Australian road trip...chapter 1

Well after a month of avoiding blogging and general communication like the plague (and being aided by Australia's generally poor transmitter coverage and colossal size), I thought I better give you a downunder rundown...

After panicking about getting accommodation before we arrived we hit the jackpot with the Elite Private Hotel in Kirribilli. On my first morning here I was blown away, walking down to the harbour only to see the bridge looming up next to me and the Opera House gleaming at me from across the harbour. Fantastic and relatively cheap too.

New Year's Eve was good. Although the whole week we were there was spent drinking too much, eating too much and spending too much as we caught up with friends and family from back home.

For the fireworks we camped out in the blazing sun at Bradfield Plaza, on the bridge's north side and opposite the Opera House and Sydney CBD, for the 9pm show, before heading to Observatory Hill on the bridge's south side for the midnight celebrations. The fireworks were spectacular and I will try and get some pix up here or on flickr soon.

By January 4th and with considerably less money, we picked up our 1st hire car from Hertz. The plan being to buy a tent and some camping equipment and drive south along the NSW coastline, then down to Melbourne before heading along the Great Ocean Road, up to Adelaide and back to Sydney cross country.

I had been hoping for a jet-black, nitrous-equipped Interceptor used in Mad Max but made do with our air-conditioned Toyota Camry. With wheels, shades and sunburnt noses we hit the road...