A few hours down the road we arrived at Bathurst Big 4 situated pretty much right next to James favourite toy shop BCF."That aint livin Barry". After setting up the van we sat down with a coldie to discuss our plan of attack while admiring how filthy our van and car had become.Obviously Mount Panorama was first on the list.I'm not really into cars, watching them going round and round a track doesn't really do it for me.The speed limit for cars around the track on a normal day is 6okm, to think what speeds the race cars get up to on race day is mind blowing.James was also amazed at just how steep the track really is.I think it would be great to go to Bathurst one day to actually see the race. (or maybe just sit down and watch it on TV like most blokes do!?)Knowing the track I think will give it a whole new meaning.We took the kids to the park at the top of Mount Panorama (playground=happy kids) It was a disgrace!Rubbish everywhere, the public toilets had glass bottles broken all through them and no toilet paper and just generally a real brothel! You could understand if it was the day after the "Great Race", but for a normal weekday there seems little evidence for them to be defended with.For such an iconic Australian tourist attraction you think the council would pull their finger out and have ago!While there James spent a brief hour going through the National Motor Museum at the Base of the mountain near the entrance to track.He was impressed and said a tour through with some of his mates would have been a lot better.Don't know what he means there?

Bathurst museum is home to an amazing collection of not just dinosaur bones but also a huge collection of different rock types, minerals and historic artifacts both local and from abroad. The kids were extremely impressed with the T-rex dinosaur skeleton the only one in Australia. The mineral displays are set up in a way that both show their creation and also the areas they are found and mined.As someone who has spent time underground helping extract some of these precious minerals James was impressed by the set up.The truly amazing part, as we were told, is that almost the entire collection was built up over years and years by just one man, who then allowed it to be displayed in this museum.The other point of interest inside was the temper display relating to the construction of the first road over the Blue Mountains, by convict labour of course.This road followed the first successful crossing of those mountains by, Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth.Anyone wants to know the date for that crossing James reckons his mother is the one to call?!

Now the girls had put up with the Bathurst tour pretty well, mainly due to the good weather(cold mornings!) and playground at the caravan park, so we decided we were all ready for a day out of town and a tour of the Jenolan Caves.These are located about 75 clicks from Bathurst via Oberon.Our luck with the weather finally failed us this day with drizzly rain and cooler temperatures kicking in early that morning.The drive to the caves took us through Oberon and into the Jenolan village and tourist centre.Having checked out the info we booked ourselves onto a guided 1&1/2 hour tour of the largest cave system.Now there are other caves as well as self guided tours using small recorders which deliver the info to you as you prompt it throughout your tour.We met up with our large group and our guide Dave and entered the caves.The pictures we took were a bit hit and miss but if you look at them you will get a good idea of what we saw.Dave provided interesting commentary with the funniest bits being about the very first days of the cave tours.These would have been very different to the one we have today with powered lights at every turn and handrails as well as heated cars to get back into for the long drive back to Sydney or wherever they would have come from.Our tour was interesting and enjoyable with the kids really getting into it in the end and holding them back amongst the fairly large crowd was a handful.

Our luck with the weather returned on our last day in Bathurst with a glorious sunny day appearing from the gloom of the previous day.We made use of the day in different ways though and were glad for it.James had maintenance to do on the van (Hot water anode and light bulbs) while I had clothes to wash.Apparently our hot water anode was shagged when James pulled it out and can cause troubles such as holes in your tank if not checked and or replaced every six to twelve months depending on usage and water quality.We got the word on this from old Don that we met a few weeks prior.While we did all this as well as wash both the Van and Patrol, the kids ate up the day of sunshine as kids do playgrounds, eating and chasing each other all over the park.

It was the afternoon before we knew it and James took the kids off to check out BCF for a while, while I enjoyed quiet rum in solitude.James returned with the usual armful of "necessities" from his trip and the girls were also happy as they had scored a new soccer ball for their efforts as well as a surprise present for me as well!?Our last day in Bathurst had been both enjoyable and productive (to a small extent on our scale for this year anyway!?) and we now found ourselves staring down the barrel of the Sky Blue states capital city.......Sydney.The thought alone could straighten a banana! Well two kids, a three tonne van and a Nissan, how hard can it be?