We had not been away since the latter part of August and we had been saving ourselves for our final trip for 2014 which was to include a tag-along, an ACC Christmas Party, CMCA Chapter Meeting, CMCA Christmas party and finally a week at Cowra with another Christmas function during the stay. We had also decided not to go home between events and that would allow us to spend time in the Bathurst / Orange regions to further our family history research on “Her” side.
We actually made the decision to go on the trip on the day before our departure as “He” had been suffering from a severe ear and eye infection that had required several trips to the doctor and several antibiotics of varying strength to kill the infection. Whilst his ears had improved, they were still far from right and our doctor had actually stated that it might take months to get over the infection. One of the side effects of the infection was the infection draining into his throat causing a severe cough to develop. And to make matters worse, the infection had also spread into both of his eyes.
This was also one of the rare times that we had to extract the caravan on a weekend and when there is very little space in our street. To make matters worse, an auction of a neighbour’s house was to take place at 10am.
During the preceding week we had made arrangements with the neighbour opposite to park our Nissan in front of their property thus ensuring we would have a clear route to extract our caravan. This plan was fine until another vehicle occupied the relevant spot before we were able to move our car. We still had a “plan B” but that plan involved another neighbour being home on Saturday morning and able to move her car to allow us to leave.
With the car and caravan packed, we were able to leave our driveway thanks to our “plan B” and shortly after 9:15am we were on our way to the M4 and James Rouse Drive.
Our destination today was The Richmond Club at Richmond NSW and their campsite called “Wanderest”.
We arrived at Richmond just after 10:30am and met the leaders of our ACC Sydney City Slickers tag-a-long to the Hunter Valley prior to their Christmas Party on the Central Coast.
“Wanderest” is for members of the Richmond Club. Unpowered camping is free and a nominal charge of $10pn is made for powered sites. We did our setup quickly on a powered site and before long we had the caravan air-conditioning running to cool the caravan as it was hot.
Over the next couple of hours the other participants arrived. “He” decided to have a rest before the afternoon and our evening meal and “He” soon discovered that our internet dongle had been left behind (time would only tell what other items had been left behind – the legacy of “He” being sick and not able to concentrate on packing). With the prospect of no internet for a month, a very quick decision was made to return home to collect the missing hardware. The return trip would also provide the opportunity to collect another couple of items that had also been forgotten.
“He” returned home, collected the missing items and was back well inside two hours.
We had happy hour later that afternoon before we all adjourned to the Richmond Club for our evening meal.