Bridge over troubled waters
Trip Start
Jan 25, 2009
1
21
38
Trip End
Mar 03, 2009
Sydney,
New South Wales,
Australia
Friday, February 13, 2009
till mid afternoon, so we packed up and went off for a leisurely breakfast at
Café Roma on the strip. It was incredibly busy and the first café I think that
any of us had seen where people had booked tables for breakfast!
Once we had done justice to the food, we set off for the
rental office and once again we got a good example of the laid back Kiwi
approach to business. Having parked the car and unloaded it, Dave explained the
things that had happened to it, including the
brake problems, the wheel/tyre noise, which had been reduced by having the tyres
rotated, the exhaust nearly falling off, the missing hub caps, the fact that
one of the speakers didn't work and the rock hitting the windscreen. The woman
in charge didn't even look at the car (we could have sold the original and
replaced it with a total heap and she would not have noticed) and waved us into
the shuttle to the airport.
All went smoothly at the airport, although our, till then very positive
view of NZ shifted very slightly
when Barb and I were charged $35 for our bags being overweight and we each had
to pay, a so called exit fee of $25 to leave the country! Dave solved the excess
baggage issue for him and Barbara by simply transferring everything of
substance to their hand luggage, which probably weighed more than their biggest
suitcase!
After a farewell drink we waved Barb and Dave off and caught
our flight to Sydney, arriving on time but in high winds and driving rain, with
a temperature of only 18 degrees. Barb and I jumped in a taxi to find that the
driver was a Lebanese football fan who knew more than I do about the
Premiership and grilled me for most of the journey about why Spurs had wasted
the talents of Mido and Ghally, who he clearly thought were great players,
cruelly treated by the British Clubs for whom they had played.
We reached the hotel, which is built on an old pier right under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, in gathering gloom amid continuing heavy rain, which apparently has been the picture for several days, we finally ventured out and walked under a dripping Sydney Harbour Bridge, to CircularQuay, where the ferries leave for the stops in south Sydney and all round the
City, and had a pleasant dinner in an Italian restaurant on the East Quay before
coming back to the hotel. It was only when we got back to the hotel at about
11.00 and felt tired that we remembered that there had been a two hour time
change and in fact it was 1.00 in the morning as far as we were concerned.
Its now Saturday morning and we are planning our day around the weather which lookslike more of the same. This is supposed to be high summer in Australia but it looks morelike autumn in the UK!!
More soon.
