Friday, November 27th, Arriving in Sydney and Driving to Canberra
Bob: Apparently rough seas overnight had delayed us by about 45 minutes, but the net result was that we approached the headlands to Sydney harbor just after dawn, which worked out beautifully. As we entered the mouth of the harbor The North, South, and Middle Headlands were bathed in the warm, golden light of early morning, forming a pretty contrast with the a deep blue sky. |
Monika: We woke up early and decided to go on deck and watch us sail into Sydney harbor. When we got up to the Lido deck, we were still sailing along the eastern coast outside of Sydney harbor, so we decided that we had time for a final breakfast. We both chose high protein meal so that it would last for quite some time. Then we went up on deck to watch us sail past the south and north headlands into the wide entrance of Sydney Harbor. |
Bob: On our way in to dock in Sydney's Darling Harbor, we passed by Admiralty House plus the official residence of the Prime Minister both located on a wooded peninsula just across the harbor from the Sydney Opera House, which was gleaming a brilliant white in the morning sun. We also passed under the Sydney Harbor Bridge to get to Darling Harbor, and the rotating radar antenna just missed hitting the bottom of the bridge, which added to the excitement a bit. |
Monika: The landmarks seemed all familiar: the Sydney skyline, the famous opera house, and finally the graceful black steel arch of the harbor bridge. Again we watched anxiously to make sure the antennas and smoke stacks cleared the bridge. Docking in Darling Harbor, we watched the captain on the wing making sure that everything was alright. We went back to our room, said good bye to our (very capable) room steward, grabbed our carry on luggage, and waited in our assigned lounge until it was time to go ashore. |
Bob: We spent the usual hour or so waiting in a lounge for our color to be called, but I put in the time updating my journal so it was not time totally wasted. After picking up our luggage and clearing customs (no one even asked to see our passports!), we walked to the Eurocar Rental Agency guided by our GPS, which I had set to "Pedestrian" mode so it used the pedestrian bridge across Darling Harbor and guided us straight to the rental office, which was in the lower story of a big hotel and thus rather easy to miss. |
Monika: Australian Customs only wanted to know whether we had quarantine items. We both had said yes, I had the jars of home made jam for Karen, and Bob had the wood souvenirs from New Zealand. After declaring this, customs was no longer interested in us and we started to trundle off towards the rental car agency following the GPS. We had to walk across the pedestrian bridge in Darling Harbor towards the Maritime Museum and got a last look at the Sun Princess as she was getting ready for the next group of passengers. We found the Europcar rental agency in the lobby of a hotel and received our car without any problems. It was the smallest Hundai they had, a two door but with just enough room for our luggage. Since it was a manual, it had a little more oomph than the "Gutless Wonder" we had rented in Brisbane on our previous visit to Australia (see Wanderung 20 for the excruciating details of that rental car). |
Bob: After filling out the usual paperwork and picking up car, I slowly and very carefully drove out of Sydney towards the airport and the M5, but then quite suddenly we had to leave the M5 when it became a tollroad as we didn't have a transponder like Neville and Lyn had. There was also no provision to pay cash, so we had no alternative by to slowly creep our way through the southern suburbs of Sydney, once again guided by the GPS. But finally the toll section of M5 came to an end and we rejoined it shortly before it turned into Route 31, the Hume Highway that goes directly from Sydney to Melbourne. We stopped at Berrima after a couple hours of driving to stretch our legs a bit, and we ended up doing the walk through the old historical section of the city. I enjoyed many of the old (in Australian terms) buildings front the 1800s, but I was surprised to see that the mid-1800s gaol [American: jail, pokey, calaboose, slammer...] was still in use as a prison! Fortunately the prison's interior had been completely redecorated in the 1990s, as I recall, so it probably wasn't too beastly inside as such things go. |
Monika: Getting out of Sydney was not too problematic following several maps and the GPS and soon we were on the M5 as it wound around the airport. But now things became more complicated. When I saw a sign "Last Exit before Toll", I told Bob to take it. Tolls in Sydney are all by transponder. If you don't have one, you have to call in and pay by credit card over the phone. So I decided, to get to the old route 31 to Melbourne. I am not sure that was my best idea. The road wound its way through all the southern suburbs of Sydney with lots of stop lights. But finally we did get back onto the M5, which then turned into route 31. The difference is that M5 is motorway with only limited exits, whereas route 31 is still a 4 land divided highway with mostly limited exits, but some direct. Still a very nice way to go. We stopped at a rest area for lunch (one of our fellow passengers must have recognized us and come over to commiserate that the cuisine was not quite up to cruise ship standards). We also looked at the map, and decided to stop at the old town of Berrima to get out of the car and stretch our legs a bit. At a tourist information stop we got a map of a walking tour of Berrima complete with a description of 25 historic buildings. We did enjoy reading and taking pictures of all of them as we ambled around the town. |
Bob: We continued on 31 until we branched off on the Federal Highway that heads straight towards Canberra. We passed along a huge, absolutely flat plain that was marked on our map as "Lake George", but was nothing but fenced off pasture land as far as I could see. When I asked Karen about it that evening, she said Lake George does indeed hold water after substantial rains and that she had seen the level of the water up to the edge of the Federal Highway itself. |
Monika: Back on route 31 we turned off when we reached the Federal Highway to Canberra. We drove past a rather large lake, Lake George, which was completely dry. Later Karen told us that this is not always the case and when there is rain, Lake George really does become a lake. |
Bob: There isn't any bypass around Canberra, so our GPS navigated us straight through the Central Business District and then the political district. That was successful, but then we got lost in neighborhoods to the West until we finally figured out that the GPS was still set on "Pedestrian" mode and was using the network of pedestrian paths as legitimate routes! I pulled over and reset it to "Automobile" mode and than it once again gave us sensible directions to drive to Karen's house. Finally reaching Karen's around 5:30, we had a very nice chat with her as we petted "the boys", two lovable dogs named Bentley and Button. Karen hadn't really expected us until the following day and had invited two of her old friends, David and Denise, for dinner. But no matter as the rack of beef with vegetables she had cooked turned out to be plenty for all of us, and we had a wonderful time chatting with those two until somewhere around 11:00 p.m., when they left and we fell into bed. (Driving on the left side of the road does seem to use more cognitive energy than driving on the right hand side in the U.S.A., so I seemed to get tired more easily while driving in Australia.) |
Monika: Driving through Canberra, things started to look familiar and I was starting to relax after we had gotten correctly across the lake and past the Australian parliament buildings. But then we missed the turn off to Cotter Road and the GPS started giving really funky direction (like take the next trail!). We stopped and Bob figured out that it was still in "Pedestrian" mode and the Canberra suburbs have lots of walking trails going every which way. Once the GPS was reset into "Automobile" mode it did guide is safely to Karen's place and we were glad we made it. Karen came shortly after we arrived, and we chatted away. She had friends of hers coming over for dinner and prepared and elaborate meal. We took a shower and changed clothes and then had a nice evening with a very interesting couple, David and Denise. Of course, this meant that the evening stretched out, since we all were chatting away and it was midnight by the time we went to bed |
| Index |
| Prolog | Map of Cruise around New Zealand | Map of Drive through Victoria | Epilog |
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