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Published: April 6th 2010
(couldn’t resist this title - its being used on one of the radio stations to advertise an Easter sale and it did make me grin!)
Woke up this morning, and looked out excitedly - most disappointed that the tent had actually lasted the whole night!! Ah well!
Last night John managed to load all of our blog entries, so those of you that subscribe will feel overloaded the next time you log on, it was the excitement of getting WiFi access after a dearth of McDonalds! We were also hoping to be able to Skype, and went over early (for us) this morning to see if we could find anyone on line back in the UK, but no luck! Ah well, hopefully we’ll have access in the hotel in Cairns next week, so please do try us if you can - we want to show off our suntans before the rain in Queensland washes it away!
We drove out of Canberra and the ACT and into NSW for the umpteenth time, over the mountains and then to the flattest plain you ever did see (unless you’re Canadian, in which case you’ve probably seen bigger as well as flatter). We drove along at a sedate speed (well, only slightly over the ridiculously low speed limit) as the double indemnity clause is being invoked in NSW too, except here they call it double demerits - sounds like getting detention at school! Radio reception was intermittent as usual - unbelievable when you think we were driving down a motorway linking 2 such large cities (Remembrance H’way). I was rather shocked that they report the road death toll for the holiday on the news - so far this Easter there had been 6 deaths, then stop press: another motorcyclist fatality in Victoria (it seems nearly all the accidents have involved motorbikes). We were also amazed to see cyclists on the hard shoulder of the highway - not something you’d see at home - that’s a news report waiting to happen we thought...
We pulled off half way down to fill up with petrol and John was breathalysed! The police were randomly pulling in traffic that was coming from the motorway and testing them - at 11 in the morning! The machine started beeping and I was sitting there thinking ‘he shouldn’t have had that glass of wine last night’, but luckily it was a good beep and we were sent on our way. He said it’s the first time he’d ever been stopped and tested.
In no time at all (well, about 3 hours) we were pulling into the outskirts of Sydney, looking for Parramatta where we’d been told we could get ferry rides straight down to Sydney harbour. Oh my goodness, the traffic was awful, or perhaps it’s just that we’re not used to it after weeks of barely seeing any other cars! Like the outskirts of most big cities, it really was quite awful - we’ve discovered why there aren’t many McDonalds anywhere else, it’s because they’ve all come to Sydney ... we lost count of how many very quickly. It appears that they’re vying for road space with car lots - surely there can’t be that many people wanting to buy cars and eat junk food in the world, let alone in one city in Australia.
I was reminded of the time that Gill and Gordon went to Tuscany in Italy for a holiday. One day they set off for this place on the map called Firenze - it was so awful with all its industrial units and yucky districts that they turned round and went back to their villa. It was only when they got home that they realised that Firenze is actually Florence in Italian! But trust me, I know how they felt today - I really wasn’t taking to Sydney in any great way.
We eventually got to Parramatta and drove round trying to find the Tourist Information. Everywhere else we’ve been, it’s been well advertised - here it seemed to be their best kept secret. After being snobby about the McDonalds we’d been passing (because our blog is up to date!) we found ourselves pulling into one so that I could go online and find out where the Tourist Info was! (we also needed the loo and a break from the road!). Blow me down, we were on the right road, so I left John recharging the PC and took off alone on foot (yes, it is possible in times of need). Soon I’d passed the umpteenth adult shop and several ladies of ill repute (well, I’m assuming they were, but it might be the fashion here for women of a certain age to wear thigh-length boots, skin-tight silver dresses, too much make-up, but little else, in which case I apologise and humbly recommend they try another look)
The Tourist Info, doing its best not to be found, was in completely the other direction! Still, never to be daunted, I tracked it down and found out what we needed to know: yes, we can get a ferry tomorrow; and no, there’s no space in any campsite in Sydney. Just in case you’re thinking that it’s just us being numpties, there were some Americans in the Tourist Info who were also parked in the McDonalds for the same reason we were!!
We are now staying on a campsite 30 “klicks” outside Sydney in Emu Plains which was recommended by one of the Garys a while ago. We had been warned that this weekend would be a problem for accommodation, so whilst we haven’t got a powered site, we have somewhere to lay our heads without me worrying that the police will want to move us on in the middle of the night! We also managed to persuade the receptionist to give us 10%!d(MISSING)iscount, and we’re now sitting in the bbq area overlooking a pretty little wooded area, supping a glass of wine and listening to music, so life’s not too bad! (and I’m very carefully not mentioning the fact that it’s raining and very windy...)
Now here’s a thought - we’ve been taking photos of all the roadsigns with the animals on them (I feel guilty that we haven’t jumped to take photos of the signs with cows, sheep or people on horses - they can fend for themselves), but we have actually seen quite a lot of roadkill on our travels. (NB: I didn’t ask Valerie & John what the scores were in Roadkill for indigenous animals in Oz). Someone (probably a Gary, but I thought it was Jenny & Benny) was telling us about telling us about a friend who stopped to pick up a dead possum ... except it was ‘playing possum’ and didn’t appreciate being picked up - literally tore the shirt of this poor chap’s back!
As I said earlier, all the blogs were uploaded last night, which didn’t give me a chance to add thoughts from the middle of the night, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just add a little about Chester. As we said, we were introduced to the joys of campfires at Yellow Pinch Dam with Ray and Julie, and also Chester and Annette who were on their way to a ‘proper’ site at Lakes Entrance to meet up with some friends for a couple of weeks. Within seconds of meeting him, Chester started telling me about his trip to SA with the lads fishing - he even gave me a rundown of the fish they caught, but strangely I blanked out after the word ‘fish’! Ray had had trouble finding enough wood for the fire, so Chester (real name Guy, but prefers to be called Chester) (I didn’t like to ask why) goes back to his van and comes back with a chainsaw almost as big as him (ok, he was shorter than the rest of us). Of all the essential camping gear I’ve ever thought of, a chainsaw just didn’t come into it! (Came in useful though!) Having said that, when we stopped for petrol today, I nipped into Aldi for some bread and bits, and their Easter special offer was chainsaws - I saw a couple of guys struggling out under the weight ... obviously off for a night or two in the van...
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Pete Phillips
non-member comment
Sydney
Greetings from Malta and I officially have a sunburnt bounce much to Jeanette's amusement Like you we were not impressed with Sydney but thought Manly was great, and you ladies of the night were probably not far from the Hotel we stayed in. This was not the hotel we had booked but the one we ended up in due to total ozzie incompetence. I also agree about the number of car lots and run down areas but I think that you forgot to mention the shops with bars on doors and windows or the Tattoo joints which we kept finding. Hope you enjoy NZ we loved it but were there in November when it was probably warmer. Pete