Driving the OTHER Pacific Coast Highway

Yesterday (Friday) was a VERY long day of driving from NSW (New South Wales) to Queensland. After passing by the Giant Prawn (weird Australian Kitsch…not photos of the “Giant Banana” that is apparently a tourist destination), we stopped in Byron Bay for a beach side lunch of fish & chips. Byron Bay was beautiful – and the vibe was similar to what we imagine Ithaca would be if it was a beach town instead of in cold upstate NY. There were lots of shops, restaurants and “new age” stuff…. We drove up to the lighthouse on Cape Byron and saw a whale offshore! We also saw dolphins, more ‘roos, strange birds and lizards…and seagulls, which are equally annoying here as they are in The States.
We arrived in Brisbane around 5 and after checking into our room received some complimentary Hilton room service dessert – we should be on our honeymoon all the time!!
Wandering around in search of a dinner place found us in a cool pedestrian mall area – tons of people were out on the town on Friday night including a group of US sailors who were in port.
Heading to Zoo Australia today for lots of Steve Irwin-style fun!
Special shout-out: We love McDonald’s free wi-fi. Wi-fi internet connections are much more difficult to find than we anticipated and when we find them, they are much more expensive than they’d be in the US.

Trade off - instant coffee for cool 4WD vehicles

A few things to note about traveling in Australia: even nice hotels don’t have a drip coffee maker. There are tea pots everywhere but no coffee unless you like the instant variety. While there are no coffee makers it seems that nearly every truck (that is outside of Sydney) has a large ARB or TJM winch bumper! I guess those ‘roos tend to do some damage. Pretty soon our truck (rental) will have one on the front too – I (Jonathan) can’t wait. Lucky for me, there are 4wd shops all over the place….how much do you think it costs to ship one home? The 4runner could use a face lift!
Finally, Australia is a Toyota lover’s dream, just about every truck is a Landcrusier or a Hilux. Below is the view from our hotel this morning, so you can see what I am talking about.

The Road Trip Begins

Today was a very long day of packing the car, driving north and a few near misses on left handed rotaries. We saw our first 'roos today (live ones) - dining on the greens of a golf course north of Sydney. We made it 6+ hours north of Sydney to Coffs Harbor where we are staying at a delightfully 70s style motor lodge named the Royal Palms (no relation to the classy establishment in Ithaca). We had meat pies for lunch and a delicious meal (with Aussie wine!) for dinner. More interesting stuff to come as we make our way to Brisbane tomorrow!

A street of outdoor shops

On Wednesday we again spent time wandering around Sydney. Jonathan was curious to see an Australian outdoor shop and a morning internet search lead us to one which was only a few blocks from the hotel. To our surprise, there were not less than 10 outdoor shops on this street. We asked about this oddity and the reply was “convenience”! Apparently “competition” is not an issue. Another surprise was that it appears Jonathan is not the first Heddleston to hit the Australia mainland…the “Rock and Ice” issue in which Chad has a letter to the editor appears on the shelf of a very nice climbing shop in Sydney. After determining that there was nothing we NEEDED to purchase at the outdoor shops, we walked over to Darling Harbor – a tourist area with lots of restaurants, the Sydney Aquarium and lots of fancy boats. After an afternoon of watching rugby, world superbike and napping, we dragged ourselves out of our jet-lag comas and headed to the Opera House to see Verdi’s Aida. Before the show we enjoyed a beautiful sunset and grabbed a bite at the Opera Bar overlooking the harbor and bridge. The performance was amazing – the singing incredible and venue really impressive. (Note to self: don’t go into a 3.5 hour performance in a dark theatre when you have serious jet-lag.)

Sydney - Upside Down & Inside Out

As we are writing this it is 8:30 AM here and 6:30 PM on the east coast. Our flights were 5.5 hours to San Francisco and ~15 to Sydney. 24 hours (ugh!) after departing Dulles we were finally in the line for Australian customs. Customs and car rental was easy but adjusting to the left hand shift on our standard Toyota Corolla took some getting used to…actually shifting wasn’t bad but getting used to the turn signal on the right proved comical to Sarah as Jonathan turned on the windshield wipers rather than the blinker every time we turned. We spent a nice morning on famous Bondi Beach and some of Sydney’s other eastern beaches. We also toured the Royal Botanic Gardens where we saw hundreds of one of the world’s largest species of bat. Seriously, these things were like pterodactyls with wing spans up to 6 feet! They were noisy and seemed very active for nocturnal creatures. We settled in to the very trendy Hilton Sydney, took a walk to the “Rocks” historic area and finally found dinner at a Thai/Continental/pub (fusion?) Dinner was interesting and we spent some time chatting with our Scottish bartender who mistook us for the YouTube wedding dance couple (search: crazy wedding entrance). Our jet lag caught up with us and we retired early (7:30 PM, but 5:30 AM Eastern....total late night!) to Champagne, Strawberries and chocolates in our room – a wedding gift from the Hilton. It was lovely – and much appreciated, as we doubt the campervan company will provide us with the same service : )

From Frat House to Down Under

The first two weeks of marriage have been exactly how we'd envisioned they would be. Living in a frat house environment with J's three other roommates, a overly affectionate yellow lab that must be laying on you at all times, and miscellaneous house guests really sets the tone for newlyweds. After nights of roommates eating our leftovers/lunch food, having to clean up dead cockroaches and a variety of other unidentifiable [gross] substances, our living arrangements were wearing thin (at least for S). However, our less than desirable habitation will all be worth it as it means we can spend longer on our adventure/honeymoon (and supposedly we'll look back at this someday and laugh). Our packing for Australia is taking shape and we are anxious to hop on that [very long] flight...

Jonathan Note: Sarah forgot to mention the pool in the backyard and multiple large TVs in the bachelor pad. She has had so much time (relaxing in the pool) that she’s become very good at nit picking the few small problems!