Get out of town

Since on monday, the 1st of november I'm starting my new job here I figured it would be good to get out of the city for a few days.
Looking at the map there are lots of green areas pretty close to Sydney so we decided to go to Yengo national park which is north and on the way to the Hunter Valley, a major wine area of NSW.
The backroad to go there is by Berowra Valley where the road has some nice hairpin turns so will have to come back here one day on the motorbike to fully enjoy them!
At Wisemans Ferry you catch the ferry across the Hawkesbury river. There is a lot of early Australian settlers history here as convicts were forced to build the first roads north through the bushlands and up the hills around 1820. We walk a short part of the 'Great North road' before getting back in the car and talking the 'modern' gravel road to St Alban which is in the south end of the Yengo park.
It being friday afternoon and 5 o'clock, half the population of St Alban (so around 50 people) come to the one bar and we stop as well for a drink.
That turns into a couple more and nice talks with the locals and as it turns out we'll have to stay the night as the next stop is 2 hours further on the gravel road, it gets dark at 7.30 and there will we plenty of wildlife trying to use the roads as well. We don't want to kill any wombats or wallabies so we stay in St Albans and are treated to live Irish music to boost.

The ride through the park is beautiful and mostly gravel and sand but our car (an old '93 Toyota), although rattling, stays in one piece and gets us through without a hitch. We see lots of birds, a goanna running up a tree, wallabies hopping away and at the end of the road there is always a bar with nice cold beer, welcome to Australia!
We don't actually make it for the wine tasting but that'll be another trip soon.