Week 4 – Monday – Sydney to Dubbo (Originally planned to be Nyngan) via Bathurst

Today has been a strange one for me (Dale) and I’m not sure how to describe it other than a “Bitter / Sweet” one. Since Peter Brock’s death last year and our plan to do this whole trip, I had to include a stop at Bathurst and Mount Panorama in the program.  For me it was a sort of pilgrimage and the closer that we got “The Mountain” the more I was surprised how I felt and I think that Enid noticed that I was unusually quiet.

Let me put this into context for you. I’m sure depending on your age that you all have a particular event that has happened in your life that you will always remember where and what you were doing when you heard about it. For example, for those of you that are older than me, I’m sure that you recall watching or listening to the moon landing or maybe when you heard that JFK had been assassinated. For me there has been three events that I will always remember where I was and when I heard.

The first was when I heard that Elvis had died; I was getting ready for school when it was announced on the morning news.

The second was when I heard that Diana was dead; Sandi and I were in our way to the City to Surf (Sandi did it not me) and we heard that Diana had been in an accident. When we got back in the car after the City to Surf we heard the news that Diana was dead.

The most recent, and most significant for me, was the day that Peter Brock was killed competing in Rally West in 2006. Boris Stebbing phoned me at work to say that he had just heard a news flash that Brocky had been killed ; but it was unconfirmed. I had to drive to Leeuwin soon after and on the way Brocky’s death was announced as confirmed on the radio; I don’t mind saying that I had to pull over and that there was more than one tear in my eye. Brocky I have to say was an absolute legend to me, and I’m privileged to have met him on three occasions; although I’m sure than it was no big event for him.

I’m sure that some of you reading this will be saying “so what, he was just a racing car driver” and to those people that’s fair enough. But I know that there will be people reading this that will have an understanding of what I was feeling.

Anyway, I’ve been looking forward to visiting Mt Panorama to in my own way pay my respects to Brocky’s memory. I haven’t been to Mt Panorama since 1986 when I and the group of people that I went to the race with were inadvertently caught up in the riots on top of the mountain that year.

We did two laps of “The Mountain”, and whilst the Sorento is no race car it felt great, and we were only doing the 60kmh speed limit. Enid was amazed at how steep and narrow many (most) sections of the race track is, and could not believe that cars fly around the track at speeds up to 300kmh. For me it was the first time around the track since the inclusion of the kink at the end of Conrod and I was even amazed that the cars go around that corner at over 100kmh+++ ! it is a 45kmh corner for the normal road car.

We stopped at one of the wineries that is located within the confines of the track which has produced a one off special Peter Brock Vintage (two reds and a white), the production of which has been endorsed by Brocky’s family and with the profits going to the Peter Brock Foundation. We purchased one of each which will take pride of place in the display cabinet with my collection of his race cars (1/18th scale models) in the home theatre room of the new house.

The rest of the day and today’s travel’s was pretty relaxed and easy going. We decided a few days ago to stop at Dubbo instead of Nyngan as originally planned. We made this decision as we were unsure as to how long it was going to take to get out of Sydney and how long we would spend in Bathurst. It turned out to be a good choice as we didn’t end up getting to Dubbo until 4.30pm and it was already starting to get dark.

We are off to Wilcannia tomorrow. You may know the name as 60 Minutes did a story on the population on Sunday night. We still plan to stay there anyway, but if we find that we don’t feel comfortable doing so when we arrive, we will keep going and stop at Broken Hill.

Cheers

Dale

From Enid

Just wanted to put in a comment about our meal in Dubbo. We got advice from the staff at the motel we are staying at and went to the bar and bistro across the road. It was called the Pastoral Hotel and it was a great meal. Dale again had a surf and turf but I think it was one of the best he has had all trip. Apparently the piece of meat was beautiful and the only complaint was that there wasn’t enough sauce. I had chicken breast with prawns and a creamy garlic sauce. It was delicious as well.Â

EnidÂ