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We have a short trip today from Norah Head to Gloucester and we are both looking forward to staying put for one week. This is where we will meet with our Olympic Caravan Owners group, there aren't as many people coming as originally put their names down because quite a few people have pulled out for one reason or another, so far we only have 9 vans but hopefully more turn up but we will enjoy our time anyway. We made good time and were quickly set up, there weren't any other Olympic Vans here when we arrived but as the day went on two more have turned up, both couples we have met at previous meets.There is a country music meet happening here at the moment so we have been treated to entertainment this afternoon. They are currently using the Pump House for their meeting point but when they leave tomorrow we will get the keys for the house and we can have our meets there in the afternoons. I think it will be a quiet night tonight and we will catch up with everyone tomorrow.
We decided to have a coffee in town this morning and stopped at The Common that seemed to be popular. I ordered our coffees and then we sat outside reading. It was very busy for a Monday and it was also a good coffee. We walked around to the Visitor Centre to pick up information on what to visit while we are here before taking a walk around town visiting some of the interesting stores we came across. We needed to organise wood for the fire that night and to pick up the key for the Pumphouse in the park where we would hold our nightly meets if it was raining. It was around lunchtime when we returned so I took care of the few housekeeping items I needed to do and we had lunch before spending a bit of time relaxing outside the van. We were joined later by Kevin and Michael for a bit of a chat before moving over to the fire Robb had set up for the afternoon meet. We returned around 5.30pm because we had dinner cooking and needed to check on it.
There hasn't been a big turn up to the meet so we were really pleased to see a good attendance at our first official meet on Monday night.
With coffees in hand we set off this morning in search of Barrington Tops and Andrew Laurie Lookout where we were told we could view the Gloucester Falls. We followed the map and took every road in the area but still did not have any luck finding the lookout or the falls. We only came to two signposts, both of them on an angle and it was uncertain which way the pointers were facing. Anyway it was a lovely drive around the mountains, a bit hairy at times driving over flooded bridges but it as a very scenic area. It is annoying me though that we couldn't find what we were looking for.
We thought we would drive to Stroud this morning for a bit of a look around and grab a coffee while we were there. We called into Stroud milk bar and cafe which is a lovely store set up as 'old time' with a very casual menu and a wall of units with 'old time lollies', a gelato display and a couple of units with jewellery and other items for sale. I ordered our coffees and raisin toast for Robb and sat down at one of the very attractive tables to wait for our order. The raisin toast and the coffee were good and we sat for a while reading until it was time to move on. We drove back to Gloucester in search of Mograni Lookout which took us two tries to find and while driving around we had a stone thrown up to chip our windscreen, very annoying. I took a few photos at the lookout and then we returned to camp.
We didn't have a lot to do today and we were hoping we might have been able to have our windscreen fixed, after a quick phone call Robb organised for windscreen repair people in Taree to fix it for us. We made an appointment for 2.00pm so we had a bit of time in the morning to have a look around. We chose to drive to the Kia Ora Lookout before driving back to town to visit the two Op Shops we had been told about and finished up with a visit to the huge charity bookshop on the outskirts of Gloucester where I was hoping to find a series of books I was interested in reading. We made our appointment in Taree and were very happy with the service and the work they did and we were still back to camp in time for 4.00pm drinkies.
It's pretty fair to say we have seen all we can around Gloucester so today we drove out to the Tip Shop, a recycling shop at the Tip that club members had mentioned. It wasn't really that good, we have seen much better in our travels but it filled in an hour. We topped up with fuel while out because tomorrow our trip continues and it is easier to access the service stations without the van on the back of the car. We then drove to the Roundabout Inn for lunch and couldn't believe how busy it was and unfortunately had trouble finding a spare table, I wanted to sit outside but all the tables were reserved. We settled on the couch inside which was pleasant enough, lunch was just a pub meal but it was quite pleasant sitting there watching all the action. On returning to the van Robb hitched up and I packed away the things we wouldn't need tonight to make it a bit easier in the morning. It isn't a long drive for us tomorrow but it just saves all the rush in the morning.
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