On The Road Again

Sydney to Alice Springs in seven days!

This morning Alan drove me to Sydney, to pick up the van I'm relocating. They allow five days, but I booked an extra two (which was the maximum I could get). It comes with dark blue sheets and towels, a doona and kitchen equipment.

In some ways it is excellent. I'm going to have a compact RV overseas, which is a little bigger than this, so the real reason for hiring it isn't the journey but the experience. Already I'm learning a lot! Don't get a pop top when you are a short solo traveler - the pop top is anchored by four clamps at the corners which are too high for me to reach, and the awning assumes that there are two people to pull it out.  Since I'm short, I'm capable of being inside without the pop top being up. However, the bed needs the pop top to be up because its mattress is folded. The rear vision mirror doesn't work because of the van behind, and I rely on that mirror much more than the side ones. Seven days will allow me to get comfortable with driving with the side mirrors only.

Unfortunately the van wasn't ready when we arrived, so I couldn't start the trip until about 1:30pm, so I only made it to Mudgee.

On the way, I stopped at the Blue Mountains for lunch. It was a good place to have a break since Sydney traffic stops about there and the country begins. The Western highway is being remade, so the entire journey to Lithgow from Katoomba was roadworks. But it was nice. The scenery is beautiful, with the really broken landscape that typifies the greater Blue Mountains. Further on is even better, with rolling hills and broken scenery in the background all the way to Mudgee, as you are travelling at the back of the Great Dividing Range. It helped that I was travelling in late afternoon, because the whole scene had a golden glow. There had been rain, so the leaves on the trees sparkled in the sunshine as I went past.

The country looks better than further south - the grass is greener and longer. Of course, this will change tomorrow as the journey takes me further and further into the dry, red centre that is currently in flood.

The picture is of the Blue Mountains - the only place I stopped, as everywhere else I was unsure that I could drive out after I had parked, or had paid parking, and I didn't have any change for the machines.