The Putty Road

Steep winding Putty Road
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I'd heard about the Putty Road when doing basic training at Singleton and how dangerous the road was. But today and of course 40 years later we handled the Putty just like any other road and now it is Hyway 69. It winds and follows ridges and the road climbs and decends and the driver sees only the black line ahead. There is no room for any error, although NSW plated cars still passed in dangerous places. I've come to the conclusion that the reason there are so many little crosses along the side of the road is that in NSW the drivers are not tollerant, can't have a car in front of them, Follow too close and drive too fast and don't give themselves time to think . I had a chat with a semi driver, he was happily following us and we discused when he could pass, when he saw I was towing with a Pajero he was even happier, great cars he said. So we stopped at Kurrajong for lunch. It was just like Mont Ville but smaller and had a lovely little antique shop with quite a number of treasures, but what do you do with them while traveling. On to Bilpin, Bell and finally into Lithgow. Getting closer to Lithgow we saw the signs for the Zig Zag railway and what a huge crowd they had there too. They run steam on weekends and diesel on weekdays and open 7 days. There was a small arms museum and lots of really old buildings, so we'll have a bit to look at. Bit of a long drive and we couldn't find a sign directing us to a van park. We pulled over and asked an old man who was walking his dog. Lovely big park and very laid back, pay on the day you leave. Beautiful trees and no doubt I'll get around and get some photos for tomorrows mailing. Decisively cooler here and even I have long woolly pants on. We were settled in to the park by 3:30pm and had a nice warm cup of tea and some arnotts gingernuts. Then a sleep, I must be getting old considering we only drove 261 Kilometers today, but I think it was the intensity and concentration. I'm pleased we had sequencial gears because on most of the range I stayed in third gear and one area right back to first.