The warmth in bed was appreciated but the early night resulted in both of us waking around 2:00am. After dealing with mother nature, we did manage to return to sleep until the alarm sounded at 6:00am. We hoped to depart for home at 8:00am.
Shortly after 8:00am we said our farewells to 2 of the 3 groups and then tried to find the dump point in the showground. We didn’t find it and still have no idea where it is. At the other Gunning free camp, we asked some workers where the site was and they said the showground. We had been told of another dump point and it took us the best past of 30 seconds to find it.
Several minutes later with the caravan a little lighter, we joined the Hume Freeway and headed towards Sydney. Checking the caravan external marker lights, it was a surprise to find they were not working. The lights had been checked before departure, and the plug had been secured. It took several minutes to find a spot to stop, and a quick inspection revealed the plug had somehow come loose. “He” felt that with very cold hands when connecting the plug, it had not been pushed in far enough. With the plug secure and the lights checked again, we were soon back on the road.
Today we had decided not to worry about fuel consumption, so we maintained highway speed when able. We missed our intended fuel stop at Goulburn as something distracted us and stopped at Sutton Forest where we purchased the cheapest fuel for the trip.
We took the Sydney tunnels to Rozelle and arrived home just after 11:10am.
From the tunnel exit, we travelled on Victoria Road to Lyons Road where we turned left. In the short distance from Victoria Road to our turnoff, we had three near misses with impatient drivers trying to pass us on the inside lane before parked cars. Having travelled thousands of kilometers in safety, well, one can say no more.
Due to parked cars, in our street, we took a long time to get the caravan into the driveway and local street closures made the task more difficult. A neighbour had parked a car as close to our drive as legally possible and to make matters worse, the car was parked wide and we do not live in a wide street. Initially we tried to access the drive reversing by looking over the right shoulder but that is almost a blind reverse. Eventually we found a way to clear the car parked on our drive and parked the caravan safely.
According to the Nissan’s speedo, we travelled about 6370 kilometers and we spent around $2000 on fuel. Our average fuel consumption was about 0.5 of a litre of diesel more per 100 kilometers than the trip last year. Calculated average consumption was 15.3 litres per 100 kilometers.
This trip we were hit by a couple of rocks early in the trip but fortunately there was no visible damage to the windscreen. We hope that remains the case when we get around to removing all of the dirt and insects from the vehicle. Something to look forward to.