Adelaide to Sydney

The Barossa valley wine tour was great! We got to go to four different wineries; all different, from the oldest and most well-known (but not excellent) Jacob's Creek to smaller boutique shops that don't produce wines for the supermarkets. We got to try about 6 different wines in each so we came away quite tipsy! Our taste in wines hasn't changed (we still love Shiraz, we quite like Cabernet Sauvignon and Julie hates Riesling!) but it was nice to try new things and learn something about wine production, and the whole Barossa region has stunning scenery.



From Adelaide we managed to get our first car relocation job, back to Melbourne. We were specifically looking to drive this route since you can drive via the Great Ocean Road, apparently one of the nicest drives in the country.




It was indeed beautiful, and it was nice to be back on the road again. We had really terrible rain and wind on the second day which meant that we had to stop driving earlier than planned, and then we had a massive amount of driving on the final day, but we managed to see most of the sights on the way, although a bit rushed!



We decided at some point on the journey that we also wanted to drive from Melbourne to Sydney rather than fly, but we kept checking the internet and couldn't find any cars that needed moving in that direction. Still, when we arrived to drop the van off in Melbourne I thought it couldn't hurt to ask if they had anything that needed to go to Sydney and we were amazed when they told us that we could have a campervan for free if we could get it to Sydney within 3 days! So after a brief divertion back to St. Kilda (to pick up one bag that we'd left in storage there) we were back on the road straight away!

It was another nice drive, but by the time we got to Sydney we were knackered. Obviously, Australia is a massive country, but you really only feel that when you're driving. We drove for about 7 hours every day for three days, then you look at the map and see you've covered just the tiniest fraction of the country, whereas you could have circled New Zealand in that time (not that you'd want to do that in 3 days!). So, this is probably the end of our van relocating adventures. It was nice to try it and we saved ourselves some money, but we decided it's better to take the time and see the country properly, so we'll probably be renting a van again for the next stretch up the east coast.

For the next week at least though, we will be in Sydney putting our feet up. We're staying with Andrew, an Aussie we met in Vietnam who's now back home again. He lives in a lovely place close to the centre with amazing balcony views over the bay. I spent most of yesterday sleeping out on the balcony and getting some rest!



A mate of his has a kayak which he very kindly arranged for us to borrow this morning, so we spent a few hours out on the bay getting some exercise (which we really need, actually!). We haven't seen the centre of Sydney yet, since we came straight to Andrew's place yesterday, so it was amazing to be out in the middle of the bay and suddenly spot the famous opera house!




Tomorrow, Andrew's housemate Dani has offered to take us into town to see the sights, so really looking forward to that. Sydney seems like a beautiful city and we haven't even seen the centre yet!