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Saturday, 1 October 2016

Heddon Greta, New South Wales

Wednesday September 14th saw us head off for our final stop on this adventure. We got away from Lithgow in good time so we could get through Sydney outside of peak hours. We had a good trip through Sydney in the late morning. Once on the M1 we had no problems driving the 2 hours North to Heddon Greta.

We arrived at Stephanie & Tim's place just after lunch and got our caravan setup in their driveway. Both of them were working so we entertained ourselves in the caravan for the afternoon. Sandra cooked up some sweet & sour pork for dinner. We had a nice visit with Tim and Steph over dinner. Good to see both of them again.

Thursday we again entertained ourselves as both kids were working. We did a bit of grocery shopping and a few errands around Maitland. Thursday evening Tim and I went to a Dan Murphy's Bourbon tasting event. The girls dropped us off and went out for Chinese food while Tim and I sampled about 10 different bourbons. Glad we had a ride home as was feeling pretty good by the time the girls picked us up. Good night!

Friday we were up early to take the caravan into 7th Street Caravans for our 2 year service and some final warranty work. Wouldn't you know the Trail-a-Mate jack decided that it was not going to work to get us hitched up. Thankfully we had another jack and after considerable fooling around got the caravan hooked up to the Jeep.

Once we dropped the caravan off we headed back out to Heddon Greta and picked up Steph to do a bit of shopping in Rutherford. A bit of a bust as the Rays Outdoors store closing clearance had about 6 items left which was only double the amount of staff they had working. Don't know how that made economic sense. I then dropped the girls off and headed into Newcastle to have lunch with a few of the people I used to work with. Had a good but short visit with some of them at one of our favorite restaurants. Good to touch base with them again!

From there I met Sandra and Steph at 7th Street to pickup the caravan. They had done a great job and fixed everything on our list. As a pleasant surprise they didn't attempt to charge us for any of the work completed. (some of which was legitimately not warranty work). They have really picked up their service game and I would have no problem recommending them as quality caravan dealer. I ended up buying a new Trail-a-Mate jack for the van. I also bought the service kit for the old one so I can fix up and sell or keep as a spare.

Friday evening we had dinner at the Heddon Greta Pub with Tim's Mum and Dad, Sue and Ross. Was Ross's birthday so we enjoyed a few drinks before heading back to the house to watch the Cowboys play the Broncos. Tim and Ross are devoted Cowboy fans so they enjoyed the result with the Cowboys winning at the last minute. Not sure they enjoyed the way they won as was a fairly stressful affair!

Saturday we went touring the Hunter Valley Vineyards. Tim and Steph were looking to select some wines for their wedding next year and Mum and Dad were brought along to test. Hard work! We had a lovely day and enjoyed a number of wine tastings and a picnic lunch. Was quite busy at most stops so it was good to see the Hunter Valley being enjoyed by so many. I think the day was a success and the wines have been selected for next year's nuptials. We enjoyed a relatively quiet night with the kids watching the second NRL final game with a few drinks.




Sunday we decided to stay an additional day. Sandra and Steph had lined up an appointment to try on a wedding dress that evening. The day was pretty average weather wise so we had a fairly quiet day. We did manage to give the caravan a bit of a clean on the outside which made it look quite a bit better. Tim and I had dinner ourselves while the girls took a trip down to the Central Coast to see the wedding dress. Sounds like it was quite the adventure as they had very heavy rain and the destination was a bit difficult to find. Another successful trip however as Stephanie bought the wedding dress! Very organized and pretty well prepared for October 2017!

Last night on the road as tomorrow we head home to Harrington! I'll sign off from my Blog writing duties until our next adventure. Thanks for tracking our travels and hope you have enjoyed our adventure!