May 7th: Rocky Mountain and the Lonely SatNav

Day 34 (Day 9 in Australia)

Our destination for today was Blackheath in the Blue Mountains, about 2 hours west of Sydney. My SatNav offered 2 routes neither of which were the ones it offered the night before. 

As I didn’t want the quickest, shortest or most economic route and it didn’t have a ‘most scenic’ option, some IT jiggery-pokery was required to get what I wanted. 

After escaping Canberra city limits it was 110kph and cruise control as far as Goulburn and then country roads the rest of the way.

At Goulburn we stopped at about 11 for coffee and a late breakfast at Trappers Bakery. Opposite it was a shop selling clothes made of Merino wool (from New Zealand and Dublin!!) and possum wool! I can only imagine the owner commissioning a concrete sheep statue outside as an advert and getting his “feet” and “inches” mixed up. As you can see…

“I said I wanted it to be 60 INCHES high you idiot!”

From there the journey was slower but more picturesque. We’ve rarely seen potholes on the whole journey. This is because the New Zealand and Australian governments have moved them all to this road. The twisty-turny, uppy-downy roads were made even more ziggy-zaggy and lumpy-bumpy by the need to avoid all the holes, some of which were potentially suspension-threatening. Despite this, there was still no shortage of large logging trucks and road-trains coming the other way, which perhaps explains why.

As 3pm approached we craved a cup of tea but hadn’t passed through a settlement of any kind for over an hour. Just the occasional farm building.

Eventually we came upon the township of Tarana (pop. 187) and “Mumma Snow’s Country Kitchen and General Store” just before it closed. Tea and carrot cake? Don’t mind if I do!

Mumma Snow’s with The Butcher’s Hook next door

The Tarana Hotel (complete with green tin roof)

Tarana High Street

Just before we reached Tarana, on a narrow winding country road with no line markings, my SatNav suddenly said, “Entering average speed check zone”!! There were no cameras or warnings. the speed limit was 100kph but anything over half that would be reckless. I think the SatNav was either lonely, having said nothing for over an hour, or was enjoying the limelight after his comment the previous day.

“On the last part of the journey I was looking at all the life”. There were sheep, cattle, horses and a goat to be precise. Unless you count about a dozen kangaroos and a couple of wombats who were enjoying long naps at the roadside*.

The twists got sharper and the gradient steeper as we climbed higher into the Blue Mountains. The weather was rapidly changeable from sun to low cloud making it tricky to get good photos but here are a few.

Zoom in to read the back of the white sign. 
I didn’t write it!

About half way on our journey I received an email from the hotel telling me I could check-in online, then get an email containing a code, download an app (Goki), enter all my details including the booking code (I booked it in February from the UK!) and then use my phone as a key. Great, but then you have to get your phone out of your pocket, find the app, go to a specific page, press a button, hold the phone next to the room door handle, wait 5 seconds and the door unlocks. Every time! Whereas with a key… Technology for technology sake methinks!

Also, the hotel restaurant wasn’t open tonight as “we have a function on”. Strange how they hadn’t mentioned that in the previous 3 months despite their obvious enthusiasm for IT. So we drove a couple of miles back to Blackheath for a pretty decent pub meal. Now back at the hotel and just finishing today’s post and it is not yet 9pm!

Tomorrow, we’ll be exploring bits of the Blue Mountains before the 2 hour drive to Sydney where we will be for 3 sleepless nights watching out for Sydney funnel web spiders. “The most poisonous spider in the world” according to my four year old grandson, Arlo who is very worried we are going there. Wish us luck!

*We’re yet to see a live kangaroo, wallaby or wombat.