After a month away, we were eager to head home with the priority on arrival between midday and two which is the ideal time for us to get the caravan into our drive.
We said goodbye to our friends (they would follow us about 30 minutes later) and the owners of the caravan park and turned onto Sydney Road at 9:00am. We expected a quiet trip home.
About four kilometres from the caravan park, we noticed a black kangaroo standing on the right side of the road near a bridge (Waugoola Creek). There was a vehicle coming from the opposite direction just a little closer to the kangaroo than us. As you would guess, the kangaroo move forward into our path to avoid the other car. “He” was aware of what was going to happen and was gently braking the car and the caravan as the kangaroo jumped in front of us. We estimate that we missed the kangaroo by less than a metre.
Now acutely aware of the presence of wildlife, extra car was taken every time we can close to a creek that was surrounded by vegetation.
Other than the incident with the Kangaroo, the trip to Bathurst was uneventful. As we neared Bathurst, we became aware of dark clouds to the north of the city which we assumed would form into the daily storm that Sydney had been experiencing for the past week or so. We concluded we would be in front of the storm before we arrived at the climb up to Mt Victoria in the Blue Mountains. How wrong were we!
About ten kilometres from Lithgow, we felt the full force of the storm. The rain was so intense it was almost impossible to see the road ahead but more frightening were the two semitrailers following us. Not being able to fully see the road also made it impossible for us to stop on the side of the road. We reduced our speed to what felt safe and slowly travelled the remaining kilometres into Lithgow where we knew we could stop. We believe we actually drove out of the storm for a short time as we were pelted with hail whilst waiting for the traffic lights in Lithgow to change. Deciding that the intense rain was behind us, we decided to continue.
The decision to continue was sound as we had no problems with water on the road for the decent to the Jenolan Caves turnoff or the climb up to Mt Victoria. We drove the remainder of the trip on the edge of the storm in light rain. We arrived home and were able to get the caravan into our driveway before the rain started.
Our friends, who were about 30 minutes behind us, drove home from Bathurst without experiencing any rain from the storm.