2017 Caravanning​ Eastern​ Australia

We had another reasonably easy drive from Goulburn to Albury Wodonga situated on the Murray River, arriving around lunchtime. (Wodonga is on the Victorian side of the river and Albury on the NSW side.)   After setting up, we headed into the city centre of Albury to visit the Library Museum. In this building we found a wonderful exhibition called “Crossing Place” which told of the history of the area, famous people who came from the area and other general information. There was an excellent display dedicated to Bonegilla Migrant Centre which operated from the 1940s to 1970s. From here we drove out to the Lake Hume, a huge reservoir formed by the building of a dam wall from 1919 to  1927. This wall is built across the Murray River. 27. This wall is built across the Murray River.

Goulburn has a very interesting history. It was the first regional town in Australia to have the steam train service. The train came from Sydney in 1869 and there are many buildings and reminders of this around the town. The actual town was established in 1833 as free settlers were given land grants here. It was a large agricultural centre for the region. We did a bit of a historical railway walk and even Rob may have enjoyed bits of it! After a stop for coffee we drove to the War Memorial Tower lookout. We had good views from the town here but were more impressed by the tower which was a brilliant memorial to WW1. After lunch Rob dropped me back in town to do a couple more historical walks while he did some jobs back at the van. With Goulburn being such an old town there were many magnificent buildings and some interesting old homes. There was even a very old letter-box still in use today. The letter box had slots for letters quite high and these were for people who wanted to post le...

Unfortunately we had another very windy day for travelling today. We left The Entrance and travelled on the M2 and M7 motorways bypassing Newcastle. The motorways were pretty spectacular but there was one section that went through one of the suburbs of Sydney and it was extremely busy! Massive trucks, cars, holiday makers with vans etc. all made for some pretty slow going. It appears that this section of the motorway will become a tunnel which should solve the traffic congestion. We arrived at Goulburn around lunchtime and Rob was happy to stop driving in the wind. The temperature had dropped good 10 degrees during our journey today and we had to put on jackets for the first time in many weeks!

Although we are now heading to home via Melbourne, we still have plenty of time and so didn’t really set a particular destination to get to today. This was probably a good thing as the weather determined how far we travelled. As we headed south down the Pacific Highway the temperature and wind both rose. It hit 37 degrees and the wind became very strong. After a few hours driving with the strong wind we decided to stop and explore the coastal region of the Central Coast of NSW. We managed to squeeze into a stunning caravan park at The Entrance, located on the edge of a huge lake with the entrance to the sea. This area is just south of Lake Macquarie. We settled in and could see and hear music, funfairs and markets just across the water. We headed over the bridge and enjoyed exploring this area. We saw many lovely eateries located on the edge of the water and decided we would return to one of them for dinner. There were people everywhere. Many were enjoying the water with fishing, swim...

We spent today exploring the magnificent water-ways that seem to go forever on this eastern coast of NSW. In the morning we drove to a nearby mountain called the North Brother and visited several lookouts as well as doing a short walk through the rainforest. From here we drove to small towns, lakes and beaches enjoying beautiful weather and stunning views. Many families were out and about enjoying the very warm (apparently record breaking) weather. There were many safe beaches for swimming, other spots in inlets and lakes where people were stand-up paddle-boarding, sailing races etc etc. We both thought that this will be another lovely place to explore in more depth at another time.

We had a magnificent drive today (well I did thought it was) from Tamworth through the Great Dividing Range to a beautiful little spot on an inlet called Diamond Waters. We are about 20kms south of Pt Macquarie. The surrounding landscape changed dramatically from the rolling hills where cattle and sheep were grazing to the sub-tropical rainforest with tall gums, tree-ferns and lush undergrowth. We stopped about half-way at a gorgeous little spot called Ginger Creek for coffee before continuing on. There were at least 65kms of winding road for Rob to deal with and he did have to concentrate. We have a waterfront view from our site and have much exploring to do tomorrow. We decided to go for a short walk to the beach which is just on the opposite side of the peninsula. It was worth the walk with a small swell breaking onto a pristine white beach. PS (Rob) The drive through  the mountains was an interesting one, lots of blends and the odd  truck and caravan coming the other ...