Mendooran Rest Area

River at Mendooran Rest Area

Pa reflecting on life at Mendooran

Day 4 saw us leaving Mandooran Rest Area at 8.30 under beautiful blue skies.  Don't know how long that will last.  Headed on South East and kept listening to the flood reports to decide which way we should go so we didn't get caught in any flooded areas.  (So much for us heading out to the far west to escape the weather.  It obviously had other ideas.)  We went through Dunedoo, Gulgong which was a lovely little town and Mudgee.  Mudgee is beautiful with large rolling green hills with lots of Vineyards and Black Angus cattle. This is certainly a place we want to come back to when we have a bit of time to explore and maybe do a winery tour and check out what else the area has to offer.  We stopped at about 11 o'clock at Capertee for smoko (Moko Pa) and while I was making the coffee Pa had a  visit from some lovely ladies who were Jehovah Witnesses.  He said they really were very nice (aren't they always) and didn't push the religion too much but left him with some light reading material.  After smoko we headed on past a few collieries, Beal Bones, Invincible, Ivanhoe North, Pine Dale, Springvale and a couple of power stations, Mt Piper and Wallerwang.  The power stations were easy to see from the road but weren't anywhere as big as the one at home.  Made it to Lithgow by about 12.30pm and fueled up for $1.42 a litre.  After fuelling up we headed on to Oberon and Goulburn.  I finally remembered to get the camera out of the bag in the back when we were stopped for roadworks before Lithgow and was now able to take some photos of the lovely countryside we were travelling in.We thought we would stay in a caravan park in Goulburn as there aren't very many Rest Areas around.  We soon changed our mind when we pulled into the park.  It was obviously full of permanents and was pretty run down so we drove straight through and headed out to the Big 4 but it was too cramped to get our van into so we decided to keep going to the next rest area out of town.  The Navigator (Ma) got it wrong and ended up on the freeway heading to Sydney which was not the way we  wanted to go. (Certainly really didn't want to go anywhere near Sydney)  We decided we should turn around when we could and head back through Goulburn and go the right way.  (We saw the funny side of it and  realised this would probably not be the only time we'd have a guided tour and end up heading to the wrong place before our big trek is over.)  Anyway we pressed on heading for a Rest Area called Warri Reserve which is beside the Shoalhaven River and only a few hours from Batemans Bay on the coast and just past the turnoff to Queenbean in the ACT.  Our luck with the weather ran out and off in the distance we could see a big band of dark clouds heading our way.  Luckily by the time it got to us we only got the edge of it so only got light rain.  We had been travelling through some lovely countryside but it was getting late and we really had been on the road far too long today.  We reached the Warri Reserve which was just past the bridge that spans the Shoalhaven River just on dusk.  It was a lovely big area and there were already quite a few vans and tents already camped up for the night.  We found a good level spot but boy it was cold there.  Probably our coldest since leaving home.  Couldn't wait to get into the van.  We could hear the river raging under the bridge so it was obviously full and flowing very fast.  We phoned the girls to let them know where we were and we we okay and then warmed up our tea, Honey Curry Chicken, which was one of the freezer meals I had prepared before leaving home.  So glad I did that.  We cleaned up after tea, had our showers and headed for bed and listened to the radio for a while.  Think Pa was asleep before his head hit the pillow.