13th - And so it begins...

Renting a car in the middle of Sydney where they drive in the left side of the road resulted in me being high-strung from the beginning. Talk about a baptism of fire. First time in a long time I had such a high a pulse. I’m glad that I had been walking through Sydney for a week as it made the navigation easier. The GPS got all confused with all those close streets. It was embarrassing that I, being a tourist, could find my way through Sydney’s streets better than a machine built for exactly that.

I left Sydney and drove out to Blue Mountain. It was a little further than it looked on the maps, but I made after a couple of hours. It was beautiful. It was vast. The two photos below don’t quite do it justice, and the blue tint that gives the mountains their name wasn’t so obvious today (as it’s dependent on the current light).

Afterwards I drove to Newcastle to spend the night. I am now sitting in a hotel room that is 4-5 times larger than the one I was staying at in Sydney, and it’s at the same price. Awesome. So I’m a little disappointed that the TV in the room is almost as small as the one in Sydney. Ah, the problems I have.

Newcastle is a boring town of what I saw when I tried to find a place to eat. I’m probably comparing it too much to Sydney, something I’ll probably do with every single city I’ll get through the rest of the vacation. It’s therefore pretty nice that I can focus on the nature instead until I get to Brisbane. So tomorrow I’ll get started immediately on driving north. I’ll take some nice small roads instead of the direct highway, and hopefully not get too late to Forster where I’ll spend my next night.