Moving on to Sydney

A fabric purchasing 'accident' 
 Friday 7th June

Some things just obviously aren't meant to be:  The Cow Shed, Turtuk. Fitzroy Falls....

The interesting weather event sitting over the Illawarra areas had barely moved or changed in intensity and it was raining again in Goulburn.  I packed up and when ready to go, called the Fitzroy Visitor Centre - they'd had 155mm of rain yesterday (more than BOM forecast) and it was still raining (up to 100mm forecast for Friday)

The lady on the other end of the phone mentioned that while the falls sounded most impressive (not surprising) she had no idea whether views are obscured by mist or not but did know that the potholes in the road are getting worse and there was water over the road in places.  I was dissuaded!

Plan C:  drive through the unpleasant weather, get to Sydney and reward myself with a visit to my favourite fabric shop and maybe an outlet complex to buy myself a new Gortex raincoat.

The drive was not a lot of fun.  I had no desire to travel at 110km/hr when it was difficult to see the car in front, but overtaking trucks made the visibility worse - at least all of them got past me before merging  in front of me.

I stopped a couple of times at service areas - I needed a break!  On the second stop, I realised, thankfully, I might be through the worst of the weather.  

I eschewed the idea of toll roads - I didn't want to end up in a tunnel with no GPS signal and not know when to get out - but the traffic was quite tedious in places...  I was a little annoyed by a couple of drivers who obviously thought I should not attempt to change lanes in front of them, despite my indication of intent and more room than I had seen other make use of!

I managed to park only a few blocks away from my first destination and my visit incurred a slight purchasing accident -  a few pieces of fabric to come home with me!

I decided to be brave and include toll roads (and tunnels) in my next navigation attempt...it would have worked better if an extra 2 lanes had not somehow materialised beside me to require me to get into them to be in the right tunnel.  Some 10km later, at a right angle to the correct direction, I emerged and decided that surface travel would resume.  I wonder how much income in toll road fees is generated this way...

In due course, via a detour or several, I arrived at Gail's and it was lovely to see her.  We dined that night in a French restaurant nearby, which was rather lovely.  I ordered beef tartare - a first time for me, and enjoyed it enormously.  I followed that with duck, minus a couple of its accompaniments;  by the time we had consumed our 2 courses and a little wine, we walked back to Gail's well and truly replete.

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