Nomading - Lakes Entrance Corryong Coolac Bathurst Norah Head - 9 - 16 October 2022

We have an Olympic Caravan club meet in Gloucester NSW commencing on the 16 October 2022. We would have liked to have left a bit earlier than we did but we had a CFA presentation night dinner to attend that we didn't want to miss out on. The dinner was on the Saturday night so we organised ourselves so that we could take off first thing Sunday morning. We had our daughter and two grandsons staying with us and we left before them and our daughter was going to pack up before she left. We were on the road by 10.40am and made pretty good time to Lakes Entrance which is just over three hours away. We returned to the Rec Reserve Camping Ground that we had stayed at previously and this time we had a spot right on the river, they had made a few improvements since last time including a new amenities block. We were up at the normal time to move onto our next stop which was Corryong.

When I researched where we were going it was supposed to be 3 hours 38 minutes but when we loaded the address into the car GPS it told us the trip was going to take us 5 hours and 24 minutes, we should have researched it a bit more before leaving because we are pretty sure we covered country we didn't need to. Our trip took us up to Omeo and then we turned off towards Falls Creek, bypassing here but still driving over and around the mountains. It took every bit of the five hours but I must say we saw lots of magnificent scenery, we were tired when we arrived but very satisfied with the trip. We had calculated our fuel before leaving Lakes Entrance and thought we had enough but we were close to running out about 20kms outside of Corryong where we stopped to empty our 20 litres from the fuel container we carry with us, this gave us plenty to get into Corryong so we drove past our park on arrival straight into town to fill up so that we were ready to take off the next day. Once we were fuelled up we drove back to the park to book in. As it was so late I asked if we could have a drive through site so that we could stay hitched up over night, thankfully the park was quite empty so they were happy for us to do that. I had been hoping to arrive earlier and have a bit of a look around Corryong but it was too late to do that now, it looks like a very pretty town and I think we will have to come back here some time. This whole Snowy River area is very scenic, we haven't been this way before but we will certainly come back. By the time we set up there wasn't much of the day left so we didn't bother setting up outside.

It wasn't too long a drive from Corryong to Coolac so no need for us to hurry in the morning. It had been very cold overnight but was a beautiful morning when we headed off for our next stop. We are still driving through the Snowy Rivers area and the scenery is still magnificent, we stopped off at one lookout, The Southern Cloud Memorial Lookout where we stretched our legs and I took a few photos. The park where we were headed in Coolac was owned by one of the members of our caravan club and we had stayed here previously and were looking forward to returning. The owners of the park are lovely people and there were also going to be others on their way to Gloucester staying here at the same time. We arrived in good time, set up and took care of some housekeeping that was needed before moving up to the fire pit for a catch up at 4.00pm. It was good to see everyone again and after sharing what we had all been up to since last time we returned home. I had planned to put dinner on around 5.00pm because we where having a roast but after returning to the van at 5.30pm I found the chicken still hadn't defrosted so made a few menu changes and the chicken can be tomorrow nights dinner.

I am on a mission to buy a new camera to replace the one that Australia Post lost and I knew there was a Harvey Norman in Tumut because we had visited here last time we were staying at Coolac. Tumut is only 38 minutes away and is a very pretty town so it seemed ok to drive there to see if they had a replacement camera for me. Unfortunately they didn't have anything in stock so we were back to square one, after sitting in the car for a little while searching camera stores in the immediate area without any luck we returned to the caravan park after taking a brief stop at the 'Dog on the Tuckerbox', I was interested to see if it had grown since we were here last time when I couldn't believe how small it was. There are lots of weather warnings at the moment for Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania so I have been watching these to see that our roads will be ok for moving further up north. It looks ok so far so we will just keep moving on further up north. We are heading towards Bathurst tomorrow, so far it looks ok let's see how we go.

The weather was overcast when we left Coolac but at least the rain was holding off and it stayed that way for the remainder of the trip. We made good time travelling to Bathurst and found our accommodation easily. While booking in I enquired about the possibility of getting a drive through site but they don't have any, they did however give us a larger than normal site that was easy to get onto. Bathurst races were on last weekend and they still hadn't had a chance to clean up after a very busy weekend and there was a bit of mud churned up on the sites but because it had dried out it was easy to drive onto. There was a bit of rain overnight but thankfully that stopped by the time we were ready to pack up the next morning. Because we had to unhitch we decided to take advantage of our quick stop over and to drive around to Mount Panorama for a bit of a look. The track had been opened up after the races so we did two laps around reaching a top speed of 61KPH, a bit different to the speeds on the weekend. I was more than a little excited at being able to do this and was most impressed with the set up of the track, I didn't realise until speaking to the girl in the office of the caravan park that the track is actually in a residential area which is speed restricted to 60KPH. We did at one stage put the foot down for a brief moment. The views from the top of the mountain are fantastic and some of the private gardens are beautiful, this experience is sure to be one of the highlights of our trip.

It had rained overnight in Bathurst but thankfully it stopped by the time we were to hitch up and move onto our next stop. The sky was clear when we left but looking up to the Blue Mountains there were lots of rain clouds ahead of us, we had a beautiful drive through the mountains with intermittent rain which cleared up the closer we were to Gosford. I had planned for us to go to Gosford for two nights and when I researched caravan parks Norah Head came up under Gosford so I booked here, only to find out that Norah Head was 50 minutes outside Gosford. We had huge problems trying to find the caravan park, first of all maps took us all over Gosford wasting 30 minutes and then we were sent 20 minutes out of Gosford to what we thought was Norah Head CP but only to find on arrival we were at Toowoon Bay CP but they were very helpful and helped us find Norah Head, they have this problem all the time so were used to setting people of in the right direction. We eventually arrived at the park I had booked and they also knew the problem but didn't know how to adjust google maps. We had booked a drive through site but had to unhitch anyway because I had put a camera aside at Harvey Norman in West Gosford and we wanted to drive down and pick that up. West Gosford was 50 minutes away and it was getting late but we decided to take the trip today so that we didn't waste our time tomorrow. After picking the camera up we returned to camp. I had never heard of Norah Head but I gather it is a bit of a best kept secret destination. It seems to be quite affluent and there are some amazing homes here, there is a very small town centre and a Sports Club, that we visited. It is obviously a popular destination and the beach was very busy and difficult to access. The park is quite nice and and we would probably return here at some time.

Saturday morning we planned to take a visit to the Norah Head Lighthouse but before leaving the van I wanted to set up my new camera to take with us. When I opened the camera box I found that the battery was flat so I plugged it in and I will use my phone for photos again. The lighthouse was easy to find, we parked and then took the walkway up to the top. It is a very pretty area with a lookout at the start of the walk and the paths are well defined taking you around the manager's houses which are now used as a B'n'B and then up to the lighthouse itself. The lighthouse is in really good repair and you can walk to the top if you want to, we were happy to walk around and then over to the stairs leading down to the beach. From here we drove down to the foreshore to have a look, there is a rockpool that is popular with families with young children. We finished our morning off with a visit to Sporties the local club.