It was with a mixture of sadness and apprehension, but also a hint of adventure, that we left our wonderful home of thirteen years to head north to the unknown. After months of clearing and selling belongings, the house was finally empty and clean, ready for its new owners.
The past weeks had been filled with farewells - morning coffees with the walkers at Liv-Eat and a lunch at Levee, then lunch with the ship model building guys at Legana Tavern.
Penny's Coffee, Chat and Craft ladies met for lunches at the Mowbray Hotel and Links at the Country Club and had morning tea at the Silos. And the HASH ladies got together at Grain for lunch.
Friends called in at the house as well, so we had been busy, but we were grateful for the friendships we knew we would miss.
Thankfully our Spirit journey was smooth and uneventful, and we arrived in Geelong well slept and ready for the 1,900 km drive ahead of us. As we were taking both cars, we couldn't share the driving so we had chosen to spread the drive over six days.
450kms later we drove into Holbrook in southern NSW, famous for the HMAS Otway submarine which dominates its main park. This was the second of six Oberon Class submarines built for the Royal Australian Navy between 1966 and 1979.
From Holbrook we drove 400kms to Bathurst and the following day experienced some awful road conditions due to this year's flood damage, on our 300km drive to the Hunter Valley. We had to cross three floodways, one of which was covered in nearly a foot of running water.
The picturesque historic village of Sofala
We stopped in at the village of Kandos for coffee and a snack at the bakery. Kandos doesn't have a grocery store, but it does have an excellent charity shop and an Olympic pool!
Upon our arrival at the wonderful Harrigan's Irish Pub in Pokolbin, Jim discovered that, not surprisingly, several of his model ships had been damaged during the rough drive. Obviously, repairs will be needed when we arrive at our final destination - wherever that is...
On to Tamworth and another 235kms of, thankfully, good roads. We stayed at the Mercure there which just happens to adjoin the West Tamworth League Club, a beautiful new club with bar, lounge, restaurant, coffee shop and al fresco areas. Dinner was delicious and we only managed to lose $7 on a couple of Keno games.
From Tamworth we drove 300kms up the New England Highway to Tenterfield. The trip was uneventful, and we stayed the night at the Tenterfield Tavern and Motel. Just as well, as we didn't have the energy to drive anywhere else and the tavern provided free bar snacks - not just peanuts, but spring rolls and seafood balls! And they had great evening meals.
From Tenterfield we headed to the Gold Coast. Once north of Tweed Heads the traffic slowed to 40kms per hour due to roadworks - which don't seem to have advanced since we were here last May!
For some reason Jim's GPS took him a different way to Penny's. We ended up speaking on our mobiles for the last half hour of our journey with Penny pretending to be a traffic light on the corner of a major intersection at Mermaid Waters, whilst waving Jim in... All good fun.
Tomorrow, we drive to Brisbane to Jim's brother at Samford where we will spend the next 10 days.
We wish you all a very happy Christmas!
