Day 76. Sydney to Canberra

Miracles do happen.  It was just on 0830 when we were awoken this morning to a meek voice proclaiming that his bed was not completely dry.  At least we got to sleep in.  The poor kid has been dragged across Sydney for a couple of days now, not getting into to bed until hours after his bed time.  We rattled our washing tin a bit more, and got some clothes going whilst packing up our campsite.

We were scheduled to be in Canberra by the evening, so were hopeful of getting off to a reasonable start.  The kids dawdled about with their journals again, but finally finished bringing them up to date, and we did our best to cook, clean and pack up the van for a 10:00am checkout.

We didn't quite depart at this time, and took a bit longer getting bedding and clothes dry, and packing up a week's worth of accumulated junk before setting off down the highway.  There was little of interest to talk about on the drive out of Sydney other than I am thankful to be putting distance between myself and their drivers.

Lisa called home and had a long and relaxing conversation with her parents, as did the kids.  We pulled into Goulburn for some lunch which we were able to procure at a fantastic bakery.  Our main reason for stopping though was to see the BIG Merino.  He has some pretty big anatomically correct pieces on the other side as well.  Apart from the BIG Mango, this is the first really BIG thing we have seen in ages.

Lisa was also able to find some good gloves for the snow  for her and the kids, as well as an UGG Beanie for herself.  The cashier rang up $102855.95, which I asked her to check.  It was after all, only gloves socks and a beanie.

I think I embarrassed her because she gave us a huge discount off the first price she quoted us.  LUCKY!


It wasn't much further until we found ourselves driving down the valley towards the border for the ACT and NSW.  The geniuses who have planned this highway have put a rest area in 500m up the road, but not left a pull off bay to take a photo of the border crossing.  Maybe that is just commonplace for Canberrians. 

I defied the traffic planners, and stopped anyway, doing the chivalrous thing and sending Lisa into the cold with the camera to get a photo.

The first caravan park on our list has vacancies, so we have pulled into the Canberra Motor Village which is on the North side close to the city centre.  Whilst we were setting up, the kids ran off to explore and play, so we were lucky enough to have a visitor whilst there was no noise.

This Rosella was very friendly, but I think it was more to do with the fact that the fat little thing couldn't get its body weight off the ground that it was so amicable.

We were even able to feed some of our bread to it by hand.  We both know that this is a no go zone for native animals, but look at her!  Isn't she cute?

Just over the back of the park is Black Mountain Tower which offers sweeping views over Canberra.  We shall explore this further tomorrow evening methinks.

It was nice to have a more relaxing afternoon, and for the blog followers, I am sad to report that there were no injuries today, and we have all of our articles of clothing.