Snowy Mountains Trip - Day 20

Day 20 - 14/5/2011 - Tathra to Sydney (Lane Cove NP)

A big day on the road today.  We set off at about 8am and headed up the coast road - we knew we were trying to get as far as Woollongong but we weren’t quite sure how much further we’d go as we hadn’t decided on how we were going to get around Sydney!

The road from Tathra through to Bermagui was beautiful - the countryside is like dairy country with the beach right next to it - a perfect combination!  We stopped in at Bermagui just to have a look at the town and take some photos.  We definitely want to go back there one day - the van park looks like it’s in a nice spot too.

Bermagui

Fantastic countryside

From Bermagui we eventually ended up back on the highway and drove through to Narooma, then Bodalla, Bateman’s Bay, Ulladulla, and had lunch at Nowra.  While we were having lunch we decided that we may as well push through Sydney in the afternoon (since it was a Saturday) and then we could leave Sydney on the Sunday morning.  So we set off knowing that we’d be driving the van through Sydney - feeling a bit nervous considering I had never driven with the van on in heavy traffic!

In the end it wasn’t as bad as we thought.  We got onto the right road which took us straight through to Ryde and then we just had to negotiate a few streets to get to the Lane Cove River Tourist Park.  We were both pretty relieved to have arrived unscathed!

It was around 5.30 when we arrived so we surprised Lisa by calling and telling her we were in Sydney.  She straight awaykindly offered to come and pick us up so we could have dinner with her, Evelyn and Allan, (Ian was away in Perth).  Lisa took us to her and Ian’s house first - we’d never seen it before and we were really impressed.  Such a great house!  A beautiful deck on the back and lovely big rooms.  Ian has turned the shed in the backyard into a pretty impressive ”man cave” as well!  Once we’d done the “tour” we all walked down to the Carlingford Bowls Club for dinner - what a great spot - yummy food and really good value!

After dinner, (and with a bit of begging and pleading on Jodie’s behalf), Lisa agreed that she’d drive us in to Darling Harbour for a gelato!  Considering Lisa said she never drives in the Sydney CBD she did really well.  With the help of her four back-seat-drivers, (Navman not included), we managed to find a Parking Centre in the city near Darling Harbour.  We did a walk around the Harbour, had some gelato and then headed back home.  By the time Lisa dropped us off at the van park it was about 11pm, so we headed straight for bed.  It was so great to see the lights of the Sydney Harbour again!