Arriving in Sydney
Trip Start
Nov 28, 2004
1
52
57
Trip End
Jun 11, 2005
Shellharbour,
New South Wales,
Australia
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
And soon I am making the last stop on the road trip of a lifetime. The last night's sleep in my car at an Australian camp site. I'm at Shellharbour and have visited the town to buy some shopping. Before eating, I take off for a couple of hours, rambling through the National park. Making my way along wooded trails. Looking for the path down to the beach, the one that is shown on the map which forms part of the visitor's pack. Some map I must say.
In the barn-like camper's kitchen the grill plate is quickly smoking. A fat wet chunk of steak hits it and starts to char on the outside perfectly. I complement the mouth-watering medium rare steak with a large Caesar salad. And wash the whole lot down with many tins of ice cold beer from a well stocked esky. Tremendous ! I don't hear the mouse in the car any more - I think he's been arrested by the Federal Police in Canberra. For break-in and entering at a multi-storey car park. My sleep is thus undisturbed.
A whole chilled pineapple forms the centre piece of a healthy breakfast before I visit the shower block. Feeling supremely refreshed, I follow the signs out of the park to rejoin the Princes Highway. Gunning the motor north to its final destination.
It's a very hot day and the traffic begins to pile up on the outskirts of Sydney. Cars crawls along through a spaghetti of concrete as overhead signs point to unfamiliar sounding places. Districts and suburbs. Feeder roads, tollways and bridges. As if to let me know that his work is complete now and that he is tired, Percy begins to groan and expire. The bumper to bumper traffic has sent the temperature gauge off the scale and any moment now there will be an eruption of steam from under the bonnet. I have to pull over and have some coffee while he rests. And Steve gives me some directions over the phone. The King's Cross backpacker's car market is in the second sub basement deep below a public car park. And it looks like hell on earth.
It's a subterranean half light of fluorescent tubes. Daylight doesn't exist. Human beings, that are wasting away as they sit hopefully with their cars, summon the effort to amuse themselves with a football and a table-tennis table. Others have become skeletons, their cars turning to rust beneath dust and cobwebs. Graffiti adorns all the structural pillars - ' please get us out of here ' ... ' escaped after 21 days ' ... and, ' don't lose hope '.
Next ; The Backpackers car market
