This trip was planned a while ago with the focus being on our attendance at the 2023 National Muster of the Australian Caravan Club at Goolwa in South Australia. We also decided that we would have an opportunity to detour via Melbourne and visit the Diamond Valley Railway on the way to and from the National Muster.
Day one of the trip was planned to include an overnight stop at Jugiong NSW but the weather forecast of rain up to 60mm made us change plans and we booked an undercover site with an ensuite at the Gundagai Cabins and Tourist Park. We have stayed at this location many times and we know that we can get the caravan under cover and avoid the forecast rain.
At 9:15am we departed home. Before we departed an inspection of the caravan revealed that we had no left blinker or brake lights on the caravan. We determined quickly that the pre-trip maintenance had failed us as one of the checks was to inspect the 12-pin connector and spread any pins that had become closed. It took a minute to fix the issue. By 9:20am we were heading towards the M4 motorway where we travelled to Silverwater Road and then through Bankstown to the M5 motorway that took us out of Sydney. Traffic was light but the clouds in the distance were dark.
It started raining near Mittagong, but the rain had stopped when we reached Suttons Forest where we stopped for morning tea. The lights were inspected again and found to be functional. Unfortunately, one of the running lights (marker lights) on the caravan has failed but that is not a problem currently as the failed light on the curb side of the road.
It started raining again near Goulburn and continued for the remainder of the trip. We had intended to travel directly from Sutton Forest to Gundagai, a bit over 2 hours, but a strong head wind made us to decide to stop for fuel at Yass.
After leaving Yass, we encountered an exceptionally heavy period of rain. The rain made us slow significantly and the ferocity of the rain itself slowed the vehicle and we needed to drop to third gear to maintain any speed. Fortunately, the intense rain only lasted for about 15 minutes and had eased by the time we reached our destination at Gundagai.
Without the need to level the caravan or connect fresh water, we quickly disconnected the car from the caravan and drove to Woolworths at Gundagai where we purchased a chicken and salad for our evening meal.
It was cold at Gundagai and fortunately yesterday we had decided to pack some winter clothing.
The rain eased later in the afternoon and we both agreed that we had quickly adapted back into the caravan lifestyle. The chicken we purchased was excellent and coupled with the salads we had purchased, we had a nice evening meal.
At 9:40pm the outside temperature was 12 degrees so we expected that we would have a comfortable sleep with the lower temperature. The overnight temperature last night in Sydney was 26 degrees.
And we forgot to mention that “He” managed to break another tooth. A fix will have to wait until we return to Sydney.