Day Ten - Sydney to Berry aka the Road Trip 2020

I have been wanting to do a road trip for some time.  I was initially going to be doing this when I visited New Zealand but that never happened.  I would like to 

Vegan option

do the trip from Portland, San Fransisco to Los Angles but because of Trump that is not going to happen for a while.  Therefore, I will drive the Pacific Highway from Sydney down to Melbourne and take almost a week to explore places on the way.  All this seemed a good idea, when stuck in a flat in London day dreaming.  However, neither of us have been behind the wheel of a car since 2015

Meat option

when I moved from Stoke and Andy come up with a van to move me!  What could go wrong.  Let's pick up a hire car in the middle of a huge city, a car that is automatic, of which neither of us have experienced before and let us drive around the equivalent of Sydney's M25, pass the airport out of town.  Seriously, what could go wrong ............

Early start this morning and we both went for breakfast at a local eatery not far from our hotel.  I had the vegan breakfast and Andy had the meat version.  The coffee was exceptionally good here and it was a great place to eat.  I sat there looking around and then had one of my strange moments.  In the corner was a statue and I knew that I had seen it before.  We had no wifi so I could not check there and then but I knew that I have seen it before at the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury near to where I studied and now work!  It was so strange and what a 'coincidence' not that I believe in such a thing and as many of you know, this strange stuff happens around me.  Just so you can see for yourself here are the photos. The work is by two artists called Gille and Marc.  How weird is weird.

Today's sculpture in Surry Hills NSW

The Brunswick Centre, Bloomsbury

The next stop was to collect the car, which was right in the middle of the city.  We completed the paperwork and had been given an upgrade to a Mitsubishi

Bonnie - God help us!

Outlander, a jeep thing which Andy promptly called Bonnie (I have no idea why). It took us ages finding the petrol cap, lights, indicators and also it is an automatic car.  There was no way I was going to drive this thing in the middle of town, even though we added all the collision damager insurance etc to it.  I designated Andy and he accepted (he had no choice)!  It was terrifying, so much so that when we finally arrived back at the flat to collect the bags, I had to run to the toilet as he had literally scared the shit out me!  The problem was with the braking, just hitting the pedal stopped this huge car on a sixpence.  My back has been brilliant up until now and I am amazed it has not been put out again.

Never shy of an adventure, we packed in our suitcases and we were off.  The

Hindu Temple

first part of the journey was the equivalent of the M25 in rush hour.  However, the boy did well; very well and we were soon out of town heading south.  Our first stop was the a Hindu Temple called Sri Venkateswara Temple. Very impressive.  We did not have clue what was going on but it was good to take a look.  Back in Bonnie and we were off to our next stop a Buddhist Temple called Nan Tien Temple which is based just outside of a town called Wollongong which is where our friend Stuart's family live.  It really was an impressive temple which has a learning centre attached to it. Here you can study to degree and masters level in 

Buddhist Temple

Buddhism.  I wonder if Stuart's parents want a lodger.

Whist we were walking around the immaculately kept grounds we saw a couple of little lizards sitting on walls and also a sign saying look out for snakes!  Andy does not do snakes and a branch brushed the back of his legs and he jumped a mile!

We got back in the car and the next stop was Kiama.  This was a very small town with a one road high street.  We parked the car and went for stroll as were looking for a blowhole ......... make of that what you will!  It was nature at her best.  The tide

and waves shot the water through this blowhole, sending gallons of seawater up into the air.  It was pretty impressive and the coastline was so raw and untamed.  It really was an amazing thing to see.  Australia has some amazing coastline and beaches and this was no exception.  We walked into the very small town and grabbed a coffee and a piece of cakes as by now we were getting hungry.  

Back in the car we continued down the Princes Highway heading south to our next destination and were were to stay the night, a town called Berry.  We found the accommodation ok but for the life of us could not find the key safe to actually get in the building, especially as we have no wifi to check the details.  The property is the top half of someones home.  It is all sectioned off and is very light, we plenty of windows.  I have the bed, his Lordship is on the sofa bed.  We kind of unpacked and then decided to go out to get some dinner then come back and relax and sort out our adventure for tomorrow.

What can I say ..... Berry is a treat.  I swear I heard banjoes playing at one point!  It is very, very small town and I am sure the highlight of the week is the bin men coming to empty the bins. The main high street, and I use that term

Sign seen at the Temple

very lightly has a section of shops from a butchers to boutiques and everything and nothing in between.  At the top of the road there was our Pricilla Queen of the Desert moment with a pub full of hard looking Australians; all men of course.  A lot of the shops do not open until Thursday to Monday and there were only two places to eat, unless you include the take away fish and chip shop.  There was a Thai place that had chicken with everything or the local hotel.  We opted to go to the hotel.  It was empty when we walked in and were offered only two tables; I mean, really.  No chance of anything vegan in Berry, in fact, vegetarian was a challenge.  Andy had burger and chips which did look good.  I had nachos and dips!  We went into the bar to look at the beer and once again, it was full of men and no women!  Seriously, it is 2020.  Miss Trunchbull who obviously did not want to be working this evening, come and took our order and stood there watching us eat our dinner!  Andy went to the toilet and found that we could have sat outside in a courtyard where no one would be standing watching us eat.  It was so funny.  We paid up and decided to go back to our place.

On the way back it was starting to get dark and the parrots and other birds

were settling down for the night and making a lot of noise.  When we got to our place we could hear kookaburras laughing and making a terrible din, then all of a sudden, it just went dark, just like that an so quiet. It really was remarkable.  So that is our first night of our road trip down to Melbourne (God help us).  I am hoping at some point to see the beautiful stars of the southern hemisphere again.  You may recall how they stole my heart back in 2013 and I really do need to see them again, however, I think it is going to be to cloudy tonight.

As always, with my love x