East Coast Day 3 - Sydney and Van Adventures

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This morning we packed up out of our hostel and started walking to pick up our Wicked Van. The walk was long to begin with but was made even longer after we got lost. We finally made it to the wicked depot in our dresses that we had put on in the morning because we didn't want to change again before the ballet at the Opera house. Our van that we will have for the next 18 days until we get to Cairns is adorned with Guitar Hero graphics!! The back of it reads: "Guitar Hero - for people who can't read tabs", a little ironic since none of us can play the guitar nor read tabs - but have all tried Guitar Hero!

After filling up with gas, Kaurie was the brave sole to try her hand and driving on the wrong (left) side of the road first, we made our way to down town Sydney, and after getting a little bit lost again, parked in the Opera House underground parking lot - it stood out a little bit. The Ballet was fantastic, it was four short ballets by Jerome Robbins. We then walked over to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which was free to get in! The Museum was really interesting with a display from an Australin artist Fiona Hall, fantastic pieces in all sorts of mediums: sardine cans, beads, soap and currency to name a few.

Our final sight of Sydney was driving over the Harbour Bridge in our Wicked Van on the start of our adventure North to warmer weather. Our first long drive, may have been shorter if we would not get lost, but it seems to be a theme of ours - we are going to have to start doubling all our driving times. In addition to learning that we get lost ALOT we are also learning that this van is not the most powerful diesel run thing in the world, many times we were driving foot on the floor and going maybe 80 km/h - if we were driving uphill we would actually start decelerating, it is going to be an interesting 18 days!

The first camp site in Ana Bay, about 45 min North of Newcastle was fantastic! They were very accomadating waking up when we arrived some time after 11pm to show us to our spot and then warning us of the 50 triathletes that would be coming in from the pub pretty late after a successful race. In addition there was a pet joey (baby kangaroo) named Jocey around that we were not to feed but were more than welcome to pet. We would recommend Melaleuca Surfside Backpackers to any friend, before we left we checked out the beautiful beach a short 5 min walk from the site.

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