Since I am already way down here on the edge of tomorrow, while Chrissy C was visiting for the holidays we hopped across to Sydney, Australia for a few days. Fortunately, Sydney is only about a 3 hour drive from Bathurst – so we obviously had to make that trip to the wonderful Mount Panorama circuit, home of the Bathurst 1000. Of course, that’s only part of the story, so lets fill in some details.
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I have been in New Zealand since the end of September, and the last time I had driven was on the way to Dulles Airport before I flew out. We are also in the land of right hand drive. The easiest (but expensive) route was to just rent a car when we landed at Sydney Airport and just hold onto the entire trip. To at least have some familiarity, I reserved a Mk7 VW Golf through Europcar and once we cleared customs in Sydney and spent about 45 minutes in line at the rental counter, away we went. I was the first to hop behind the wheel … and not much later regretting it.
The car came equipped with GPS, which was great, but Sydney is a horrible city to drive through and the hotel we were staying at (a Hilton) had an official address on a road that didn’t allow cars. First we tried to just find the other street it was supposed to be on, but ended up at the wrong street (of the same name) in a different part of Sydney. Then we found the right one, but the GPS was trying to direct me the wrong way down a one-way street, down a bus-only road, and around and around in circles. After about an hour of this we found our way to the hotel so we could rest up for our track experience the following morning.
After a light breakfast, we hopped in the car early to navigate out of Sydney while there wasn’t much traffic (of both the vehicle and pedestrian kind). Fortunately, it was also a Sunday, so that also helped with the traffic. The drive out was on the “Great Western Highway” through the Blue Mountains, but don’t let the name fool you. For most of the trip it was just a two-lane road with lots of Kangaroo and Wombat crossing signs, dangerous curves and steep slopes.
When going to a “race track” we have become accustomed to purpose built facilities on most of our adventures. Bathurst, on the other hand, is a “tourist road” that has homes, a winery and parks around it that just happens to be a race track a few times a year. That said, the garages along the front stretch put many US facilities to shame even though they are infrequently used. We were driving along, following the GPS and then we were just suddenly on the “track” which normally operates as a 4 mile two-way public road with a 60 kph speed-limit.
When we first got there I just started driving around the track. It was very hard to keep my foot from going to the floor on the long straightaways, but with opposing traffic, pedestrians walking the loop of the track and he walls, 60 kph was pushing it in some of the corners. Both “The Cutting” and the esses were sections of the track that always claimed cars in Forza, and having gone through there in person it is even easier to see why.
After our first few loops around the track we pulled in to visit the National Racing Museum next to the track. At this point, I had been driving for about 3 1/2 hours, on the wrong side of the road, from the wrong side of the car so I was mentally exhausted and needed the break. At first glance the museum doesn’t actually look like that much, but inside is a different story. Their collection of racing bikes and cars from the history of the Mount Panorama circuit is nothing short of impressive.
The museum covers the entire history of the circuit which was built as a combination tourist road/dirt track and opened back in 1938. It also includes a history of Holden and how they adapted GM designs to work in the Australian outback terrain and climate. There are even a few motor fragments from failed components and a few complete motors (including a BMW M50 for some reason) out on display. Once we finished taking in the museum, we headed back out to drive around the track more.
Chrissy hopped behind the wheel of a RHD car for the first time and set off for some laps of her own. Close walls, blind corners, and opposing traffic is the perfect time to learn driving from the other side of the car, right? She made a few trips in race direction, and then out of curiosity, made some clockwise laps as well. We pulled back into the museum lot to swap again so I could make a few more laps before we went off to find lunch and start the long drive back to Sydney. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any GoPro cameras with me so the best we have is some shaky cam cell-phone footage (below) but that will have to do, sorry.
All said and done, the trip to Mount Panorama was worth it. Sure we didn’t get to drive it at speed, but we still drove it! The drive to and from Bathurst was beautiful twisty mountain roads through foreign terrain and unique sites. We both experienced driving from the “wrong” side of the car, saw some amazing views and even had a really good lunch in Bathurst. Maybe next time I will drive Bathurst on a racing game I will have a bit of an advantage 😉
