DAY 15 – 7,704 KM. Town 22: This is addictive! I’ve been home for 3 days and I’ve already had the urge to go and visit another of the ‘Ive been everywhere’ locations. I’ve been sensible though and just returned from a local trip to Wyong – a round trip of 60 km.

With Wyong being on my doorstep I could find the town without problem and without the need for the GPS. However, I don’t visit this town often as nothing there can not be found more locally and also because it means driving up the Wyong Road. The Wyong road is a great stretch of duel carriageway, but it has one problem – far too many roundabouts! In what is a short drive there are too many roundabouts to count and I can still feel the blood swirling around in my head still even now.

Anyway, I get to Wyong at around 11 am and find the hustling capital of Wyongshire (with a lot of administrative council offices) to be busy with people going about their pre-christmas activities. The town centre does not really interest me so I decide to find the first of two locations a bit of earlier research indicated may be of interest. Firstly the Alison Homestead.

Alison Homestead

The Alison Homestead was built by a Mr Charles Alison in about 1885 and is now home to the Wyong District Museum & Historical Society. Sadly, some 124 years later when I decide to visit the closed sign is on the door and it will not be open again until the new year. The house is very pleasant though with its 2 hectares of green surroundings and colourful flower beds, it is just a shame I can not comment on the interior and the local historical artefacts which are no doubt inside. That said, I understand, when open, a guided tour takes you through the seven rooms of historical displays, including kerosene-powered toasters and irons, an Edison cylinder phonograph, dictographs, a 1922 washing machine and a collection of old radios and telephones.

After saying hello to the two horses that come to see me whilst I trespass up the drive of the homestead to take a couple of photo’s I decide to move on to my next destination, a house called ‘Hakone’.

Hakone 1919

“Hakone’ was built by a Mr Albert Hamlyn Warner in around 1912 and by all accounts he was quite the entrepreneur. Apparently Albert laid many of the water pipes in Elizabeth Street Sydney before making his fortune by investing in land in Burwood and Canley Vale. During 1903 Albert purchased 12,000 acres of land in the Wyong Shire, constructed thirteen retail stores in the main street of Wyong (which still stand today) and over 100 private homes in the area.

Hakone 2009

Unfortunately though it was not my day as a ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’ sign was displayed prominently outside the Hakone house (now called Strathavon). So I take the hint and head off back home.