19—30 Aug—Cassilis, NSW
Leaving Morisset we travelled north on the M1/Pacific Motorway and we turned left onto the Hunter Expressway and then left onto the Golden Highway toward Cassilis—pronounced (according to locals) as “CASS-ilis”, not “ca-SIL-is” (although naturally Google only understands the former!). We stopped at Merriwa Bakery and had pies and a pasty for lunch; delicious. Between Merriwa and Cassilis the truck flashed up the warning light for overheating, and we had to pull over three times to add coolant and water to keep us going; although that didn’t really help much as most seemed to go straight through onto the road.
Eventually we turned right off the Golden Highway onto Cassilis Rd and limped into the Cassilis Bowling Club campground and set up. It was a lovely spot to stop with the Munmurra River out our kitchen window. The river was a trickle when we first arrived, but after 30+mm of rain in 24 hours on the second/third day there it looked more like a raging torrent!
I had a poke around the engine on the following day and couldn’t find anything much other than pink coolant everywhere. We weren’t keen to start the motor to investigate further so called for the NRMA. They were really quick (he was just down the road on another job) and having seen similar before he suggested it was a seal on the coolant line needing a workshop to repair. As it’s still under warranty, we called Iveco and the Mudgee dealer sent out a tilt-tray to collect it take it back to them – 80+ km away.
I went into Mudgee with the towie and hired a car as the dealer reckoned it would be a few day at least, with a weekend in the middle.
So we’re up to Day 6 at only our second stop – with probably will be a few more days yet.
However, we can highly recommend the Cassilis Bowling Club campground – although it did get a bit muddy when we had 30+mm of rain in 24 hours. The pub has good food a couple of nights a week, Erika’s Café does an excellent breakfast Thursday and Friday and the Club has pretty good meals two nights also. All in all, quite impressive for a town of only between 100 and 200 people! And of course, everyone is fantastically “country” friendly.
We explored the area during our stay including a hike through the Goulburn River National Park to the The Drip, it was quite beautiful and peaceful. Merriwa is an historic town where they have painted silos, and it’s planet—Pluto—is the end of that leg of the Virtual Solar System drive. Gulgong is an historic town with a great bakery cafe and very narrow streets. Coolah is another small historic town where we visited the Info Centre, explored the Black Stump areas around the town and checked out their part of the Virtual Solar System drive—Neptune—along the Merriwa leg. It was also good to visit the bakery for coffee and lunch.
It’s Friday, Day 11 of our trip and we’ve travelled to Mudgee to pick-up the repaired truck at last, it only took eight days to finish it.
See also 2025 “Morisset to Tumby Bay, SA to Granville” trip.
