Jean writes:
Tonight we're in Kings Cross, Sydney, and this evening took a trip up the road and back to check out restaurants, cafes and also the bus stop, as we need to be at Manly fairly early tomorrow.
I didn't see anyone more than a half our age, and most of the were in their twenties!
We allowed five hours for a three hour journey between Ulladulla and Sydney this morning and were pushing it to arrive in time because I'm a bear of little brain who is easily distracted. The attraction was a blowhole at Kiama.
We had visited this spot on the coast South of Wollongong with Julian and family, a few years back, to see the lighthouse and cliff features. The day was bright, sunny and warm - quite a change from the weather we've had in recent days.
The sea was bright blue, the coastline had lovely bays and cliffs and we saw a group of young people surfing.
The blowhole was spectacular. The sea rushing in with destructive waves finding weak points in the volcanic rock and widening them until a cave is formed.
In an effort to keep down costs since Adelaide, we have bought breakfast items and a variety of items for evening meals and eating them at our motel rooms along the way. Dave had an unexpected visitor yesterday, who arrived while I was swimming.
In fact, I've swum for the last two mornings, both in tiny pools, eleven to twelve metres in length. All to myself, though, and some exercise is better than none.
Nightmare on George Street
Dave writes:
Returning the hire car to Europcar at their Sydney base at 818 George Street proved woe and thrice woe.
Jimmy Satnav got us through the suburbs but at the critical point lost the plot and we spent 20 minutes circling the area without being able to nail it in the busy and complex city centre traffic.
Eventually we parked in a multi-storey we felt was near and managed to locate on foot the Mercure Inn from where Europcar operate.
Having explained our plight I suggested, quite reasonably, to the rep the easiest thing to do was for him to walk the five minutes with us to the multi-storey and guide us back through the traffic to their garage.
No.
He couldn't possibly leave the office unmanned and in any case we could drive to their Darling Harbour sub-branch not that far away.
I protested he would not like to do a similar journey if he were to be driving in London for the first time but he simply would not have it.
Armed with his map, Jimmy and Jean we set off.
There followed the worst 30 minutes of my otherwise distinguished driving career.
Sydney rush hour equals London and as we were quickly lost again despair set in, for me at least.
At one point we crossed a bridge leaving town and heading for the far western suburbs with me in four lanes of speeding traffic without a clue.
Jean and Jimmy managed to turn us round - then a miracle.
Back on the other side of the bridge I just happened to see a sign for Allen Street in Darling Harbour, our destination, and then a tiny Europcar sign.
As we handed the car over and rep 2 examined it for damage I said somewhat peevishly the only damage he would find was to my head.
Troubles not over though.
After unloading our huge amounts of baggage and carriers we needed a taxi to run us across town to our hotel on Kings Cross.
Europcar rep 2 rang for a cab which never materialised but finally after hailing various other candidates one stopped only to declare we had too much luggage because his spare tyre occupied half the boot.
Ten minutes later, success, only to find we were too late (5.30) to check in at our hotel. No one was there and we had to find our key in the outside safe.
However.
We had seen from the hotel's previous blurb that because they are a " heritage " hotel they did not have a lift.
Still you might think room 3 would be on the ground floor but no of course not.
So all our stuff had to be lugged up the stairs before finally we made it.
Quite an afternoon but I'm just relieved I didn't commit/cause any traffic foul-up/accident.
We booked Europcar a while back for New Zealand and we are kind of stuck with them.
I shall be writing, however, about their man's refusal to shut up shop and pop over to the multi-storey with me.
It was wrong on so many levels !
Dave writes:
Returning the hire car to Europcar at their Sydney base at 818 George Street proved woe and thrice woe.
Jimmy Satnav got us through the suburbs but at the critical point lost the plot and we spent 20 minutes circling the area without being able to nail it in the busy and complex city centre traffic.
Eventually we parked in a multi-storey we felt was near and managed to locate on foot the Mercure Inn from where Europcar operate.
Having explained our plight I suggested, quite reasonably, to the rep the easiest thing to do was for him to walk the five minutes with us to the multi-storey and guide us back through the traffic to their garage.
No.
He couldn't possibly leave the office unmanned and in any case we could drive to their Darling Harbour sub-branch not that far away.
I protested he would not like to do a similar journey if he were to be driving in London for the first time but he simply would not have it.
Armed with his map, Jimmy and Jean we set off.
There followed the worst 30 minutes of my otherwise distinguished driving career.
Sydney rush hour equals London and as we were quickly lost again despair set in, for me at least.
At one point we crossed a bridge leaving town and heading for the far western suburbs with me in four lanes of speeding traffic without a clue.
Jean and Jimmy managed to turn us round - then a miracle.
Back on the other side of the bridge I just happened to see a sign for Allen Street in Darling Harbour, our destination, and then a tiny Europcar sign.
As we handed the car over and rep 2 examined it for damage I said somewhat peevishly the only damage he would find was to my head.
Troubles not over though.
After unloading our huge amounts of baggage and carriers we needed a taxi to run us across town to our hotel on Kings Cross.
Europcar rep 2 rang for a cab which never materialised but finally after hailing various other candidates one stopped only to declare we had too much luggage because his spare tyre occupied half the boot.
Ten minutes later, success, only to find we were too late (5.30) to check in at our hotel. No one was there and we had to find our key in the outside safe.
However.
We had seen from the hotel's previous blurb that because they are a " heritage " hotel they did not have a lift.
Still you might think room 3 would be on the ground floor but no of course not.
So all our stuff had to be lugged up the stairs before finally we made it.
Quite an afternoon but I'm just relieved I didn't commit/cause any traffic foul-up/accident.
We booked Europcar a while back for New Zealand and we are kind of stuck with them.
I shall be writing, however, about their man's refusal to shut up shop and pop over to the multi-storey with me.
It was wrong on so many levels !
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