Port Macquarie Trip 2018, Days 10 to 12: The long way home

Having returned home the standard way through Sydney for years, we decided last year to mix it up a bit, and so we returned via Walcha, Tamworth, Mudgee and Bathurst. This year we opted for a route through the Hunter Valley and the Blue Mountains, both being places we haven’t properly visited for a long time. Well, we didn’t really visit the Hunter properly this time, either, just overnighting there, but it’s whetted our appetite for a longer stay there on another occasion. The Hunter was my introduction to winery visiting – for better or worse!

Driving the roads

One of the joys of the trip home was driving backroads, excluding the first day’s trip along the highway to Cessnock. Still, we did have a loved cuppa at Unearthed cafe at the wonderfully-named Coolongolook, and a light lunch at the cafe at Drayton’s winery in Pokolbin. For dinner, we went to 221 Restaurant and Bar in the Royal Oak Hotel. We were lucky to get in. At least, we didn’t see any other walk-ins make it in after us. The restaurant was very busy – both kitchen and servers – as it caters, with different menus, for the hotel’s bar area and beer garden, as well as the restaurant.

Then, it was the backroads. Our next stop was to be two nights in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains. For this trip we chose the backroads route (rather than via Sydney.) This meant travelling via two roads whose names call up youthful memories for me – Putty Road and the Bells Line of Road. It was a lovely drive.

Putty Road, named for one of the towns en-route, was scenic, windy (as in lots of curves, not breezes!) and quiet – no trucks, no slow cars, but there were several signs about checking our blind spot to keep motorcyclists safe, which clued us into other possible road users. And they did start to appear – becoming most evident at a cafe about halfway through a 90km (or so) stretch of road. This was the Grey Gum cafe, though I suggest it be renamed the Black Leather cafe! It was a beautiful day, and the cafe’s ample outdoor area was awash with bikes and (mostly) men in black leather. It was an amazing sight – in the middle of nowhere.

We parked our car in the area marked “vehicles only”, where there were only a couple of cars. Parked in the area at right angles to this area were dozens and dozens of bikes. One of the servers told Len a funny story. Apparently, on one occasion a driver had parked his Lamborghini in that bike area, and was promptly told to move his car around to the “vehicles only” area. He responded, “What, park my car on the dirt?!” We laughed at that. We hadn’t realised, until then, that the bikes had nice concreted area for their “vehicles”!!

Anyhow, from here, we continued on the Putty Road until it intersected with the Bells Line of Road. According to Wikipedia this road follows a route that was part of a traditional Aboriginal pathway. It was shown to explorer-politician Archibald Bell, Jr. by Darug men Emery and Cogy in 1823. It is now an alternative route to the Blue Mountains to the Great Western Highway, which we would have driven had we gone via Sydney. This road took us through Kurrajong, past the turn off to Mt Wilson, and on into Blackheath. Another lovely, lovely drive – which included a quick lunch stop at Kurrajong and a short but rocky little walk to Walls Lookout.

Our last backroads of the trip were those we (with Ms Google’s help) cobbled together to take us from Blackheath through Oberon and Taralga to Goulburn, after which it was a quick drive home to Canberra, the usual way! These roads took us over the mountains and into the central tablelands pasture area of New South Wales. We had planned to visit Mayfield Garden, but it was so cold and windy – just 8°C when we got there – that we just had coffee and moved on. A visit for another day. It was lovely driving, however: again quiet and with few cars, but with plenty of scenes – natural and pastural – to interest us.

A lazy-ish day in Blackheath

It’s been a few years since we’ve stayed in the Blue Mountains, so it was lovely being back, though we did take it very easy. We booked into the delightful historic 1915-built Kubba Roonga Guesthouse – where we met and chatted with some interesting other guests, including a German couple (who were very surprised to discover a German speaking Australian amongst us, aka Len) and a Korean-born Swedish woman who now lives in Australia.

We ate at two very lovely – very small – restaurants, Cinnabar and Fumo. The latter was once Vulcan’s at which we’d eaten back in the 1990s. It closed around 2012, became Vesta’s and then re-opened again fairly recently with some of the original Vulcan’s people. It is famous for its heritage oven. Both meals were delicious.

We did do some exploring too:

• Rhododendron Gardens, but we were too early for any real floral display;
• Govett’s Leap lookout area where we walked down to one lookout, contending with a bunch of runners doing a very demanding 21km run that took them down into the valley and back up again;
• Evans lookout area where we did a very little walk to another lookout.

We also spent a relaxing afternoon reading in the peaceful garden of our guest house.

The Blue Mountains are beautiful – we’ll be back.

Final pics

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