Tuesday morning. What was meant to be an early start, ended up being nearly noon before we got out of Melbourne and onto the Hume highway.799K to Sydney, all in one day. The less pretty but quicker way to get from point A to B, which was our intent for the first leg of our roadie. We packed up the UT (pronounced "yute" short for utility vehicle)with sleeping bags, filled the eskie (igloo) with fruit and veg and beers and we were off. Needless to say, it was nearly 9pm when we reached Sydney, after an excruciatingly boring and seemingly endless trek through the barren desert like part of Victoria/New South Wales. looked alot like west Texas, actually. We had vague directions to Amanda's cousins place in Manly, the tourist beach bummy town a 30 min ferry ride from Sydney. As soon as we hit Sydney, the scenery changed. It was lush and green and very, very chic. Hello BIG city..it was all very confusing, with multiple tunnels and bridges and how we made it out only making one wrong turn I don't know. But we arrived in Manly unscathed, just slightly shaken. Manda's cousin Raph rushed us into our bathers (swimsuits) and we toddled off to the beach at 10pm for a swim. NO WAY! it was freezing with the wind blowing, but Katia braved the water along with Raph. Manda and I stood shivering on the beach.It was a nice change from the 45C in Melbourne, but nevertheless, quite shocking. This was only the beginning of the shocking weather to come. Apparently in Australia they have what they call "cool changes" in the middle of summer, and it can drop 30 degrees and rain and wind like I've never seen, but am seeing with my own two eyes as I look out the window and sit in my coat and socks shivering while writing this. Lucky for me, I've got a cup of tea.
Back to the story. We headed out to Sydney by ferry the next morning after a terrible sleep. One thing to note about Manly-very sticky. humidity. Gotta love it. We all had to shower every morning after sweating all night in the stuffy apt. No one got much sleep. Sydney,from what I saw, was alot like New York. Shops upon shops of clothes and shoes, thai restaurants EVERYWHERE (we ate at Chat Thai, very delicious and surprisingly affordable)and quaint little cafes to eat avocado smeared on toast and chai tea for two. An enjoyable day, with ice cream for dessert. We took the late ferry back to Manly to not sleep again, and the next day, it was raining and cold. So much for our day at the beach. We hit the Sydney museum instead. A very entertaining exhibit of Martin Sharp works. More food: dumplings in Chinatown, then pumpkin pizza at Hugos (where all the boy waiters were "tootable").
Ah yes. So our little social experiment concocted on our long drive in. We decided (Katia initiated it) that we would toot (honk) at good looking boys, just as they do to good looking girls on the road to see how they reacted. Then we devised the "mental toot" for when we were stationary, so as not to cause a ruckus. There was also a hand movement for this. What FUN! We had many laughs and it was such a thrill. I think the boys enjoyed it as well.
After many beers and mental toots, we retired to Raph's balcony for more Coopers and laughs.I slept much better that night, but in the morning, it was time to pack it up and head out. We'd gotten some disturbing news via text that their fav bar was closing its doors on Sunday. We weren't due back til Monday, but the girls insisted we head back and shorten our camping days and arrive back Sunday to say goodbye to their beloved bar, The Tote. Fine by me, I'm just a passenger in this journey.
We didn't get very far the first day, traveling only 300K of our 1000K to get back to Melbourne the long way, along the east coast, but boy was it LOVELY..so green, rolling hills and fantastic coastlines. THIS was a much better way to spend hours upon hours in a car.We stopped to camp in Bateman's Bay. That night was uneventful, but I still didn't sleep very well. Nightmares have been plaguing me since I arrived in Australia and that night they were particularly bad. We were up and on the road by 8:30am with full intentions of stopping along the way at some of the beaches for dips in between our hours of driving. The first beach we stopped at was sooo windy, and it seemed as soon as we arrived, menacing clouds began forming and moving in our direction. The girls got in for a very sea weedy swim. I stayed on the beach and tried to keep my hat on and not freeze, as the temperature dropped dramatically with the sun behind the clouds and gale force winds blowing of the chilly water.We managed a very quick picnic out of the back of the UT and kept on trucking. We hit a particularly rough patch of storm after that, and us along with a half dozen other cars had to pull off the road and let it pass. Torrential rains and wind. It was intense. Then quick as it came,it left and the sun came out. Now, it was boiling. With steam rising up from the road and the sky a brilliant blue. It got very pleasant towards tee early evening, and we pulled up to Cape Conrad, a lovely rocky beach. It was not so windy here, and the sun was out and I got into the water for a little swim. Man, was the eater salty. It stung my eyes, so I didn't stay in long. But the sand had flecks of silvery gold shining in the sunlight, and we explored the rock pools for creatures. I saw a starfish and some crabs and sea anenemies. It was a lovely beach. We wanted to camp there, but it was fully booked til Jan 23rd ( i can understand why) Instead, we opted for a place called Jungle Beach, up the road a bit. It was hilarious. A spacious camp ground and a man named Darin and his two little girls and wife and just purchased it a few months back. He was about as laid back as they come, just told us to "pull up over near the logs" and have a camp. And so we did. The sky was clear and it was making for a lovely sunset as we set up camp. Looking around for a plot not crawling with bull ants (look em up folks. the BIGGEST ants you have ever seen. Big as my pinky, swear to god)to set up our tent. These ants were about the only thing the girls seemed leery of. So I knew they were bad news. No sooner had we given up and just pitched the tent, did the clouds roll in and a fierce wind started blowing. Great. We crawled in the UT after securing the tent as best as we could and retrieving our pillows and blankets just in case. We sat in the car and had a beer, and waited. And waited. But the rain didn't come. The wind was crazy and the sound of it blowing in the trees was enough to make me think the sky was about to open up, every time it blew. This went on all night and finally at daybreak, it began to rain. It was cold and wet and we all 3 decided it was time to go home.
Only one day left of driving. We dried off as much as we could and loaded up for the last time. We must have stopped at 5 or 6 bakeries along the way. These girls were pastry eating FOOLS! I got a sausage roll (which isn't sausage at all, more like meaty type stuffing in a pastry) and ate some nuts and dried fruit. At this point in the trip, we are all very low on funds. I had spent all but $20 of the $300 I brought, $100 on petrol alone. But we were almost home. And as we rolled into Melbourne at about 5pm, we all rejoiced. YAY! We made it. To Sydney and back, without a map. The funniest part was, as were were wearily cleaning out the car, Katia found a map under the drivers seat. It had been there all along.
