Initial plans for this weekend saw us travelling up the NSW Coast to Port Stephens where we were to meet some friends who would be holidaying from Melbourne.
Unfortunately, the severe weather conditions experienced on the eastern side of Australia over the past month saw our friends change their plans and they headed home early.
Nevertheless, the opportunity to spend a weekend away in Blue Snoopy would not be lost so plans were made to travel to the Central Coast and the holiday township of The Entrance. A booking was made at a local caravan park (Dunleith) which is located adjacent to Tuggerah Lakes. We would also use this trip to catch- up with the God Mother of our son.
The weather forcast for the weekend was not promising (showers on both days) but this would not be an issue as the plans saw us spending the majority of the time we would be away inside the motorhome.
We departed Sydney at 8.20am and had a very leisurly drive (in passing showers) to The Entrance North where we checked into the caravan park. We were fortunate that the caravan park was quiet and we were given a site directly adjacent to the lake. This is a lovely caravan park and one that we will return to in the future!
Our friend arrived at 4.00pm and departed five hours later. We spent a wonderful afternoon talking about old times, looking at a DVD of our trip to the Centre in 2007 and enjoying a fish and chip meal purchased from a local fish shop.
Surprising the night was quite warm and we both awoke early. After breakfast, we departed in showers and headed home via a quick shopping experience at Tuggerah Lakes.
This turned out to be a very quite weekend with the drive in both directions in relatively light traffic. It was a significant fact that coming home we managed to travel from the freeway exit near Hornsby to Pymble without having to stop at a single traffic light. This has never happended before on this stretch of road and is unlikely to ever happen again in the future.
We have not refuelled since our previous trip where the average fuel consumption was around 11.5 litres per 100k’s. We were not getting excited with that consumption as the majority of the previous trip since filling the tank was returning DOWN from the mountains. After the 200 or so kilometres travelled on the weekend, the average consumption is now sitting at 12.81 litres per 100k’s. Bearing in mind that the majority of this trip was on freeways and that the speed was between 80 and 100 kilometres per hour, it looks like the consumption on the Iveco may be better than anticipated. We are not sure why but suspect that a combination of driving manually and leaving cruise control off may be contributing factors. Only time will tell!
We too are a couple of 50’s (58 & 59) ‘Grey but not yet Nomads’, about to build first motohome, after two years of looking around we have finally decided on a Toyota Coaster as our starting point, atm is an empty shell and have spent last 8 weeks dismantling it and cleaning out a ton of red mine dust/clay. We are members of the CMCA and visitors/soon to be members of a WA local chapter ‘Western Rovers’. We live in Perth suburbia north east of the CBD. Hope to see you one day in your travels.
Happy trails
Chris