Day 43 / 2016 - Kiama to Sydney

Once again we are off this time heading for a big smoke. Last year leaving Lane Cove River Tourist Park we decided not to return because the difficuilty in getting a suitable site was just to arduious. We changed our minds the allure of old Sydney town was just to strong and there was still attractions we haven't seen. Once again we chose Lane Cove because it is so convenient to everything that is Sydney with direct connections to the motorway and walking distance to a train station. We though we new what we were in for but unfortunately forewarned does not always equal forearmed.

Leaving Kiama the first obstacle was to get out. Kiama is another town built on the side of a mountain and there were only two ways back onto the motorway, head south and go through the town centre with many roundabouts and up a reasonably steep hill or... use a closer entry ramp but climb blinkin Mt Everest first to get there. We had chosen the town way first as I though would be the lesser of the two evils but half way along I changed my mind and headed for Mount Everest exit thinking we can do this. So with Annes Heart in her mouth and her fingers firmly embeded in the upholstery I gunned the engine and we started up. I hoped no one would stop or pull out in front of us as I didn't relish the idea of a manual hill start with a caravan behind still if it happened we had low range. Old Nessy the Nissan did better than I though and made it up all the way to the top in second gear though you could hear the engine work hard. 

Travelling along the motorway was reasonably easy going through Wollongong the hills were not steep and we didn't have to drop into third once. Leaving Wollongong was a different story we hit the big hill which takes you over Mt Bulli leading down into Sydney. Going up we spent most of it in 2nd gear taking it slow and tucking ourselves in behind a slow moving truck. We exited the motorway at Picton Rd before the top and headed west and with still some climbing to do but easly done in 3rd Gear. Once reaching the top it was an easy drive to Hume Hwy as it was mostley downhill then turned right folllowing the Hume to the M7 then onto the M2. Unfortunately I miss judged which exit to take and went one to early. Fortunately it was fairly straight forward to get from the exit along Epping Rd finally arriving at Lane Cove Tourist Park.

While the booking in process was relatively easy finding an appropriate site was a little more difficuilt. The first site they gave us was to small length wise so a quick trip back up to the office they gave Anne another site. This one was bigger but no matter how we tried couldn't get the angle correct to line up with the slab there was always something in the way. The site next door was free and much easier to back onto but once there realised there was not enough room for the car to park off the road.

Getting annoyed Anne called the office and said what about site 12 just over the road. No the lady said that site is for someone else they were suppose to be here yesterday but haven't shown up yet. Funny we though their rules and regulation said you can't be guaranteed a site yet here was a site being held for someone that hadn't bothered to show up. Anne still not happy decided to go up to the office this time getting a guy to serve her. Explaining our problem and that we don't want to be on a site where we cant even park our car he was able to rearrange all the bookings on site 12 finally getting what we needed.

The first few days were spent around the park followed by a visit to Annes uncle in Dural. We stopped there for Lunch and Dinner they cooked up a yummy bunch of Kroketten Anne thought it was heavenly. During the week we took train rides into the city centre and Darling Harbour. The train service is quite easy to use and our nearest station is walking distance from the park enabling us to leave the car behind. We purchased the new Opal cards as this gave us access to peak and off peak fares depending on what time of the day you travelled. We also trained out to Penrith west of Sydney to catch up with Mary an old childhood friend of Annes.