Day 201: 17 December – Arriving back in Sydney

Author: Mrs A

From: Bathurst

To: Curl Curl

Distance: 214km

An early awakening for us, despite the late night – a 5am storm reminded us that we had left the roof hatches of our caravan wide open. Mr A did the honours and dashed out through the heavy rain to close them. His wet pyjamas meant he didn’t get to sleep again, while I slept soundly until master Rory awoke us in his quest to visit Tassie at 7am. David and Tamara, we salute you and your early awakenings! Rory was gentle and loving as always and gave us cuddles to say he would miss us too when we leave. His brother Felix also popped down for some feline strokes before we left. Tomorrow it will be ‘Catherine and Mark? Who are they? But I sure do miss Tassie Cat!’ And so we farewelled the Cummings family and headed down the Blue Mountains to our next stop, Katoomba. We were off to visit Jennie and David, another couple of English folk happily living in Australia who had also the good fortune to purchase a Zone RV caravan – number 57. Jennie was there to wave us into the parking spot and provide us with visitor passes, and quickly ushered us into their home near the three sisters for a cup of tea and a chat.

Such a lovely couple – sadly another familiar story – they purchased the caravan then six months later David suddenly fell seriously ill. Fortunately Jennie was quick witted and organised an ambulance which arrived within ten (long) minutes and whisked him away to hospital for treatment. Very scary though, how health can take a drastic turn in the wrong direction. Mark and I reflect on our own health situations throughout the past six months and are grateful that we didn’t experience anything worse. Thankfully David seems to be on the road to recovery now, and they have plans afoot for a fine adventure of their own in 2018.

We had a great couple of hours with them and hope to catch up next year. We left with our first Christmas card and a pot of what promises to be delicious home made marmalade – I am thinking it might be our first breakfast back in our house tomorrow morning.

From there it was on to Forestville and our friends John and Eveliene’s house to pick up a few bits and pieces they had been looking after for us while we were away. So great to see them, and our initial taste of being back in Sydney’s grasp!We stopped off for a quick drink and a chat, before heading on through the narrow car lined streets to Curl Curl. We have to say that the streets of Forestville were the most challenging roads we had driven on in the whole of Australia – a combination of cars on both sides of the street, narrow roads, hills and bends!

We made it back to Curl Curl without incident and found ourselves a parking spot outside the Harbord Bowling Club for the night. We hope it’s a quiet one! Such good fun with friends Clive, Donna and Andy coming along to welcome us back and join us for a pizza at the club.We calculated our total mileage for this trip – 22,478km – that’s about 14,000 miles for you counting in old money. Fantastic. We’re pretty chuffed with all we have learned along the way and what an incredible adventure we have had. So far. After tonight we head back into our house for about 7 weeks, and then the cat will be away again to explore more of this beautiful country…we hope you will join us too!