Day 10: Thursday, February 14, 2002
Driving south from Sydney

First thing in the morning we called the company that runs the ferry to Tasmania and discovered that the first opening they had was for Feb 24, which was too late for us, so that decided that for us: we wouldn't be going to Tasmania. I was a little sad, but this gave us a more relaxed feeling, so that was good. Our plan is to drive down the coast south of Sydney and make our way over to the Melbourne area, checking out Wilson's Promontory, the Great Ocean Road, and the Grampians, and then wind up in Melbourne for a day or two.

To execute the plan, all we needed to do was to get to the airport Hertz to pick up our rental car. Even though we were only a few kilometers away at the airport Ibis hotel, that turned out to be a chore. We have too much luggage, so instead of taking the airport shuttle and then possibly having to take another shuttle to Hertz, we thought we'd take a taxi. The woman at the desk said we could just flag one, but when we tried, all were full. So we went back to the hotel, figuring we'd take the shuttle bus after all, but then a cab drove up just as the shuttle did. We asked the cab if he could take us, he said yes, but then when we explained we wanted to go to Hertz, he hedged cuz he wasn't sure where it was and by the time he said no, the shuttle had left. Doh. We also needed to find out if we needed to go to the domestic or international terminal, so I called Hertz and discovered it was domestic. So we waited for the next domestic shuttle and they took us to Hertz, which was right at the terminal — no shuttle bus. We could have just gone there in the first place. All part of figuring things out in a strange place.

The Hertz woman was very friendly and we were set up quickly. She "upgraded" us to an automatic car, which I guess simplifies things. I would have preferred a manual but since Walendo was anxious about driving on the left side of the road, I went with it. We also got insurance, which we never do, again cuz Walendo was nervous about driving on the left and cuz it covers theft and we knew we'd be leaving our crap in the car at times. So after putting our bags in the car (luckily it all fit), we took off with me driving. We both were concentrating full time on the road as we made our way out of the airport. We had to pick up the Prince's Highway, which wasn't hard, but it turned out that it went for probably 30 miles as a local road going through the suburbs of Sydney rather than a freeway, so that took more concentration. Still, we went along fine without any mishaps. We even stopped off a couple of times, once to buy a map and some food and another time at a little fruit stand, and in both cases things went smoothly. I'd been paying attention to the cars driving on the left all while we were walking around, and I'd done this before in England, so I wasn't feeling that nervous about it. It did help a lot to have Walendo looking out for signs and reminding me about traffic as we went.

Eventually, the road started to turn into a faster road going through greenery, though still not a freeway. We started to notice big swathes of trees that were dead and then saw burnt trunks, which must have been caused by the recent fires. We were surprised by how extensive the damage was. We saw groups of dead trees most of the day, and we wound up about 3 hours out of Sydney. How sad.

Ellen at Amaki Cafe, Kiama

After about an hour or so, we curved down from high up and saw a nice looking town on the water, called Kiama (pronounced KIE-ama). We decided to get off and check it out. Right away we passed a nice little street with some crafty shops and cafes, so we parked and walked along. They were mostly souvenir-type shops, but there was a nice-looking cafe called the Amaki Cafe, so we ate lunch there. I got a chicken focaccia sandwich that was delicious, one of the best sandwiches I've had in a long time. Walendo got a thai beef salad that he liked but not as much as we both liked mine. I let him have a bunch of it cuz he liked it so much. It looked like there was more to the town up the road so we took a little walk and sure enough, there was a nice little strip of stores. It was a gorgeous sunny warm day with a breeze, perfect. Lots of people were out, and it seemed like a hopping little town. The woman at the Amaki said that lots of people from Sydney come here for a weekend getaway. We asked her about nice places to see, and she mentioned a town called Ulladulla (she pronounced it Alladalla) also along the coast, so we thought we might stop there.

Kiama Post Office

I stopped at an ice cream store to get a chocolate cone. It was only okay. (So far I haven't had any ice cream that rivals the good stuff in the States.) We decided to look for a post office so we could mail back a package of stuff that we didn't want to lug around. We'd bought some stuff in Sydney and we also realized we wouldn't be needing some things, so it seemed like a good idea to lighten our load. We found a post office and they sold boxes of various kinds, and the woman helped us find the right size. She was very helpful. Then I went and got the car and we packed up a box of stuff and returned to the post office. It turned out that we had about 6.9 kilograms (about 20 pounds) of stuff, which cost AU$70 to ship the slow way (3 weeks). That's about US$35, which seemed okay, so we sent it. It was a different woman, but again she was very helpful and she taped up the box for us, since didn't have any tape. Very nice. She also told us where to find the internet cafe.

Pelican in Kiama

Kiama is famous for its blowhole where water shoots up from the sea, but we weren't that interested in that. Instead, we took a little walk along the shore where they had a nice park. We came upon a little grassy area in front of a restaurant that had giant pelicans standing around. I've never seen a pelican before so maybe this is how big they always are, but they looked giant, like maybe 3 feet high. They have huge pink beaks, and sometimes they would contort their necks around into impossible positions, other times they'd blow out the lower part of the beak to make a big balloon-like thing. How odd. Mostly, though, they stood around and twisted their heads around into strange positions so they could groom their feathers with their beaks. It was fun to watch them.

Pelicans twisting their necks

We meandered back to town and headed toward the internet cafe. This one was fairly expensive, I think $5 for 10 minutes, so Walendo checked mail and then we hooked up my mail so I could read it through Yahoo mail, which had a much better interface than my hosting service provided. Then we headed out of town, still being very careful to stay on the left and cross traffic when making a right turn. We made it back to the expressway in tact.

Scenery along road in New South Wales

The scenery was quite pretty here. Mostly it's lush green rolling hills with lots of trees and hedges to break things up, plus cows and horses. Since we were driving along the coast, we could see the ocean from time to time as well. Very pleasant driving. Our next stop was Jervis Bay (pronounced Jarvis for some reason), which we'd read about in the guide book (and the cafe woman had said it was very nice). We got off the main road for about 14km and wound up in a little one-street town called Husskison. At the end of the town was a parking lot next to the ocean. We got out and walked around, though the book had said they had a theft problem, so we didn't stray too far.

Beach in Jervis Bay

There was a nice park just above the harbor area and you could see some nice white sandy beaches on either side. I wanted to go for a walk along the beach, but this didn't seem like the right place, so we continued on. The book made it sound like there was a natural place to go, but we couldn't find it. We ended up just driving through some neighborhoods and the road finally petered out into a little road, so we turned back. The street signs sometimes have a second or third sign pointing out things that are down that road, and so I followed one that listed a beach name. That became a dirt road and landed in a little parking area by the coast. We parked, I grabbed my good camera, and we followed a sign pointing to a trail.

Eucalyptis tree branches at Jervis Bay beach

It was only about 1/4 mile or so till we got to a beach, so we walked down to the beach. Walendo wasn't up for much walking, so he sat and read his book while I wandered off looking for interesting photos. There were a few families and couples on the beach, enjoying the lovely summer weather. I took some shots of the Eucalyptis trees lining the beach, with their white bark with umbrella-shaped leaf formations. Then I continued to the other side of the beach and climbed on the rocks. I took some shots of the rocks and waves, but then got very interested in the rocks themselves, which had shells embedded in them. I noticed some interesting sea grass stuff (which I later learned was called sea necklace) with some colorful shells, so I shot those as well. The light was getting low (it was around 4:30 or so), so I got some nice shadows on the rocks as well. I didn't bring my tripod with me, which was dumb, but I did the best I could propping the camera against the rocks. I'm looking forward to seeing the sea grass and shell shots.

Sea necklace at Jervis Bay

It's funny, now that I've gotten used to using the digital camera for snapshots, I expect to be able to review the shots after I take them, but I have to wait till they get developed.

Bird drying its wings Ulladulla

After about an hour of meandering around, I headed back to meet up with Walendo and we walked back to the car. It was a nice little diversion. The book said we might see kangaroos walking around, but we didn't, oh well. This seems like a nice area to visit for a while or maybe even live. The scenery is lovely with the white sand and rocky beaches, and the beautiful green rolling hills all around. The fact that the weather was perfect helped as well. Still, a very nice place.

Seagulls on the beach

We continued along, really enjoying the scenery as we went. We decided to head toward Ulladulla and stop there for the night, since the woman in Kiama had recommended it and it was a good distance. When we got there, the sun was shining its last rays of the day, so I got out and took some shots of the harbor there (at Walendo's urging). I took some boat shots, but then got interested in some egrets who were on the beach spreading their wings, as if to air them out. There were a cluster of seagulls hanging out with them as well. I liked the scene. When I was done, we got back in the car and had our first almost mis-hap. I turned into a driveway to turn around. I was talking as I made the right turn back onto the road and I started to get into the right lane (going into traffic), but Walendo called out and stopped me before I got out very far. Disaster averted.

Ellen in the hotel room

We drove through the town and stopped at a Best Western just past town (called the Pigeon House Motor Inn). It was just $AU70 for the night (US$35). The woman asked Walendo if we had a BW card and he said we didn't, but she decided to give us the discount anyway. How nice. I believe it's because Walendo exudes such a happy air that people like to treat him well. I figure he should do all the checking in. :-) The woman asked if we took milk with our tea and gave us a little cup of milk when Walendo said we did. It's amusing how they assume we'll take our cup of tea in the evening. The room was fairly big, if a little strangely decorated (with brick walls and such). Perfectly fine.

Tony's Italian Restaurant Ulladulla

We unpacked and then walked back into the town, looking for a restaurant. A few places were very quiet but then we noticed an Italian place that was bustling so we stopped there (called appropriately, Tony's Italian Restaurant). At first we had to sit outside, but then a table opened up for us inside. The food turned out to be only okay, but there was lots of it. Walendo was remembering stories of his trip to China 10 years ago when he spent 6 months travelling in this part of the world. Sounded like some pretty rugged travelling. After dinner, we wandered around a little and got some stuff at the supermarket and found out about an Internet cafe in town. It was closed for the evening, so we figured we'd go back the next morning. On the walk back, we stopped to look at the ads posted in the window of a real estate store. There was a house available in a town called Yatte Yattah for just AU$309K (US$155K). We thought it would be great to buy it just for the address. Back in the room, we both read and then fell asleep early.

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