We hit the road early as we had a journey of around 871km today with stops at:
- The Royal Hotel in Sofala, it’s part of the Aussie Pubs book bucket list.
- Mount Panorama
We were up and ready before sunrise, today we had planned on visiting the Royal Hotel in Sofala for a beer and lunch, drive around Mount Panorama, and head to Sydney. Those plans altered a bit as the day progressed. Once packed and on the road we made our way to Moree in NSW for a coffee and muffin meal from McDonalds. A lot of people bag ‘Maccas’, I got so say though a bacon and egg muffin is pretty hard to stuff up. Plus, their coffee is generally pretty good. The McDonalds at Moree was cold, and we were happy to get back on the road to continue our journey.
The car’s GPS mast pick the shortest route as the way it directed us to Sofala was a little odd. We experienced some thick fog even up to late morning, plus one spot of flooded road. Fortunately, the road was passable in our GLC300 so we didn’t have to backtrack anywhere. Sofala is a rather quaint country town, and the buildings reflect its history. We decided to visit it as the Royal Hotel as it is in the Aussie Bush Pubs book. Nice old pub, beers were a bit dear, and no meals were a downside. so, after a beer we were back on the road.
As we were close to Bathurst a drive around the Mount Panorama race circuit was in order. The race circuit is a public road that has houses along with the race facilities there. After we both drove the circuit, we planned a stop at the Three Sisters. The Great Western Highway the traffic between Bathurst and Katoomba is abysmal. It was a huge mistake to try and stop being a public holiday and getting off the highway to the Three Sisters took ages and there was zero parking. You may note my frustration in our vlog above. So it was back onto the Great Western Highway as a very slow and congested pace to Sydney.
The GPS tried to direct us around the traffic and we had to back track loosing more time and I was quickly loosing patience. Finally getting into Sydney we never realised Vivid was on when we booked our holiday. Between the GPS giving dodgy directions, the traffic and the crowds if was well and truly night time when we got to the very overpacked Wilsons Car Parking in Harrington St, The Rocks.
Once inside the carpark it was bumper to bumper care looking dor a vacant spot to park to go and check out Vivid. It took me over 1 hour to finally get a park, I was well and truly pissed off by now. The clowns running the car park should have had it monitored and closed being full already.
Anyway, after all that we were checked in so it was time for a quiet beer somewhere and to check out Vivid from our little balcony room.
For a meal and few beers we venture to Harts Pub, a very short 300 metre stroll from the Rendezvous Hotel in The Rocks.
Tomorrow our adventure around Syndey for 2 days would begin. as well as revisiting all our favourite pubs and dining establishments.
