Visiting Canberra in August 2016

We could park our car right in front of our room.

This was a rented car. We had to leave our car behind for it needed new spark plugs. We had left home early in the morning. Our plan had been to drive up Macquarie Pass to Moss Vale for breakfast at a cafe in Moss Vale. We found out that Macquarie Pass was closed for maintenance work. So we went up the Jamberoo Mountain Road Pass to the highlands. To arrive at our chosen cafe in Moss Vale via this pass instead of Macquarie Pass took us just an extra ten minutes.

After our very good breakfast in Moss Vale we drove straight through to Canberra where we spent a couple of hours at Parliament House before checking in at Forrest Hotel at around 2pm.

I wrote about our visit to Parliament House here in my previous post:

https://auntyuta.com/2016/09/07/utas-diary-september-2016/

All hotels in Australia provide you with tea and coffee making facilities. We had bought some cake in Moss Vale for our afternoon coffee.

We liked to have coffee and cake in our room.

Top right the air-conditioning kept the room at 22C at all times. We never had to reset it.

When the air-conditioning switched itself on, the air came out really hot. After a little while it would switch itself off again. I thought, this worked really well. I never felt cold in our room, even though the outside temperature would be a cool 5 degrees C during the night.

This is early morning Peter in bed with a cup of tea. — This is early morning Peter in bed probably with a cup of tea.

During the night we topped our bed with a woolen blanket. There were a couple of Australian made woolen blankets in our wardrobe. That these blankets were actually Australian made, was very much to my liking!

On the Way to Melbourne, Friday, 14th August, 2015

At 7 am we boarded the railway coach that took us up Macquarie Pass to Moss Vale. The train from Sydney arrived some time later in Moss Vale and took us all the way to Melbourne where we arrived a bit before 7 pm’

We arrived in Moss Vale already at 8 am and we had more than one hour to spare before the Sydney train was due. We used the time to book in our luggage and to have some coffee and cake from across the road. On the train later on we were served a good hot lunch. We also had some light beer with our lunch.

But here now are some pictures Peter took at Moss Vale railway station:

View of a wattle tree from Moss Vale station

Reminiscing about Trips to the Highlands

This is where we stopped again last Sunday, the 27th of July, when we returned from Burrawang. The pies we had at this famous pie shop tasted as good as ever. Caroline and Matthew liked them too. When we finished eating our meat pies Peter bought some fruit pies to take home for afternoon coffee. But first Caroline, our driver, went on a tour with us through beautiful Kangaroo Valley.

Here is what Wikipedia says about the pass:

Macquarie Pass
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Macquarie Pass is an eight-kilometre-long section of the Illawarra Highway passing through Macquarie Pass National Park. It was opened in 1898.
Macquarie Pass links the Southern Highland town of Robertson to the coastal town of Albion Park, descending the Illawarra Escarpment via a very narrow bitumen roadway, which has several single-lane sections and is mostly two lanes with double “no overtaking” lines. It is in the Shellharbour local government area.
This section of roadway is very steep, and contains a large number of hairpin bends, resulting in buses and trucks needing to reverse on some of the bends. The pass is quite notorious for accidents due to its nature, and drivers and riders are required to be cautious.
After heavy rain, the Macquarie Pass can be closed due to flooding on the top half of the pass. Cars and motorcycle riders may opt to use Jamberoo Mountain Road between Robertson and Jamberoo, while trucks are advised to use Mount Ousley Road (Southern Freeway) and Picton Road as an alternative.
The road is very popular with motorcyclists on weekends and public holidays. The Shellharbour and Wingecarribee Councils and the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority have therefore published a safety brochure entitled ‘Motorcycling Macquarie Pass.’

It is indeed very steep and has a large number of hairpin bends!

I found in my diary two occasions when we went up this pass. In July 2013 we had an outing to a Nature Reserve at Robertson and in March 2014 we went to Fitzroy Fall.

Here are just a few things worth remembering from these two trips.

The following I wrote on the 6th of July 2013:

It was windy and cold today, however plenty of sunshine and beautiful clear air. We thought it would be wonderful to go up to the highlands on a day like this. Driving up Macquarie Pass was no problem.

We reached Robertson and decided we would first of all have an early lunch with one of the famous Robertson pies and a cup of tea. The pies were delicious as ever. We have frequented this PIE SHOP in Robertson for over fifty years. The pies there are really special. Peter had a pepper steak pie and I had a beef curry pie. A hot cup of tea with it was lovely.

In the Wikipedia it says that the road is very popular with motorcyclists on weekends and public holidays. And so it is. At the pie shop for instance scores of motorcyclists had just arrived for a well deserved break. The eating section of the shop got pretty crowded after a while for lots of other holiday makers with children on winter school holidays had also arrived. The shop did a roaring business with their pies.

Near the railway line and near what used to be Robertson station is the little bit of rainforest which we had not been visiting for decades. Today was the day. We got ourselves reacquainted with it. There is a round-track of only about 600 m. We walked along it and felt like being in another world.

Earlier in the morning on the way to Macquarie Pass we stopped at the Marshall Mount Dance Hall. Our daughter Monika liked to go to their dances nearly forty years ago. Looking at the hall today Peter recalled how he drove to this hall on a Saturday night to pick up Monika and her friends after the dance had finished. We noticed today also a building next to this hall which used to be the Marshall Mount Public School.

We did a little detour through the country side where we noticed some ducks crossing the road. All in all we had a lovely day on this beautiful sunny winter day with gusts of wind that felt very cold.

On this coral tree were already some flowers appearing. Does this mean spring is not far away any more? — On this coral tree were already some flowers appearing. Does this mean spring is not far away?

In March 2014 we went to Fitzroy Falls.

On the way to Fitzroy Falls we stopped at Burrawang.

We had our coffee served outside. Some customers had brought their dog along.

They cater for some events in Burrawang.

On the way back from the Fitzroy Falls we stopped at this reservoir to have a look

I had fun reminiscing about our trips to the highlands.

Last Saturday in May 2014

Tomorrow is Saturday. I said to Peter: Let’s drive up to the highlands tomorrow. What for, said Peter. It’s too cold up there now. I pointed out that in the car it’s warm. For lunch we could stop at the Robertson pie shop where we could have a delicious meat-pie and some tea. Further on we could go along this secluded road to that secluded little village where we could have excellent coffee sitting outside on the verandah. We can put warm clothes on. Sure it should be good to sit outside for a while in that crisp fresh air! 🙂 We both loved this place, last time we were there.

I am sure our fourteen year old little car can still make it up Macquarie Pass. It just had a big service and is still going well. And Peter’s eye-sight is quite good now. He does not need to drive with glasses any more. In the past it said on his driver’s license that he needed glasses for driving. It does not say so any more. It was changed when he renewed his license the other day.

I have great memories about our last outing to the highlands. So I hope Peter can be persuaded to go on another tour like this. Why not enjoy life and drive around a bit while we still can? Indeed, why not?

Our Rental Car

How wonderful it was to have this rental car for a period of twelve days! What did we do with it? On the pick-up day, Tuesday 9th April, we travelled in it around locally. The following day we started our big trip through the outback of New South Wales and from there into the state of Victoria, where we first stayed at Mildura and then we travelled on to Melbourne.

On Wednesday, 10th April, we started before sunrise. We went up Macquarie Pass. Macquarie Pass is an 8 kilometre long section of the Illawarra Highway passing through Macquarie Pass National Park. It was opened in 1898. It is a very winding steep road through this beautiful National Park. Peter knows this section well for he travelled up and down this path every day when he worked at Robertson Station which is at the top of the escarpment. We went through Robertson on the way to Moss Vale. Moss Vale was our first stop. We had a lovely breakfast up there on that Wednesday morning.

There’s one picture of Moss Vale Station. The train from Sydney stops at Moss Vale on its way to Melbourne! We took a few pictures in the vicinity of the station. First of all we went to have some breakfast not far from the station where we stopped.