I’d loaded everything into the car the night prior to cut down on time spent in the morning, and I’m not sure how much it paid off, but I do know I was in the car pretty quickly. I didn’t leave as early as I’d have liked – I’d adjusted my alarm the night prior to try and get more sleep – but I was on the road soon enough after waking. Aside from having to stop on a main road due to someone deciding to have their nose poking out onto it, it was a smooth drive to the m4.

The rest of the way to The Blue Mountains was as straightforward as it always is, and the road had some traffic, but was mostly quiet. From what I remember, there was some odd overtaking and a P plater speeding, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary.

I got to Katoomba, parked and headed to Hominy Bakery, where I’d made a request for some sourdough in advance. On the way I saw a long line of people waiting for a seafood store to open. It being Christmas Eve being the obvious reason, but I was still a little puzzled. Maybe the store runs out of food quickly. I noticed quite a few of the people were staring at their phones, and I wondered how many of them were from Sydney and moved to Katoomba.

I got to the bakery, got my bread, then headed back to the car to drive to Leura. Originally I’d planned to go to some lookouts before Hominy opened, but putting sleep first stopped that, and it was the right decision, too. I hadn’t had as much as I needed, but I’d had enough to be functional.

I drove to Leura, then dropped a loaf off at Andy’s place. I was also meant to be having coffee at his as I passed through, but he had to cancel due to needing sleep. I dropped the loaf off, sent him a message saying where it was, then went to have breakfast at Freudian Slip. Breakfast wasn’t much to say anything about as I didn’t order anything other than standards, and they were done well enough.

When leaving, I asked the counter staff if Freudian Slip would be open on Boxing Day. They advised it wouldn’t, I wished them a good holiday period, then continued on my drive.

I’d decided to go a route I hadn’t before. It was through a valley and would eventually lead to Jenolan Caves Road, so long as I took the right turns. I’d gone part of the way before, a month or so prior, and turned around when I realised that it was not where I wanted to go at the time and I didn’t know how far it went. So this time I was going to go.

The road became unpaved and flat, and eventually grew a little rough, but nothing unmanageable. Just had to stay on it and keep going. The drive down was pretty smooth, and enclosed by thick bushland, which opened up significantly to cleared land when closer to the flatter, open area. However, the road remained predominantly sided by trees, and so whilst the space beyond was visible, there was still a pleasing shade on the road.

I made the turn I was meant to and ended up at a farm area with no way through. I stopped, thought to myself for a minute or so, saw some people working, got out of the car and walked over to where they were. I called out “Good morning” or “Hello”, something along those lines, and someone I didn’t see, an older, bearded person, approached me.

“It seems I’ve made a fool out of myself and gone the wrong way.”

“Where you looking to go?”

“Megalong Valley.”

“Yeah you’ve gone the wrong way, that’s over that way.” (pointing southward)

“Sorry, I mean toward, um, Bathurst. Recently saw there’s a way through here, but apparently there’s not.”

“Yeah, Apple Maps or Google Maps says there is. Not sure which one.”

“Oh, I’ve done a lot of driving around The Mountains and hadn’t gone down here before. Figured it’d make for a nice drive. Guessing this happens a lot.”

“Yeah. We get people coming down here about once a week looking for the road through.”

“Oh well. Cheers for letting me know, hope you have a good day.”

“You too.”

They walked away and so did I, and I was back in the car, driving back up to town, hoping no vehicles came as there was room only for one for most of that bit of road, until returning to an open gate, where the road widened a little. No issues.

I’d eaten a banana on the drive and had my peel sitting on the front passenger seat. On the way down I’d passed some wheelie bins so I knew I could put the peel in one of them. They weren’t far away, I reached them, and I noticed that they were labelled for a property that wasn’t there. Whilst writing this I’ve realised that it might be for a house further up with a bit of a driveway, but even so I’m not sure why the bins were where they were sitting. Maybe space. I don’t know. Anyway, I threw out my peel, stretched my legs a bit, then continued on. I was almost fully run off the road by a driver who refused to move at one point, but I got back to the highway without further issue.

My next stop was at Mount York. I knew there was a bathroom there and I needed it. Mount York isn’t far from Blackheath, but by the time I got there it was somewhere around ten in the morning. I was hoping to be in Bathurst by this point, but I’d been enjoying the time taken so I wasn’t too fussed. I’d messaged Ewe earlier to let him know I’d be there by midday, and it still looked like that would be the case.

Whenever I’m somewhere away from the city, I get angry when I hear a lot of people loudly talking or blasting music in a quiet space. I get why people do that, but at the same time I don’t. I don’t understand why you’d want to bring the city with you when you get away from it. I mention this as, when I arrived at Mount York and got out of the car, I could hear someone blasting a four four electronic beat that didn’t change for minutes on end. I saw quite a few campers set up in the area as there’s some camping space there, and I didn’t understand why, in the morning, someone decided to blast music. In a space where you get the sounds of the landscape. I don’t get why you’d be fine to ruin that, especially with a really monotonous bit of dance music. At the very least, pick something that offers something. If you’re gonna show that you can’t let go of the noise of the city, then at least do it tastefully.

So I went to the bathroom, took some photos and left. There are spots on Mount York I want to go to, but for this visit I wanted to keep it a bit shorter, and I also felt put off. And so back to the highway I went, then down Victoria Pass and, consequently, into the plains after The Blue Mountains. The highway had finished being redeveloped since I was last in this spot, earlier in 2025. Or at least, it appeared to have finished being redeveloped. It felt like slower driving and I’m fairly certain it wasn’t, and it was strange, too. But that didn’t matter as I was getting closer.

There was a café along Jenolan Caves Road that I’d passed a few times. I wanted to stop there in the past but never did, and so this time I decided I would. It was still early enough in the day for a detour and I was still on track to get to Bathurst by midday. So I left the highway where Jenolan Caves Road started, and I drove until I came to what I thought was an interesting field, as well as an interesting tree.

I stopped and took photos for a while, and I thought about what I wanted to do. I could get to Bathurst from where I was by going via Duckmaloi Road. I hadn’t been that way to Bathurst before and I didn’t know how long it would take.

I didn’t return to the highway.

—

I sent Ewe a message advising I’d be a bit later than intended, then resumed driving down Jenolan Caves Road. Ewe called me soon after I started driving so I pulled over as soon as I could, which put me in another nice spot to take photos, which I did. I told him my plan, told him I’d see him as soon as I got there, took my photos, then drove on to the café I wanted to stop at, which was closed. Annoying, but understandable.

I reached Duckmaloi Road and continued on. I’d been down some of it before, but only for about five, ten minutes. I hadn’t gone further and all I knew to expect was road, and road was what I got. I also had an easy time with the drive, though maybe it’s more accurate to say that I had a relaxed and comfortable time. Great scenery, both open and closed. The road would rise, crest and go for a while, following the lines of the hills, and it’d descend and there’d be widely open space, and it was great to witness. It was great to experience.

I saw cows, and in one particular field there was a herd, with one on a rock. I figured that if I headed back that way I’d get a photo of it.

The drive was great, and the music I had playing fit well, and I felt cool and boring and it didn’t matter, and I kept going, and eventually I reached Oberon.

I hadn’t been in Oberon since the nineties, when I was a kid. I don’t remember the details, but I remember being there with my dad. I think we were mainly passing through. We may have stopped for a brief break, but that’s the most I can remember. Coming back as an adult was a different experience, mainly because I couldn’t remember what it was like when I was last there. The place was quiet and busy, and it felt small. It is small, but it felt small.

I stopped as I wanted to grab coffee and I needed to use the bathroom, and when heading to the bathroom I saw this artwork of a gnome riding a wombat. Curious. I was also able to get a coffee that wasn’t good, but wasn’t awful. It could’ve been much better, but it could’ve been worse. Ultimately, it gave me some rest, and that was more important than the coffee’s quality.

I soon was back on the road and once more there were few cars around. I’d seem some here and there on the way to Oberon, but my drive was mostly a solitary affair and I very much preferred it that way. For most of the rest of the distance to Bathurst, however, it wasn’t, and that was by my own hand.

I saw a P plater in a ute rapidly catching up to me, and naturally I saw them overtake me at the first opportunity they could. I was going the speed limit and they were going well over it. So I decided to follow them. I wanted to see how fast they were going. It all worked out fine, but this was an incredibly bad idea. It’s important to stress how dangerous speeding is. Driving a motorised vehicle is already a dangerous thing. Making it more so is foolish. Few are the circumstances where speeding is acceptable, and this was not one of them.

The P plater was going quite fast, and they also had trouble staying in their lane, which was especially worrisome when they almost went into the start of a dividing barrier which they missed by metres. They were fortunate that they didn’t have to deal with oncoming traffic at any bends, and they were fortunate for the times they managed to avoid driving off the road, too.

Eventually they got stuck behind someone, and once I had the opportunity, I overtook both. The P plater proceeded to overtake when they no longer could, but they stayed at the speed limit at that point. They eventually ended up stuck behind another driver who was going slow, after I overtook that one, which wasn’t far out from Bathurst.

And so I reached Bathurst and took the turns I needed to take to get to Ewe and Anna’s, and I was there with enough time for Ewe and I to get lunch.

—

I came to the front door, Ewe answered, we hugged, got stuff out of my car and brought it in, then we headed off to a pub. It was a direct walk and we were talking and enjoying it, and the weather was pleasantly warm, with enough open sky adding to that pleasantness. We walked into the bistro area of the pub we walked to, went in and it was quiet. The lights were off and it was a sudden change in atmosphere. Quiet, still, dark. Full and empty, and it felt like being stoned. A sudden, imperceptible dilation of time as we moved through this space, among other things. It felt more so when we went through the bistro and into the pub area, which was well-lit and inviting, and had people in there.

We went through to exit and then walked to another pub that was doing food. We ordered, and ate, and we talked about things that were meaningless and meaningful, and once done we headed back. I can’t remember if Anna was back yet, or if she got back shortly after us, but I saw her and gave her a big hug. It was not long until Ewe went to work, and I told Anna everything that had happened.

I’d given Anna some details about the breakup earlier in the year, but I never felt right about telling her everything. I felt that if I had, I’d be dragging her down, emotionally, which was a silly thing to think as Anna is a pretty strong and understanding person. So I gave her the details about what happened, the stupid things I said at the time, my concerns about seeing someone new, and what I liked that was now happening. It was a lot of information, but Anna listened and I was glad she did. And eventually she also left as she had a dinner to go to, and I had the house to myself.

I spent my time wanting to get either writing or photo processing done, and instead I checked out a bit, annoyed the cats and dog a little, then left to pick up Ewe when he finished work. I picked him up and we went back, and shortly after we returned we took the dog for a walk. I figured we’d just go to the park nearby, but we ended up walking a while, or at least it felt like a while. More meaningless and meaningful conversation that went in all sorts of directions before we headed back and went to sleep.

Come the morning and it’s Christmas. Ewe and I got up early and we went to Mount Panorama. We took the dog with us and went walking, and we walked this meandering loop that went down the mountain part of the way, which meant we had to walk back up, and that was a tough walk. And it was cold, but not cold enough to warrant multiple layers for long. The dog handled it well. Ewe and I, less so. But we managed.

As we walked around (in easier walking areas) I talked about how awesome it was that we’d come as far in life as we had, that we’d gotten to that point. And to me it is as we’d both been through a lot of things and a lot of pressure, and maybe we didn’t come out fine or perfect, but we still got through some dark and intense situations, and we kept going. We had some fun times that we’re happy are in the past and not things we’re still doing, and we had a falling out and repaired our friendship. We’re better people now, and healthier people, and it’s great that we’ve survived what we have.

And we kept walking, but there came a point where we decided to head back. We had to do some preparation for people coming around, and that happened smoothly enough, and people eventually came around. There was the giving of the gifts, the consumption of the food, and the being wrecked from eating too much, leading to me sitting on the couch and tuning out whilst everyone else enjoyed themselves. Ewe went for a nap at one point, and eventually I had to go sit outside for a while.

My step-mum called and we talked a bit. I updated her on life things as did she, and I talked about the drive to Bathurst and about how I was journeying, because whilst it wasn’t over significantly long distances, the driving I was doing was very much a journey. I was spending a god bit of time on the road, and if I didn’t have to come back home, once I’d left Ewe and Anna’s I would’ve gone west and further into unfamiliar places.

My step-mum talked about how it was journeying, and told me about the last time she drove an alpine highway in New Zealand. She’s from NZ, and she told me about how this highway is about three-and-a-half hours and most of the time she’d driven it was to get across the mountains but the last time she did she took around seven hours to do it as she kept stopping to take in the scenery.

After recommending Supertramp’s “Take the Long Way Home” (followed by recommending Supertramp in general), we said our goodbyes. Soon after, Ewe came out and we talked a bit, and about an hour after that we left the Christmas celebrations. We wanted to go for a swim in a river that was about thirty minutes away, so that’s what we did. And so we headed off to the river, and we saw a snake on the road on the way, but other than that (and the massive scenery), the drive was uneventful.

The river we went to was fine enough. It was pretty calm and shallow in most parts, and I slowly spun in a spot for a bit. We wandered a bit and came back, and it was just nice and relaxing, and maybe that’s what we needed at that point, because we were away enough from people, and we had a sense of quiet that we were disrupting for ourselves in bits. Just pleasant and refreshing.

When looking up the river, it almost felt like not being in Australia. The vegetation felt lush and helped make the river feel cool, creating enough overhang and framing to feel like it keeps warm air away. It made wandering around the river feel a bit different than if the vegetation was more typically scraggly, but that also had to do with the river not being as deep as it likely is at other times. But overall, it was good. It was worth going there.

We drove back with a stop along the way to look over the plains, and the snake gone, and some sheep at the side of the road. We were driving back around sunset, and due to my unwillingness to stop at some points due to the spots not being optimal, we missed the strongest parts but that was okay. That was fine because we still saw it, and it was nice to have on the drive back. It was nice to have as we got back to Bathurst to relax and eventually go to sleep.

—

Ewe and I woke early in the morning. We talked about things that were meaningless and meaningful, Ewe made me coffee, and after some time I said my goodbyes to Ewe and Anna, then left. I didn’t want to get caught in holiday traffic and figured I could make good time leaving earlier rather than later.

I’d decided to go back via Oberon and Duckmaloi Road as, whilst the highway took less time, it was only around thirty or forty minutes less and I wanted to take in different, less familiar scenery again. I took a few stops and took in the scenery, and once again was mostly alone for the drive.

During those stops I thought about how much calmer and relaxed I was driving along with a sense of space. I’d like to believe that I drive well enough, though still have a good deal to learn and improve on. During the drive to Bathurst and the one back, however, I was driving far better than usual. I thought about how it was likely due to being less stressed about other vehicles around me. I realised my thoughts were also clearer and, whilst I didn’t have as much sleep as I’d have liked, I was not feeling it much.

When I’m away from the city, I generally find that I’m more functional. This is especially so when I’ve more space to myself and more quiet. I’m more alert but I’m not stressed, and I seem to handle stressful situations better, too. I came to a realisation whilst looking over most cleared land for agricultural purposes – these great, open spaces full of everything in the world of these areas as well as full of emptiness – that, whilst I do need a place to return to, I function better when journeying. I am healthier when I am in motion, and I need to work toward being in motion more often than I’ve been in the past.

This was an important realisation, but it wasn’t a big one, or it didn’t feel a big one. I think it had been coming to me for a long time in pieces, and it took time for me to see how those pieces fit together. It took time to understand.

Before reaching Oberon, I saw what I think was a shed with some anti-wind farm signs. At first I thought about how wind farms are pointless and a bit unintelligent to protest. I then thought about the worldview that someone in that area likely has, and what they might and might not be exposed to, and I thought about the importance of educational outreach. The importance of critical thinking. For a few people in regional areas, the landscape is as part of their identity as their sense of community. Lack of information combined with anything that might forcibly alter things in a way that creates a permanent presence might lead to unthinking resistance. Wind farms are a good thing to have, and I feel that people pushing against them likely comes from failure to attempt genuine communication and failure to genuinely understand the concerns and where those are coming from.

Oberon was quieter than on Christmas Eve, and aside from some teenagers and someone watching me from their car before they left, there were maybe three or four others around. It was a quick bathroom stop for me before I continued on, and I was happy to keep it that way. I still had a bit of driving to do before getting back to Sydney.

I saw no cow on a rock, but I did eventually get stuck behind someone driving slow, which was quite frustrating. It was even more frustrating when the speed limit dropped in places but they didn’t slow down and kept going at the speed they were going. I saw signs indicating that the café I wanted to stop at previously was open, so I stopped there just to give myself some distance between myself and the slow driver (and the other cars they were holding up). The café was still closed. I got back in the car and continued on, and eventually caught up to the slow driver again. I overtook them when I got back to the highway.

The rest of the drive was quite uneventful. I hit traffic around Blackheath and broke free of it somewhere around Katoomba or Leura. I ended up in Leura to get breakfast and got a foccacia sandwich and coffee at some place. Both were nothing to write home about and both were overpriced. The drive from there had traffic I was used to dealing with on the drive home from The Mountains, and the music that played, liked the trip out west and the drive back, was for the most part fitting and when it wasn’t, was at least satisfying to have playing.

It’s difficult for me to write about the trip in a succinct manner as right now my thoughts are scattered. I don’t have the kind of clarity that I have when away from the city. I hope I got across the feel of it. I hope some of that came across, because it was a journey, and it was an experience, and I desire to be on the road again, further from Sydney and away from where is familiar to me. Away from traffic, and with my thoughts and the space around me, giving me the room to think and the time to appreciate, as I head to wherever I am going.