Day 55 / 2016 - Sydney to Newcastle

Well the time is here again to move on to our next destination. Time to hook up that caravan extract it from our small plot of land we called home for 16 days and thread it through the metropolitan road network of Sydney hopefully getting onto the M1 Motorway which will carry us Northward.

We spent our second last day in Sydney catching up with Bill and Vicki at Central Station then spent some time wandering through Paddington Markets and Chinatown and have lunch at a chinese cafe. Quite a nice way to spend a day.

Last day we spent packing up, taking down the awning walls putting stuff back into the car and cleaning of some of the mess made by birds, bats and trees. The weather had been clear pretty much all the 2 weeks we were there with only one night of rain early in our stay. We would like to say we will never be back here but we have learned in this travelling business is never to say never. I guess one of the great things about travelling is you never know what direction you will head in or quite where you might end up.

Pulling out of Lane Cove we headed down the road and onto Epping Street. Being Sunday we were hoped it would be as quite as last Sunday but not today everybody seemed to be out for a Sunday drive. Heading down Epping Rd I once again stuffed up being in the wrong lane again I needed to be left lane to turn right but we did managed to loop around and get back onto the  correct road. Turning left onto the A1 Pacific Hwy we negotiated another 6 set of traffic lights and a few impatient drivers and finally we were able to turn right onto the M1 Pacific Motorway and start heading North.

Our first destination is Mannering Park which has a caravan park nestled on the banks of Lake Macquarie. We exited the Motorway onto the Doyalson Link Rd about 100km from Sydney which then took us virtually all the way to Mannering Park. Arriving at the caravan park we booked in. A lot of the sites were taken up by the scouts who were suppose to be out but hadn't quite left yet making it difficult to choose a good site. Anne then spied the waterfront sites and although were more exspensive had a great view over the lake so we took one of them. Now although the view was great it was also quite windy as there was nothing to act as a wind break tipping our chairs over on more than one occasion we didn't even bother with the awning.

There was a couple of reason why we stopped here. One it was a stop by a lake with a great view, second it was close to Annes Cousin Janet who she wanted to catch up with and third visit the Australian Reptile Park which she hadn't been to since she was a kid. Janet caught up with us on our first day at the park. She stayed for a while to chat then we organised a time to meet for dinner the next evening.

Next day we travelled back along to Motorway to Australian Reptile Park in Somersby near Gosford. Anne had been previously many years ago but all she remembered was the big dinosaur. The big Dino is still part of the park but has been moved so it is visible from the new motorway and is no longer acessable to tourist. The reptile park has been in continuous operation since the 60's except when the fire destroyed the park killing all but 3 of the animals.

We watched a snake milking demonstration and a touch and talk session about other reptiles in the park. There are a number of exhibits such as the nocturnal house and the creepy spider house which hosts some of the biggest spiders in the world. 

That evening caught up with Janet again for dinner at the Doylo Club. Next day she took us to meet Anne's Aunty. She hasn't seen her Aunt for many years and it was good to catch up. We spent about an hour with her then returned back to the caravan park.

Next morning we packed up and headed to Newcastle about 50 Kms further to the North. Our next place to stop was Salt Ash wich is another 15 Km North East of Newcastle at the start of the Port Stevens area. Salt Ash is where Annes cousin Monique and her mum live on a 2 acre property. There was room for us to park the caravan in the driveway with a little bit of too and fro-ing to get us in. This was again another reli catch up as we had been in this area last year. We did take a drive into Newcastle itself and had a look at the beaches and ended up lunching at Hogs Breath Cafe. We also caught up with Irene for coffee at the botanical gardens.