We have been busy and “She” has not been well (Edit – all better now), hence the time taken to post this blog.
This weekend was conceived by some friends during the NSW Winnebago NSW Christmas party that unfortunately, we were not able to attend. However, an invitation was extended to us to attend the weekend.
The venue for the weekend was Wanderest, an initiative setup by the Richmond Club at Richmond NSW (approximately 50klm to the north west of the Sydney CBD).
The following description has been taken from the Wanderest web site.
“Wanderest is a free stay caravan park for travellers to stop, refresh and restock before continuing on their travels. The Park has amenities including toilet & shower, powered & non-powered sites, a dump site, picnic tables and open grassed areas all with a clear view of the Lowlands and the Blue Mountains.
The free stay park is a secure area with all new modern facilities, and Richmond Club provides a travellers information service to help you in the right direction for anything you may require during your stay.”
The only requirement to stay at this venue is that one occupant of each motor home must be a member of the club. The cost for membership is $4.00 per year. Powered sites are available at $10.00 per night and the maximum stay is three nights. Non-powered is free with the same time limitation.
With the need to arrive at a reasonable time to complete our club membership and to arrange for our stay, we departed home just after 3:45pm on Friday afternoon. Normally at this time you would expect to avoid most of the Sydney afternoon peak traffic but this was not to be the case. We had a “better than average” run down the last kilometre of Parramatta Road before the start of the M4 but hit heavy traffic near the Homebush Bay exit. Fortunately the traffic was moving slowly and we crawled to just past the James Ruse Drive exit before the traffic started to move freely. We suspect that a reported accident on James Ruse Drive was the cause of the delay.
We departed the M4 at the Blacktown turn-off and then headed north. We eventually arrived at Richmond just after 5:20pm. What should have been a 50 minute drive had taken just over 90 minutes. You “gotta” love Sydney traffic and it is slowly getting worse.
One couple had arrived earlier in the afternoon and they greeted us at the boom gate that controls access into the Wanderest site.
Our first task was to join the club and this was completed without any fuss. Armed with a new member pack which included a heap of discounts within the club and a key to a power outlet, we were soon inside the park with the motor home level and hooked up to power. The air conditioning was running as it was very warm.
The third couple arrived just before 6:30pm and shortly thereafter we were inside the club having a few “cold ones” whilst we waited for our dinner to be served. The club staff were very friendly and genuinely happy to see us. They were also very helpful in organising a table to us for Saturday night.
After finishing the evening meal, we returned to one of the motor homes where general discussion on our wonderful lifestyle took us well past midnight.
It was still fairly warm when we finally headed to bed and the decision was made to leave the air conditioning running. We slept through until 5:30am when we shutdown the air conditioning. It was actually hard to get back to sleep once the noise from the air conditioning ceased.
We each did our own thing for breakfast and then met and headed to the markets that had been setup in an adjacent field. After spending a short time at the markets the girls decided to head into Richmond and the guys returned back to our camp site. By this time it had started to rain. We did return back to the markets later in the morning to partake in a sausage and onion sandwich for lunch.
After the markets had concluded, “He” produced the metal detector and did a walk around the area where the markets had been. The walk resulted in a grand profit of $2. It is worthy of mention that when the detector was setup initially in “gold” mode, it did react to something near to the spot that we camped. Next time we return we might kick the dirt a little to see what is hidden. Hopeful it is on the surface so minimum excavation is required.
During the course of the afternoon, one of our group, Dan, visited each of the motor homes to replace some of the existing lights with led’s. Dan does this full time and we will provide his details if requested by leaving a comment against this blog entry. He claims to only sell high quality led’s and there is no evidence to suggest otherwise.
The final member of our group joined us later in the afternoon for happy hour just prior to heading back to the club for another wonderful meal.
After the meal we returned back to our camp site and spent some time sitting around talking until light rain forced us to adjourn for the night. At least it was cooler and there was no need to run the AC unit or a fan. We had a comfortable sleep.
We awoke to a cloudy Sunday morning but fortunately it was dry. Immediately following breakfast we adjourned to the adjacent field where we played bocce before returning to the Richmond Club for morning tea. It was during morning tea that we agreed on a name for our little group “8snuff” (for eight is enough). Not sure where we will go with the name but it was fun deciding on it.
We lunched together before we departed just after 3:00pm.
We all agreed that the weekend had been wonderful and something that has to be done on a regular basis.
Edit – our next gathering with the above group is likely to be delay as one of our friends has managed to break his leg in three places. He will spend twelve weeks in plaster before learning how to walk again. The leg has two pins and a bolt through the ankle with plaster from toe to groin. If nay of our friends are after details, please email or post a comment on this site.