From Moss Vale to Taree…

G’day all,

Well I am on the homeward journey for sure now lol I am currently typing to you from my lovely friends’ place… Marie and Colin. I arrived here yesterday around mid-morning and have been regaling them with pictures and stories ever since lol.. oh! and tips to help them with their adventures, just as they have been giving more tips for mine!
To start from where I left off last time, I spent two nights at a caravan park in Moss Vale which I so would not recommend to anyone. Enough said, onto the happier times eh 
I left around nine am on the Tuesday morning, intent on getting as close to Sydney as I could without actually entering the madness. I had to do a bit of banking first though. I had arranged with my daughter for Joshua to come down by bus to Taree when school broke up so I could give him a taste of the kind of camping I had been doing; I knew he would love it and besides, he was missing both Alex and I. Alex is going to be over the moon when they meet up I reckon… well what a rigmarole lol though its sorted now  Greyhound do not drop anyone off in Taree unless they go from Coffs all the way to Sydney and then turn around on a different one and come back! Oh and it would only cost a hundred and seventy dollars lol… my darling daughter went into the travel agency as I really wasn’t comfortable with Josh coming down by train; he is way too friendly and there is no one to supervise him a little there… watch over him that is. Well she found another bus company that will oblige, the only snag being it’s a very late departure and a very early (two in the morning) arrival time this end. No problem for me though as I can simply park nearby his drop off point and set the alarm for the time he is due. Too easy! My daughter paid his fare but that left her short so I decided to get some money out of my bank and put it in her account before I went any further. I found my bank and every other one except daughter’s one… however a lovely woman pointed me in the right direction and I felt at peace, knowing it was all sorted, getting back on the road and heading for the entrance to the Hume Freeway once again….

My game plan was to have a bit of a bludge while I waited for the night to come. I knew I would be able to sleep reasonably well. A couple of hours, or more, if I was really lucky would suffice. I figured I could free camp at Moony Moony when I got to the other side of Sydney if I was knackered….

So the last place I could relax like that was around thirty k’s out of Campbelltown, the way to bypass the worst of Sydney from the Hume …. Now unless it’s a Sunday you do not attempt the insanity of Sydney in a motorhome or caravan if you can help it, during the daytime. I tucked in beside a couple of trucks that were parked at the northern end of the rest area I had found, turned on the gas to make a cuppa and put Alex on the extended lead I use so he can wander around outside the motorhome when we were in a safe stationary place. The sun was shining as it almost always seemed to have done for me on my trip … so lucky! … and I opened the top vent to allow the air to flow through. There was lovely cheap diesel and I was a little upset at myself that I had filled the tank before I left Moss Vale for a whopping eleven cents a litre dearer LOL.. Never mind, I was not to know and I wanted to ensure I had no problems keeping my tank filled. There was a fast food outlet also but I so did not want to have any of that. I have lost weight while I have been away.. bonus .. though not heaps as I did not really need to lose a lot. I was chuffed with it all the same. Anyway I had some salad and rice cakes for lunch … being a good girl once again (as you will recall I haven’t always been on this trip; thank God for all the walks with Alex) and settled down to read my book, enjoying a leisurely cuppa while I read. Alex had already been taken over to the brush so he could do his business and as always, I cleaned up after him .. we had the whole afternoon to waste so we lazed about, oftentimes he lay at my feet. We had grown so close since we had come away. Where once I would have been a bit concerned he might have taken off, now I felt no such worry. This allowed me to give him more freedom where I could too, reinforcing our bond  Here though, he needed to be leashed as, though we were parked where one side had a grassy part, the other side was for parking of other vehicles.

I had an early dinner, took the boy out for another wander and had a bit of a chuckle when a couple of green p platers gave me a wolf whistle… I was sure when they saw me from the front they would cringe. To my surprise instead they gave me a cheeky grin and a wave.

Feeling rather flattered and sated from my dinner to boot, I popped on the kettle for one last cup of tea and set the alarm for one thirty in the morning. We are no longer on daylight saving time so it is getting darker sooner, which suited my purposes very well. I locked up, closed the curtains, took Alex off the lead and spread his bed out for him before settling myself in bed to wait for sleep to come.

Well it was not going to arrive on time so instead of stressing myself by trying to force myself to sleep, I turned on the telly and allowed the programs on to numb the mind. It did not take more than an hour before I found myself becoming nicely drowsy. I turned off the telly and meandered off into the land of dreams.
I woke up before the alarm; beat it by three quarters of an hour so I figured I might as well have a leisurely cuppa and check the fluids in the motorhome .. might even get an early start I thought to myself. Well sometimes things take longer than you think. It turned out to be just as well l woke up earlier than planned because I would not have gotten on the road when I planned to otherwise.

I got back on the road, my feelings towards going back home truly a mixture of excitement at seeing everyone again and regret that my first journey is coming to an end. Yep lol… what else though would one expect when one is a gypsy at heart?

Now this way, to my mind, is the easiest of the two I had taken through the Sydney outskirts.. the first had unexpected detours and it became more problematic than needed. However going that way rather than the Hume Highway enabled me to do the Great Ocean Road on the side of the road that had all the areas to stop and take in the beauty from… so I would not change it one bit. The second, via the Hume Highway, was far less hilly, had no real busy townships to go through between Sydney and Victoria, and the passage through Sydney had no unexpected detours that put me in weird places lol.

I have to say had I known the Princes Highway went through so many busy towns and cities and was hilly, I might have chickened out of doing it on the way down. I am so pleased I didn’t. The Princes Highway has some of the most beautiful scenery you could ever want. Lots of times I seemed to be going through long, beautiful tree lined arches.. soooooooo beautiful and so serene. Not so the Hume Highway… horses for courses I guess but having done the Princes Highway first gave me the confidence I needed to tackle the Great Ocean Road.. that and the sheer bloody determination not to give up on my dream I guess though I am not home yet, you could say this is a summing up of the roads I travelled. From here it is all play with Josh, Colin and Marie .. and of course my beautiful Alex.

I didn’t stop over at Moony Moony. I was still feeling good so I decided to continue on. I was always going to spend a day and night at the Tea Gardens again though so I knew I would not be going all the way to Taree that morning. About three quarters of an hour past Moony Moony I spotted a MacDonalds; my eyes were drooping by now so I pulled in and got a Bacon and Egg McMuffin, hoping it would perk me up again. Yuck lol. However it did the trick and I got further along, finally stopping at a popular rest area where I parked alongside other motorhomers who had also pulled off, though in their case it had been for the night I later discovered.

Around seven I got back up, having had a couple of hours sleep, and fed Alex while the kettle boiled. I took him for his morning constitutional, had mine and got on the road once again. Well I had to laugh. I was only twenty seven k’s from the Tea Gardens. Had I known I would have completed this leg of my journey. Never mind, this way I could do a bit of exploring I thought, choosing somewhere else to sleep the night.

I stopped off at their IGA and got some much needed groceries and visited the pharmacist. My stitches were due out but I did not want a repeat of Alex’s antics the day I had them put in. I knew I would be in Taree the next day and could leave my darling boy with Colin while Marie and I sorted the stitches out. My finger though was was looking more infected though by now so I had to do something to help it.

The pharmacist could not give me anything and I had been using Betadine. In the end he told me he could give me an antibiotic for eyes.. the only thing he could do without a script.

As the nearest hospital was Buladellah to the north, I took the eye cream and went back to the motorhome. I drove down that same road I had travelled last time but this time I turned right instead of left when I got to the end of it and ended up at a lovely picnic area right on the Myall Lake. This part was known as Hawks Nest and doubled as a boat ramp come rv rest stop. Lovely! The only glitch was dogs were not allowed in the park or near the bbqs. I really wanted to give Alex a play with the ball and some real freedom, so in the early afternoon, I moved the motorhome back along that road at a place where you could pull in and hightail it over the dunes to the beach…lovely! There was a no dogs allowed sign here but I noticed the locals with dogs ignored it and so I did too. Alex had a ball both that evening and the next morning before we set off for Taree.

I cannot believe I have been gone for eight weeks nor that this particular journey is nearing its end. If anyone reading my blog is thinking they would love to travel and/or see our beautiful country but fear they will not be able to do it, I have only one piece of wisdom for you… you never know what you are capable of till you give it a go… so CARPE DIEM (sieze the day) as my friend Colin says…. You do not know what tomorrow will bring regardless of your age and/or status…. Most of all live your dreams and be happy….

Well that is it from me for now.. I intend to play and laugh and build more memories with my friends, grandson and pup… have already started actually; I have been taken to the Laurieton Lookout.. don’t miss it, it will take your breath away with the views …. I am not even going to attempt to describe it .. words simply will not come close to doing it justice… oh be prepared, the road up the mountain is steep, winding and for moi bloody scary lol…. who knows what new wonders tomorrow will bring… but then again tomorrow is not here and today is. I have Josh here now and he and Alex are getting reacquainted all over again. I am off now and am not sure when I will do the last little leg of the journey back to Repton… as always am playing it by ear 🙂 Until we ‘meet’ again …  Blessings all…..