Bit of a slow morning for me on account of the shutdown party yesterday, but got ready and on the road by 8:30. We headed up to Yass, along the Hume for a bit, then turned left at Gunning. Had a brief stop so Stu could take his jacket off and get his phone organised. Then continued north. It was quite a pretty drive. Stu was feeling pretty tired (he barely slept the night before), so I drove from Tuena.
Countryside north of Gunning
Wind turbines near Gurrundah
Bridge across the Abercrombie River
Got to Bathurst around the middle of the day and headed straight for Mount Panorama. I was going to drive around, but in the end Stu drove so I could take photos. Annoyingly, even on a Friday, not a school holiday, the place was *packed*. There was a non stop stream of traffic. So I couldn't reproduce the photo we took in 1986 of us pushing red car over the finish line. I didn't even get a photo of the finish line at the right angle. So that was pretty annoying. Then at the top I was trying to find the spot we took another photo, but didn't realise where it was until after we were done. I haven't looked at the photos to see if I got the shot. I also wanted to get a photo of the view, but the whole top of the track has a concrete barrier around and there was only one entry point waaaay back. So I jumped the fence. As you do. (I wasn't the only one, in fact I followed another couple).
Pit Straight at Mt Panorama
Pit Straight at Mt Panorama
Control tower at Mt Panorama
Mountain Straight at Mt Panorama
View from McPhillamy Park on Mt Panorama
Brocks Skyline on Mt Panorama
Super annoying crash barrier making it hard for me to get the viewing platform
View from Mount Panorama
View towards Rydges Mount Panorama
Mt Panorama panorama
Viewing platform at Mt Panorama
Windy road on Brocks Skyline
View down Conrod Straight
Chicane in Conrod Straight
View up to the top of Mt Panorama
Headed back down into Bathurst so we could find some lunch. The town centre was chaos. Traffic everywhere. Madness. Found a shopping centre car park and parked there, then went and got Subway for lunch. Ate it in the park across the road which was quite nice.
Bathurst War Memorial Carillon
Bathurst War Memorial
Bathurst War Memorial
Then we headed for Lithgow. Went and checked in at the motel, and dumped our bags, then headed out again.
View towards old Wallerawang Power Station
Our room at the Zig Zag Motel in Lithgow
Our room at the Zig Zag Motel in Lithgow
Tiny bathroom in our room at the Zig Zag Motel in Lithgow
We went down to the reserve off Bells Road at Oaky Park to have a look at the Zig Zag Railway viaducts from below. But there was a sign saying keep out, due to the risk of falling trees from last summer's bushfires. We could see glimpses of the viaducts from a distance, but epic disappointed I couldn't get any good shots.
Keep Out sign at the bottom of the Zig Zag Railway
The only view of the Zig Zag Railway viaducts I could get
So we headed out to the Glow Worm Tunnel. If we were redoing the trip from 1981 properly we would have done the walk from the Newnes end, but it just wasn't going to work logistically, so we did it from the Lithgow end (which we did in 1989). The road out was ok, but there were a lot of potholes, and we couldn't really see them because of the tree shadows across the road. So it was a bit of a tense drive. Plus it was fairly late in the afternoon and it was out of mobile range, so if anything had happened we could have gotten fairly stuck (although there were still a few cars out at the glow worm end could have maybe gotten help from on their way back).
On the road out to the Glow Worm Tunnel
Tunnel on the Glow Worm Tunnel Road
Valley south of the Glow Worm Tunnel
So we finally made it to the car park, and walked down to the Glow Worm Tunnel. There was a good spot near the beginning that had a lot on the roof which was pretty cool. We walked all the way through the tunnel to the bottom entrance, then came back and got some photos of some of the worms. Very cool!
Tunnel Creek
On the Glow Worm Tunnel walking track
Stu on the bridge over Tunnel Creek
View along Tunnel Creek
Stair case near the bridge over Tunnel Creek
Tree making a comeback
Stu on the Glow Worm Tunnel walking track
Eastern entrance of the Glow Worm Tunnel
Ferns near the entrance to the Glow Worm Tunnel
Looking into the Glow Worm Tunnel
Stu taking a selfie in the Glow Worm Tunnel
Western entrance of the Glow Worm Tunnel
Gully at the western entrance of the Glow Worm Tunnel
Western entrance of the Glow Worm Tunnel
Single glow worm
Two glow worms
Glow worms along the roof of the Glow Worm Tunnel
Eastern entrance of the Glow Worm Tunnel
The sun had set by the time we got back to the car, so we took the drive back very slowly and carefully. We even saw one car going the other way !? No bouncy bouncies though.
Inside the road tunnel on Glowworm Tunnel Road
Got back to Lithgow and parked on the main street and looked for dinner. We ended up getting western Chinese. Turns out two dishes plus rice is a lot of food. Whoops.
Stu and all our dinner at the Lithgow Palace Chinese Restaurant
Headed back to the motel to collapse. The room was nice enough, although the bathroom was tiny. It even had a microwave, I could have brought back leftovers :)
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