Location is that of our youngest daughter - Simone - that's pronounced the French way... not Simoan!
Anyway, she rang us last week & asked if we were in a position to assist with the staffing arrangements to help with funding for their local primary school which can only accommodate a small number of children - 24 at the moment & only one teacher.
Naturally we agreed to assist where/whenever possible... we were subsequently listed for 12:00 on Friday - yesterday - Yep, Good Friday, first day of the long weekend &, apart from the following Monday, possibly the biggest travel day on the roads!
As it normally takes us about 2 hours to drive there via Katoomba & Lithgow... with the expected increase in traffic we decided to hit the road at 08:00 on Friday morning. Yep, we were right... lots of traffic on the road with a large majority being the big 4X4's with either trailers, camper trailers, pop up caravans or just huge canvas tents/sleeping bags/whatever on the roofracks.
OK. So the initial section on the dual highway heading to Katoomba, whilst busy & naturally a lot slower than it would normally be until we reached Katoomba... then it slowed quite a bit & as the road reduced to a single lane approaching Medlow Bath where it was virtually at a standstill for about 10 mins then progressed at a slow walking pace until we reached the dual highway again through Medlow Bath & on the way to Blackheath.
Once through there it was a normal clear run to Ilford where we arrived at about 11:00.
The set-up was in a council pull in where the coaches assisting railways pick up/drop off passengers, plenty of room for about 15 - 20 cars if they park sensibly (!) yeah right - a quick chat with the off-going staff & we were it. Free Tea/Coffee & packaged biscuits also various cold drinks - Coke/Lemonade/Fanta/& a couple of others as well as fruit drinks in the small cardboard type containers, bottles of water etc. Canned drinks & water bottles were $2 ea along with the fruit drinks. There were some lollies there I'd not seen before... one was largish straws filled with sweet powdery stuff & another sorta (candy belts) (just found out what they were called) strip thingies about 10" long by 1/2" wide covered in some kinda tangy/sweet sugary stuff - tried one, quite refreshing but initially felt like you were chewing on wood. Don't think I'll get a job in advertising!!
Initially it was reasonably steady traffic then it would blow out for about 10 mins & at times cars were jammed in tight but some only stopped to use the toilets there.
We were relieved around 3:45 so ended up doing about a 4 hour shift which was fine, although the back might have had a different interpretation on that issue... but what the hell, it was something different to do & it was all for a bloody good cause.
Received a text from daughter later in the evening... the $$$ value for the day was around the $500 mark. There was a container on the counter for donations to the Ilford Primary School... a number of travelers were extremely generous... putting paper money in - expectancy was simply for spare coins.
Day 1 of a 5 day long weekend.....
