The weather reports earlier in the week for the weekend included the word “rain” but we awoke to a bright sunny Saturday and a revised forecast of 25c at the coast and 29c inland.
Our destination for the weekend was Burrill Lake which is just to the south of Ulladulla on the NSW South Coast (220k’s from home). The Ulladulla region has been the destination for many holidays and is an area that is certainly overlooked by the majority of beach goers who go north from Sydney, rather than south. “His” Mother and Sister were staying in a cabin at the caravan park and the last thing that we needed was an excuse to go south but we had one.
We planned to depart at 8:00am at that was the time we left.
After refuelling at South Strathfield (looks like the cost of diesel fuel has risen marginally), we headed towards Bankstown, then Illawong, Lucas Heights and then onto the Southern Freeway at Heathcote.
Our arrival time at Burrill Lake was planned for 2:00pm and our trip south was to include a stop at Corrimal to visit friends then Crooked River Winery near Gerringong and finally Berry for a latish lunch.
We actually arrived in Corrimal 10 minutes earlier than expected but stayed a little longer than planned leaving there at 12:30pm. We stopped at Albion Park for a quick lunch at McDonalds and then headed south electing to drive at the highway speed and not our planned speed of around the 80kph mark. We don’t normally travel around the 100kph mark (Blue Snoopy is a lot easier to handle doing 80kph) as we are very conscious of fuel consumption at the higher speed.
After leaving McDonalds, we had a great drive south with very little traffic on the road. We maintained highway speed and Blue Snoopy handled the conditions with ease. There has been significant road work between Nowra and Milton with what was a very windy section now replaced with virtually a straight road.
After stopping at a bank at Ulladulla to retrieve some spending money, we arrived at Burrill Lake just after 3:00pm. As is the case with the motor home, setup in a caravan park is very quick and 20 minutes after arriving, we were sitting in a cabin planning the commencement of an early happy hour or two.
Tea consisted of local prawns plus crumbed fish of the day from the local fish shop. The Burrill Lake Fish Shop has the reputation of being one of the best in the area and once again, we were not let down. We spent Saturday evening watching “Charlie and Boots” on DVD and we headed back to the motor home just after 10:15pm ready for bed.
The weather in NSW is still warm for this time of the year (it normally starts to cool down after Easter) and we had a comfortable night’s sleep without the need for blankets. We had also left the air conditioning running whilst away and the motor home temperature was ideal.
We awoke to a perfect Sunday of “wall to wall” blue sky, a pleasant breeze and a very comfortable temperature. We did have a small mishap with the motor home when closing a window when we heard something hit the ground. A search of the area below the window reveals a small plastic part that for the life of us, we could not locate where it had came from. We were not concerned as the part was obviously not external and decided that it could wait until we returned to Sydney.
We said our farewells to “His” Mother and Sister at 10:00am and commenced our trip home. First stop was at the Aldi store at Ulladulla where we purchased food for the next couple of days, a toy shop at Milton for something for our Grandson, then a warehouse just before Nowra, Country Winnebago at Nowra and finally a park just short of Berry for lunch. At Country Winnebago we looked at a Winnebago Esperence Motor Home with the same type of windows as our Leisure Seeker. It took 5 seconds to locate where the plastic part belonged and a few minutes later, it was replaced back into the fly screen on Blue Snoopy.
After Berry we stopped at Crooked River Winery (we joined their Wine Club in December last year) where we sampled some untried wines and then headed back home without further stops. Arrival home was at 4:00pm.
As mentioned earlier, we elected to drive at highway speed when heading south and we did the same when returning on Sunday. The drive home on Sunday was undertaken with strong winds and we expected the wind to play havoc with the fuel consumption. Surprise, surprise, the computer in the Iveco recorded overall consumption at 14.21 litres per 100k’s. Upon arrival home, the elapsed distance since refuelling was 450k’s with the remaining range of 150k’s (still have a quarter of a tank). Bearing in mind the speed that we have been driving at, this is remarkable. Is it possible the overall consumption has started to improve as the engine continues to “run-in”?