We had occasion to stick to the blacktop the past 10 days clocking up 4500km to
Sydney and beyond along the Barrier and
Mitchell Highways, then north to the
Gold Coast along the Pacific Highway and then west along the Bruxner,
New England, Gwydir, Kamelaroi Highways, The
Kidman Way and back
home along the Barrier again. Drove the plastic fly by wire electronic pretend 4wd and attained 9/100 in petrol usage
Set off with a bit of a worry about a noise upfront that has increased in volume and sounds like a bearing running rough. But everything held together and we arrived
home this arvo
First excitement came almost exactly halfway between
Broken Hill and
Wilcannia. A
young couple with three littlies driving a Falcon and towing an overloaded van had a mishap. The left hand main spring broke on the van and caused the stub axle to snap and the lot collapsed. They came to rest with the van still about a metre on the roadway. It was a tad dangerous with B-doubles thundering along the road. No mobile phone coverage out there so I used my trusty Satphone to ring a mate in
Broken Hill and he contacted the
Police. Asked the youngsters if they had water. Hmmmm, one litre in a plastic bottle and none in the van. So we gave then our 5litre supply that we carry in the little car. We still had another 3 litres in the fridge. Called in to the
Police at
Wilcannia and found out that a rescue mission was underway.
The rest of the journey was reasonably uneventful. T’was a tad stressful driving in the Big Smoke but we found our way around to Balmain. Then we looked for accommodation but there was none to be had. So I walked into the
Police Station and a friendly
young fella Googled it for me and suggested a motel in Gladesville. The overseer at that motel gave me a mudmap for an alternative route out of
Sydney the next day, but we got lost after our business was done there and eventually found a track (Pennant Hills Road) and followed a number of B-doubles out on to the Freeway away from the mad rush to nowhere :-)
The journey up the coast was OK. I put the cruise control on 95 to stay out of trouble. Saw 17
Police Radar traps between
Sydney and the border. Caught up with ExplorOzzers Mark G Gulmarrad and family and also Hairs (Hairs and Fysh) down at
Brooms Head on Australia Day. On the way out of there Tom Tom took us down on to a dirt road and into someone’s back yard :-)
We stayed in Motels all the way. They cost between $75 and $140 per night. Cheapest fuel was $1.13 somewhere in NSW and the dearest $1.43 at
Wilcannia (the cheap outlet!)
On the way back from the
Gold Coast we ran into some nice storms and that cooled things down a bit as the humidity had got to us up along the coast. With the rain they have had, the countryside is lush with green grass all the way to
Bourke. And the
Darling River is running a banker but other rivers like the Barwon are still low.
Our roads are really in a shocking state and the Pacific Highway still has narrow bumpy sections. When will the dual carriage-way ever be completed? Going west the roads deteriorate the further out you go. Lack of real maintenance and few upgrades with heavy trusage by trucks and travellers see them going backwards. The road between
Walgett and
Bourke was supposed to be Light Vehicles only due to flood damage but we saw a number of B-doubles making their way on it. The best piece of bitumen is the road between
Bourke and
Cobar! One could easily do 200kmh along that stretch if it weren’t for the wandering goats and skippy’s.
My observations for the trip was that the worst tail-gaters along the Pacific Highway were the drivers of Commodore’s, Prado’s, Subaru’s and Navara 4x4’s. On the whole 99% of the drivers, including us, were
well behaved and careful and always mindful that we drive at relatively high speeds on crappy, narrow roads and that accidents do happen! Of course there were one or two idiots driving at
well over the speed limit and doing dangerous moves.
So now I’ll take a break from driving for a while :-)
Cheers