Road trip to Sydney - day three

Route: Batemans Bay to Wollongong by way of the Grand Pacific Drive
Distance:  288 km (141 mi)

We went 800km from Melbourne [and 10,000 miles from home] just to play mini golf.  Seriously though, we’ve seen a couple mini golf places here and there, and we’d been itching to play.  So we had the place nearly to ourselves [one other family for part of the time], and it was actually a decent course even with the lack of moving parts.  After a trip to Vinnies [a secondhand store, which landed me a new shirt and a couple cheap books - where cheap, secondhand books in this instance are $3 as opposed to new paperbacks being $30], the car wash [there was an incident involving a coffee sitting on a curb when I was parking that resulted with lots of splashing over the bonnet], the petrol station for topping off on both fuel and oil [noticed that the oil was a bit low before we left], we hit the road.

But not before we got pulled over for a random breathalyzer test.  At two in the afternoon.  I had heard that Australia pulls no punches when it comes time to test drivers randomly.  However, I didn’t think I would have to drive to a different state to get tested.  Needless to say, I passed with flying colours!

The morning started off with a jog and a nice trip around the corner to a café for breakfast on the water.  Aside from the sunburn, you couldn’t ask for a nicer morning.  I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the line, Ruthie got me - who likes his eggs scrambled, hard - to start liking eggs benedict.  So this morning was eggs benedict over wilted spinach with smoked ham.  

Heading out of Batemans Bay, we lost touch with the tourist routes but managed to find the Grand Pacific Drive, which has kept us off the main highway and in and out of coastline towns.  Just by looking out the window, you can feel that we’re getting closer to a big city.  Towns are getting closer together, and are more populated each time.  Traffic today was much heavier than it was yesterday. 

Additionally, it seems like as we get closer to more people, Ruthie and I are a bit more tense.  Perhaps it’s just the fact that we’ve been cooped up in a car for such long periods of time with each other [and Lorraine].  Or maybe it’s something bigger.  I’m not smart enough to figure that one out …

We got to see a heard of kangaroos by the roadside today.  Most importantly for the girls was the momma ‘roos with their joeys poking out of the pouches.  Lorraine was happy like a pig in shit.

Oh!  I forgot to mention yesterday’s big score for Ruthie.  We wandered the main street of Eden for a bit in the morning, and found ourselves drawn into the discount store by kitschy Japanese stuff.  So after spending a solid 20 minutes sifting through all the fun stuff, we finally tore ourselves away and wandered the rest of the aisles.  The next thing I know, Ruthie’s got a “garden wombat” tucked under her arm.  Ya know those monochromatic figures of wildlife with which some people like to populate their garden?  Well, now our garden [and in the mean time, our apartment balcony] will have a wombat.  [The lady ringing us up said they were pests - same could be said for squirrels, though, right?]

Speaking of Oh! moments - here’s a fun one: Ruthie opened one of the bedside drawers in the hotel room tonight as we were getting settled, and found a rolled up 5 dollar bill.  And sure enough, there was a white powder on the inside!  Tempting as it might have been, though, I washed it, and am now trying to flatten out the note in case the crease and curve are telltale signs. 

Another indication we’re approaching a big city: the prices of things are going up.  Sure we’re staying on a golf course hotel, but it’s actually the cheapest one in this town [that we could find easily].  Frustratingly, we’re supposed to have internet, but after the wi-fis downstairs weren’t working and I can’t get the hardline to cooperate either, it looks like we’re outta luck. 

Tomorrow, we try our luck at finding cool stuff in Sydney that everyone can enjoy.  Perhaps a bus tour or a harbour cruise, we’ll see.  Good news is that the weather has been damned perfect for the trip so far, and with any luck, it’ll keep up and the rain will hold off until we’re back in Melbourne. 

-EP