We awoke to another grey, blustery morning. Not exactly beach weather so the fact that we
just had to pack up and hit the road wasn’t too painful.
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| A grey blustery day on the New South Wales Coast |
We left the campsite before ten knowing that
we had a lot to fit in to the day. Despite
torrential rain, we took the trouble to stop at a camping shop to fill up our
gas bottle to avoid the risk of a $25 fine by Let’s go – however, the guy
couldn’t fit any more gas in! Turns out
the amount we used over 48 hours was unnoticeable and the nice man didn’t
charge us anything.
The terrible weather made the roads
quite treacherous and progress was really slow.
As soon as it was clear that we weren’t going to make it to Let’s go on
time I rang them to apologise and said we’d be about half an hour late,
probably reaching them about 230pm. This
didn’t seem to be a problem.
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| The main concourse at Sydney's Central Station |
Eventually, we reached the Sydney suburbs, even passing
Phillips Street where we’ll be staying on our way through, though sadly we
weren’t able to drop our bags off on the way in. Instead, we had booked storage at Central
station and arrived for ‘operation bag-drop’ about 2pm. Because the booking and photo ID was in my
name it meant that I had to make the drop.
Unsurprisingly, I had to carry our largest rucksacks in two separate
runs whilst Simon tried to avoid getting a parking ticket or annoying bus
drivers on the roads surrounding the station.
It all went quite smoothly, we then had four hours in which to collect
our bags for the amount we paid which was $22.
Worth every penny for not having to lug our massive rucksacks across the
length of Sydney!
The Satnav then gave us the news that it was going to take
nearly an hour to get to Let’s Go – an HOUR!
We were expecting about 30 minutes.
Off we went through the bad traffic but travelling north did mean that
we got to drive across Sydney Harbour Bridge and got our
first views of the Opera House.
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| Joining the traffic across Sydney Harbour Bridge |
I rang Let’s
Go again and this time they were getting a little tired of our delays, so warned
us there may be late fees charged, but on the plus side they said not to bother
washing the outside which was something else we were intending on shoehorning
into the day. Eventually, we arrived at
325pm – well, we’d wanted to return the van at 3pm anyway, so in essence we
were only 25 minutes late! Thankfully, there was no mention of late fees and
even though the guy checking us in was very thorough we seem to have got away
without any damage at all after our interaction with some branches during the
hurricane the other day. I think they were just relieved to have finally got
their shiny new RV returned!
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| They may have got their RV back, but it had 1202 km more on it than when it left Melbourne! |
We then negotiated public transport back across to central station
on the train, only costing $6 each. It
looks like Sydney has a reliable system that doesn’t cost the Earth. We arrived with half an hour to spare to
collect our bags from Central, about 530pm.
Our Airbnb host, Rachel, had been in touch and we’d arranged to get a
cab straight to the flat from the station so that we could move in, as she was ready
to depart to Japan for Christmas.
Perfect timing.
Our home for the festive season is a one-bedroom apartment in a modern and quiet block in Waterloo. It has balconies on both sides, one perfect for clothes drying and one overlooking a grassed courtyard, and has a roomy kitchen/diner. The location is great, only two minutes away from a supermarket and with great transport links, being on a major bus-line and a short walk from trains into the city. One major issue we were not expecting – there’s no Wi-Fi!! Apparently this was stated in the ‘blurb’ but I’m surprised that Si missed that important point! We will have to come up with a solution but, we now have our base until 2nd January 2018!
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