On from Sydney

On the last night (or what was supposed to be our last night) in Sydney we went to climb up the Harbour Bridge. It's probably not something we would've ever considered doing normally (mainly because I'm a bit funny about climbing things when you can see the ground beneath you) but my dear sister had decided that this would be a good belated christmas present from the family (she did it herself when she was in Sydney last year). So, feeling rather queasy but not wanting to waste a present we went for it. Of course it paid off. It was a bit scary in places (for all those tonnes of iron, it bounces quite a lot!) but the views of Sydney harbour as the sun was setting more than made up for it, and the more we walked, the more I relaxed (I think going at night was a good idea though: when you look down, you see less!!).




The next day we were supposed to pick up our van. However, after being kept waiting for a couple of hours we were forced to leave without the van as our credit card was declined. A bit confused, we went to the cash point only to find that it wouldn't give us even the smallest amount of cash! It was the middle of the night in Finland, so we had to wait several hours until we could call the bank, only to discover that the card had been stopped as we'd exceeded our credit limit by quite a lot! Luckily it was the end of the month and so it cleared the following day, and we were able to go and pick up the van without too much of a problem... the staff at the rental place still looked at us like criminals though!

We've now been travelling for a few days. We were a bit disappointed with the van in the beginning; it's slow, it's cold, the accelerator pedal is sticky so it lurches forward a lot, and it shakes madly whenever it reaches 90 km/h. We named him Ivan after someone really annoying that we met in China! However, after a few days we're starting to get used to his quirks and I'm not sure anymore if it's fair to call him Ivan but we haven't come up with a better name.




The first few days were pretty uneventful; it rained a lot, so we just hung around waiting for it to stop as we didn't want to miss anything. By the third day we'd reached the Hunter Valley (another reknowned wine region) and the weather picked up, so I treated Mikko to a drive around the vineyards while he got to taste all the wines. Then we moved inland a bit to a weird town called Tamworth which is famous for country and western music. There was no music festival going on when we got there, but there was a rodeo show in support of the victims of the bush fires in Victoria, so we went to check that out. We didn't really fit in (not having cowboy hats and checked shirts like everyone else!), but we had a good time anyway. At one point, one of the crazy bulls decided he was going to try and make it over the barrier to join the spectators. Fortunatly he didn't make it but he gave everyone quite a fright and I'm happy we weren't sitting any further forward!

The next day there was a pumpkin festival (I told you it was a weird place!) so of course we had to go and check that out. Needless to say, a lot of pumpkins of weird and wonderful sizes, plus a guy shearing sheep while wearing a blindfold :-)



After that we had a nice drive through the countryside, did some walking and camped in New England national park where it rained a hell of a lot once again ("I bet that's why they called it 'New England'", said Mikko). Today, a bit more driving and a bit more walking, and a bit more rain- but at least that made for some nice waterfalls!




Until the next time!