6 April 2011 - Robert Martin Memorial Family Centre, Londonderry, NSW

Our spot at the Robert Martin Memorial Family Centre

Still parked up in the same place with no rain!! I just googled the 7 day weather forecast for Katoomba up in the Blue Mountains and it looks like we will be in luck; either sunny or partly sunny for the days we expect to be there, however the temperatures will be lower than we have experienced for a long time.

                         

We peeped out this morning after the birds had woken us to note the drier day. Up, breakfasted, lunch packed and corn beef in crock pot; we were off.

High above the Nepean River

We headed south to a lookout beyond Penrith, situated on the ridge that runs between Mulgoa and the Nepean River. A couple of short walks took us to rocky ledges from where we looked down the Nepean River Gorge and across to the Blue Mountains, which are not mountains as I had understood them to be. They are simply a range, certainly higher than the low lands on which Sydney is built, covered in bush for as far as the eye can see. The spectacular scenery for which the Blue Mountains are famous, are mainly of the deep gullies. I look forward to seeing it all.

From there we drove north toward Penrith and pulled in to a park beside the Nepean, took a walk along a small part of the Great River Walk, then turned back and had lunch. 

Beautiful sights: a butterfly at the camp

On the road away from the reserve, we passed an amazing adventure park: the  Cables Wake Park. Here there is an artificial oval lake and a cable setup high on crane like structures around the circumference with at least three ropes or cables hanging down on to which punters hold while they wake-board around at speed on the water. They can choose to go over the jumps that are placed strategically around the lake. I don’t think the speed of travel is as swift as it would be if it were a boat pulling them, but it still looks pretty exciting. The question of cost was academic, because nothing would induce Chris or I to shed our jeans and jerseys for togs and a life jacket.

funghi on the track to the lookout

banksia growing in the wild undergrowth

We then drove in to Penrith and walked up and down the main street, popping in to a few small shops to purchase small odds and end as we inevitably do when we do our town discovery tours, discovered the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, noted the huge external size of the Westfield Shopping Centre and walked a long way back up the street to discover that Officeworks have a wonderful service where they print documents from USBs. I had three documents printed for 24 cents and have decided for the time being that it would be false economy to purchase a printer when one can access service such as this. Officeworks businesses are fairly numerous around the place and I imagine that in the smaller centres I will be able to beg the same service from others.

         

and a stringy bark gum

At this point of the afternoon, observing large very black clouds gathering overhead, we decided to leave our trip to Richmond and back to Windsor until tomorrow, which means staying yet another day here at our Londonderry camp.

On the way back home, we called in to check out the Penrith Whitewater Stadium which was developed principally for the 2000 Olympic Games. It is one of the attractions at the Penrith Lakes, a massive scheme involving the creation of a series of lakes rehabilitating a sand and gravel quarry on the flood plain of the Nepean River three kilometres north of Penrith. The area of the scheme is 1935 hectares, and today is the largest sand and gravel quarry in Australia. We walked around the white water course which had water flowing only sedately around it, and then headed home.

We arrived in time for camper’s happy hour. Here at the camp, alcohol is not permitted to be consumed in the camp buildings and so happy hour takes the form of afternoon coffee. This of course suits us very well, since we have been committed wowsers for at least the last six months. Jan, the wife of Graeme who had made himself known to us yesterday, had baked two very nice cakes in her turbo oven, one of those glass topped cooking things you bake and roast in. We enjoyed their company along with the caretakers and the one other camper, Ron, who has been fifteen years living in his Winnebago campervan almost exactly like ours, before all returning to our respective homes to prepare dinner.