We made our way to Sydney and it was like landing in a warm bath. As a matter of speaking though, because the cold and rainy weather was the only not-so-welcoming thing during our stay there! The rest was pretty darn amazing!
Husband had never been to Sydney, which was a great reason to go there. We arrived after a redeye flight on the morning of my hubbies birthday! Our Dutch friends from Singapore had kindly agreed to put us up for a few days and even arranged for a birthday-cake-type of welcome. So nice and a great start of any birthday (after getting the extra bottle of wine on the plane of course). Since we (is celebrating an adult’s birthday a Dutch thing?) are into celebrations, our host-family and us went out and landed in the Imperial Hotel (you know, famously featured in the ‘Pricilla in the desert’ movie) and celebrated with pizza, hamburgers, beer and wine. At the end of the night there was even a shot of tequila for the birthday boy, proudly presented by the drag queens downstairs in the pub. Yep, we were in Sydney alright!
The next three days we spent lounging, catching up with ‘old’ friends and sightseeing some of the most important things of Sydney: Opera House, Darling Harbour, Botanic Gardens, The Wharf, Newtown to name a few. Our hostess took us to some amazing places and made our visit smooth sailing, mega easy and a lot more fun! Here’s some piccies:
We really enjoyed hanging out with everyone and when we had to go, we really weren’t ready. But hey, we have big things to do: we are on a roadtrip to Perth!
Isn’t that on the other side of Australia I hear you think? Yes, indeed it is! We are about to drive 5,000 km and on the way we’ll be visiting many friends, going to a wedding and seeing all sorts of new things.
Sunday morning 11 am we picked up our “luxury” car (hubby says I should add the brand. He says it’s a KIA Sportage; I just like the metallic grey color!) at ACE; we got a good deal, or did we…? It definitely was not a new car. We perceived that as good, because then they are not too worried about little dents and stuff. But most of the time we can’t get the backdoor to shut properly and when after 400 km the rearview mirror fell off, we did wonder about this good deal… Thankfully we are good DIYers and hubby reattached the mirror without a problem. We try to avoid using the backdoor as much as possible.
On the way we saw not as much as we’d liked. We really have to get into this driving thing. The maximum speed is kind of low and the winding coast road is rather slow. So what seems like an easy drive of only 400 km, pretty much takes the better part of the day. Our first leg therefore was mostly driving, but we learned from that and will do the next leg to Adelaide rather differently.
Below some pictures of the things we did see. Our favorite was the Killer Whale Museum in Eden, but probably because we are suckers for a good story!
When we got to Melbourne things got a bit rocky, the Asian influence is everywhere! But more on that next time!
Pleun’s Little House on the Prairie 
Leuk joh, on the move! Ik hoop dat de auto in tip top shape blijft! Enjoy Melbourne
So far, so good 😉