It only rained once during the night and we awoke to relatively clear skies but still a lot of water on the ground. Most of the racing teams who had competed over the weekend had left and the camp ground had also started to empty. The track was open and local traffic was now on the circuit.
Today we would leave Bathurst and spend the next two weeks returning to Sydney.
Prior to leaving Sydney we had explored four alternative routes to get home and intended to make the decision at Bathurst and at the time of departing. The decision was to be based on a couple of factors, namely the weather forecast and the risk of bush fire. Flooding was never a factor.
We were told by a friend that the road to Orange was covered with water so that fact virtually eliminated Broken Hill as a destination. Our first choice was actually to travel directly to Wentworth and then travel up the Murray River to Wodonga. There were variations on that choice including a quick trip to South Australia and home via the Great Ocean Road. The reported water made the decision easy.
We joined our fellow RV Club members for a continental breakfast and then said our farewells. Once again it was difficult saying goodbye especially after the wonderful weekend we had shared.
We had no problems in getting Blue Snoopy through the mud and we turned left onto the racing circuit and did the mandatory lap. Our lap took a little over ten minutes, the racing cars were doing and after a couple of toots of the horn, we did a U-turn and headed into Bathurst.
We purchased supplies from Coles and then courtesy of the CMCA’s Wanderer’s Mate, punched the location of the local dump point into the GPS and headed there to empty the black water cassette.
We then punched “West Wyalong” into the GPS and were surprised when the GPS did not direct us back to Bathurst and the road to Cowra. We were headed towards Orange. There was evidence of substantial rainfall but fortunately and flooding of roads in this area had passed.
We stopped at Orange for a short period of time before heading towards Forbes. The country is very green and display evidence of a large amount of rainfall. Forbes Lake was actually as high as some tables in the adjacent park and several of the roads at Forbes were still covered with flood water.
There was evidence of the recent rain all the way to West Wyalong and one wonders if the fall was enough to break the drought.
We stayed at a quiet caravan park in West Wyalong and were afforded excellent digital television from Wagga Wagga. Our recent investment in a desktop box for the motor home was well worth the expense.
We had steak for our evening meal and watched highlights from the Olympic Games before heading to bed around 10:30pm.