on the main road east .. to Bell. I thought this
will be a joke, but to our amazement there was suitable parking for our size rig. First time, I think, anything like this has
happened! We did the path. lab. thing, plus a bit of a look around in Lithgow's main street, then returned to our spot at
Lake Wallace.
Friday, and still no mail .. a week after it had been posted in Sarina. The woman in the Post Office was extremely
helpful, gave us the phone number and said she would forward the mail when we rang and gave another Post Office. So, with
that in mind we headed back along the Great Western Highway, past Lithgow, to the Jenolan Caves turn off. We took that road,
which traversed some rather rugged country. At various stages, off to our left, were drop offs of what I estimated to be a
couple of thousand feet down into the valley through which the Coxes River flows. Millionth Acre Picnic area was our
destination for the night. It is on the corner of the road which continues ahead to Jenolan Caves and the road to Oberon.
What we initially thought was some people setting up fruit for sale turned out to be four men who had collected a number of
boxes of mushrooms and were lining them up to photograph. These odd apricot coloured mushrooms are apparently quite prolific
at certain times of the year and after rain.
Next day, we continued into Oberon noting the massive sized timber industry in the district. On advice from the Info
Centre we travelled north to Flat Rock camp spot on the Fish River. Incidentally, we found this river had a reasonable run,
and also the Coxes River Back around "Wang" was running. The latter finds its way into the Sydney water supply. We stayed two
nights at Flat Rock then continued a few kilometres further west to the rest area at O'Connell. We were somewhat perturbed to
see a "no camping" sign as we had intended using the nearby public phone on the Monday to phone the "Wang" Post Office.
Normally, we do not where there is a "no camping" sign. But, in this case, we decided we were not camping and stopped the
night without incident.
The phone call the next day confirmed the mail had indeed arrived. We decided to drive back, via the Great Western
Highway and actually pick up the mail, thus avoiding other potential problems. This mean a trip in both directions from
close to Bathurst to "Wang", then return to Bathurst. Upon our return we found our way up to the top of Mt. Panoroma race
track where we were aware others had parked overnight. I wasn't aware previously, but this involves driving up the actual
race track. I was also amazed how steep the track is, first gear for us!
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