23 – 25 March 2012 – Kiama NSW

Since starting our adventures in a motor home, we have kept records of the places that we have stayed and Kiama is currently leading the list.  It was therefore no surprise that when we spoke with friend several months ago about a weekend away, Kiama was chosen as the venue.  As our friends do not own a motor home, we had to find somewhere with cabin accommodation in addition to a site for our motor home.  East’s Beach at Kiama met the criteria.

One of the limitations in hiring a cabin at East’s was a minimum weekend stay of two nights.  “He” arranged for another half day annual leave so with a promising weekend weather wise forecast, we were heading towards Kiama at 12:30pm on a sunny Friday afternoon.

For us Kiama is just short of 120k’s and we know the road very well.  From our home we head to the M4, exit at Olympic Park, head to the Liverpool Road exit, then onto Stacey Street at Bankstown and through to Heathcote Road.  From there it is a left turn to Engadine and then a right turn onto the Princes Highway for the trip south.  Normally this is an easy 2 hour drive as was the case today.

We encountered a light headwind for the majority of the trip south and arrived at the entrance to the caravan park at 2:30pm.  The Iveco computer recorded an average speed of 57k’s per hour for the trip and that actually had a meaning when considering that the distance travelled was around the 114k mark.

We arrived before our friends and were able to go through our setup routine before they arrived.  Their arrival coincided with the completion of our setup and we invited them for afternoon tea after they got organised with their cabin.

By late afternoon the wind had started to rise and we retracted our awning to a point where we believed it was safe in the wind.  Wrong!  Whilst we were sitting and drinking our coffee, somehow the wind managed to flip the awning back towards the roof, a rafter parted company with the base (we still don’t know how) and we had to hang on to it to stop it from going further.  We managed to bring it back and had to disconnect the roller from one end to align it to the point where we could secure it away for travel.  Thanks to the assistance of a couple of park staff and their ladder, we managed to get the awning stowed for travel.  The ladder was required to lock the awning at the rear as it appeared to be warped.  It also  appears we have damage to the other end where a rivet has partly come loose at the top of the rafter where it connects to the rail.  Our belief is that the damage is only minor and we don’t think we can use insurance but will need to see about that when we ultimately go to the repairer.  What a start to the weekend.

We  joined our friends in the evening for a meal and headed back to the motor home around 9:00am for an early night.

We  awoke to a near perfect Saturday and after breakfast, headed off with our friends in their car to Kiama for a visit to the Blowhole and then a walk around the shops.  We enjoyed a late morning tea before heading to the local Woolworths to purchase prawns for lunch.  We visited nearby Berry in the afternoon before heading back to Kiama where we purchased fish for tea.

We went for a walk on Sunday morning to the headland to the south of the caravan park and then shared coffee and banana bread in the camp kitchen.  We headed home just after lunch.

Sunday the 25th March was our 300th day in the motrorhome, Saturday 24th March was sleep number 166 in the Winnebago.