After a couple of days in Sydney itself it was time to continue the pilgrimage North. We decided that a few easy driving days were probably in order, also after the ‘luxury’ of our recent campground we decided that facilities weren't that important for a few days. Using our Camps Australia (5) bible we decided on Watagan Forest, which looked to have several good options.
On the way up we came across the Australian Reptile Park at Gosford. Even though it was already early afternoon at this stage, we decided we were better off to take the kids through the park and potentially pull into camp in the dark than miss out on the opportunity altogether. Even though i hate arriving at camp after dark, in this case it turned out to be the right choice.
The reptile park houses much more than just reptiles, with ‘roos and emus roaming freely, while wombats, dingoes, platypus’, flying foxes, rock wallabies, echidna’s etc. were all on display.
We arrived just in time to catch an educative session focussing on the funnel web spider. It turned out that the reptile park was also the only place in Australia that milked venom from many snakes and spiders for the Commonwealth Serum Laboratory to make anti-venom.
While there the kids also got to touch a range of snakes and other reptiles and discover the different feel of scales and skin some, like the Tegu, that we had never even heard of before.
We then continued up towards Morriset, which was our entry point for the Watagan Forest. When we jumped off the highway (and I now believe the reports about this being the worst highway in Australia – most Western Australian country roads have a better finish. I couldn’t believe the fact that the entire road appeared to consist of patches on top of patches, I would be surprised if there is an original piece of tarmac left. I can’t believe that small patches are the most economic way of keeping a road in order and I wouldn’t think anybody would get away with that sort of approach at home anyway!) we stopped to pick up something to eat and fill up with fuel. Liz wandered off to sort the food requirements out while I continued on to the servo. When I got there I ended up feeling that Slim Dusty needed to be resurrected as it was effectively the Fuel Stop With No Fuel, with only 98 Octane and Gas available. It did however become the cheapest servo I have visited on the entire trip!
As we had expected we did end up arriving at camp virtually in the dark. This was exacerbated by the fact hat we were in the middle of a mature forest, so I used the remaining gloom to get as set up as I could before finishing off with torchlight. It was all made a little more difficult as the outside light blew as soon as I switched it on and I found I didn’t have any spare globes for that light. When we arrived we were surprised to find around half a dozen other camps set up, so for all the relative remoteness there was still plenty of people around. This was even more interesting as this isn’t the only camping area in close proximity (we had passed another one a kilometre or so down the road that also had a few people set up in it and discovered another couple a little further on over the next few days.
Next day we set back off for Morriset to see if we could track down some fuel and also stock up on food as we were almost shorter on food than we were on fuel. This time we were much more successful.
The camp ground again reminded us how much more friendly (in general) we had found the free camps as against the full caravan parks. Now that we were set up we also had the chance to explore the forest itself, with several different walk tracks radiating out from the campsite. It appeared that a small waterway looped around the campsite as we came a cross it on virtually every walk trail, no matter which direction we went in.
For all I was talking about the friendliness of the free camps we still had proof that stupidity hits everywhere. While I was sitting having a cuppa I heard a “crash” and looked up to see a good size tree in the final throes of coming to ground. I wandered over to see what had happened as it appeared reasonably healthy and young only to find that it had been chopped down a few days before but hung up on surrounding trees. Obviously it had finally worked its way free and come down.
Luckily the person camping in that vicinity had packed up and moved on early that day, but the point of chopping it down still defeats me. he only possible reason would have been for wood for a campfire but anybody with any sense knows that you don’t try and burn green wood.
Talking of campfires, the sojourn also turned into another part of firelighting 101 for the kids, with multiple fires being built as they tested different set-ups to see what lit best.
During that day a severe storm warning was issued, so we bunkered down with some trepidation given that we were surrounded by forest and most trees around us would have only had to drop a reasonably sized limb to leave us in some trouble. At least we weren’t in tents like some others. As it turned out, the forest ended up providing enough of a buffer that we hardly noticed the storm at all.
The next day basically consisted of chats a more ‘good people’, wandering through the forest and sitting around the campfire catching up with the blog (entries which i have now managed to upload as signal strength wasn’t good enough to do it at the time).
There was some excitement when a gust of wind picked up Harry's chair (he wasn’t in it at the time) and landed it in the middle of the fire. By the time I pulled it out the back had disintegrated and the cover was no more. Therefore he now has a slightly charred stool, which he has decided to keep anyway – at least until we are able to replace it.
Next morning it was time to pack up and get back on the road. We once again decided that a hundred or so k’s would suffice for the day so set our sights on being somewhere North of Maitland. We had identified about 10 potential spots in the ‘bible’ between there and Taree (the only criteria was that they had a shower after spending several days in the bush) and made the decision to settle on Dungog while having lunch in Cessnock.
The trip out through the forest to Cessnock was magnificent and obviously little travelled. The relatively short distance to be travelled that day was also borne out as we traversed the first 25 kilometres averaging about 20 kilometres and hour. It was also an opportunity to talk to the kids about road etiquette in little travelled areas and we stopped once to clear a tree off the road (which we had to do anyway to get through – but I was able to talk to them about the fact that you don’t just push your way around it or clear enough for yourself as the next time it is used may be in an emergency and therefore the better it is cleared up the safer it is for everybody. A little further down the road we came across a few rocks on the road and we cleared these off for the same reason – hopefully another lesson learnt.
We eventually came out the other side of the forest with the road improving significantly as it started to wind its way past (and through) a number of farms. The kids were interested to find a gate closed across the road at one point as, up until now we had only come across cattle grids when roads ran through farms. I pointed out that it was the last farm on the road before the road degenerated into a forest track and so few people used it that it probably wasn’t worth the trouble of installing a grid.
The other really interesting item for the day before reaching Dungog was in Maitland. There was a repertory performance of Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach advertised which almost resulted in us changing our plans as it is one of Max’s favourite stories. The interest however for me was in how widely it was advertised – I had never seen a repertory club with the resources to produce advertising signage as professional and numerous as was on display as we drove through. We decided it is either the repertory capital of Australia or a sign writer is very involved.
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