On The Road Again
Jul. 24th, 2022 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanBack from a weekend away on a... well, how does one describe it? Not a car rally, though we were all in cars. Not a treasure hunt, though we were expected to find & identify clues. Not an orienteering course, though we had to use old-fashioned printed maps to plot our route to a pre-determined destination... Sort of a mongrel breed of all those things, really
We met up with our fellow participants at a large truck & travel stop on the Pacific Highway, about 2 hours north of Sydney, were given envelopes containing our maps, instructions & questions to be answered & headed further north, in a very roundabout kind of way to various small towns, along even smaller backroads, many of which were more pothole than road - consequences of the incessant rain we've been having for 6 months or so, ending up in Wingham, a town that seems to exist only to accommodate the 18 hole golf course on its outskirts, which was where we were staying overnight
Dinner was in the Clubhouse, where a local wedding was also being celebrated in a closed off section. It appeared to be a rather 'intimate' event, as all I could see was the Bride & Groom, one Bridesmaid & a collection of overdressed kids running around the club. I found out later that there were meant to be around 40 people at the reception, but about 30 of them hadn't showed. Given that it was a local event, that doesn't bode well for civic harmony in the near future... it's a small town
Our group of racers/orienteers/hunters were mostly older than Long-Suffering Partner & I, but no less good company for that - & several of them kicked on for a good few hours after L-SP & I had gone to bed - it had been an early start for us to get to the rendezvous point by 8am... That's our excuse & we're sticking to it!
Today, we rallied/hunted/orienteered our way back south, via some other small towns, finishing in Raymond Terrace, a sort of satellite town of the city of Newcastle,by the Hunter River - in fact, until about a week or so ago, a decent section of it was IN the Hunter River, due to the recent flooding, caused by that 6 months of rain I mentioned... However, the riverside pub was full of people celebrating its emergence from the waters & a few of us snagged a large table, traded some tales of the road, then went our separate ways. It was about a 2½ hour drive back to WaitingManor & I suspect another early-ish night for us...
We met up with our fellow participants at a large truck & travel stop on the Pacific Highway, about 2 hours north of Sydney, were given envelopes containing our maps, instructions & questions to be answered & headed further north, in a very roundabout kind of way to various small towns, along even smaller backroads, many of which were more pothole than road - consequences of the incessant rain we've been having for 6 months or so, ending up in Wingham, a town that seems to exist only to accommodate the 18 hole golf course on its outskirts, which was where we were staying overnight
Dinner was in the Clubhouse, where a local wedding was also being celebrated in a closed off section. It appeared to be a rather 'intimate' event, as all I could see was the Bride & Groom, one Bridesmaid & a collection of overdressed kids running around the club. I found out later that there were meant to be around 40 people at the reception, but about 30 of them hadn't showed. Given that it was a local event, that doesn't bode well for civic harmony in the near future... it's a small town
Our group of racers/orienteers/hunters were mostly older than Long-Suffering Partner & I, but no less good company for that - & several of them kicked on for a good few hours after L-SP & I had gone to bed - it had been an early start for us to get to the rendezvous point by 8am... That's our excuse & we're sticking to it!
Today, we rallied/hunted/orienteered our way back south, via some other small towns, finishing in Raymond Terrace, a sort of satellite town of the city of Newcastle,by the Hunter River - in fact, until about a week or so ago, a decent section of it was IN the Hunter River, due to the recent flooding, caused by that 6 months of rain I mentioned... However, the riverside pub was full of people celebrating its emergence from the waters & a few of us snagged a large table, traded some tales of the road, then went our separate ways. It was about a 2½ hour drive back to WaitingManor & I suspect another early-ish night for us...
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Date: 2022-07-24 03:02 pm (UTC)