The New England Highway - Good times and Bad

So Pat and I have decided to get out of Sydney. Sydney was a fantastic city with lots and lots to do. Well, we looked into the best way to travel up the coast, and by comparing buses to renting cars to buying cars to trains to hitching, the obvious solution presented itself. Buying a car IS the cheapest option. Buying a car cost exactly the same amount as renting it would've been. And it only cost a little more than taking a train or a bus, but now we have the option of going where ever we please. It is quite nice! And no, we haven't given this car a name yet. We're working on it though.

So, instead of going all the way up the coast to Brisbane, we decided to go inland a little bit and check out some of the "off the beaten track" areas of Australia. We started off by going to the blue mountains which are an absolutely gorgeous national park. There are sandstone cliffs that are hundreds of feet tall and perfectly vertical. And lookouts all over the place! I wish I could show you! (That story a little later. . .)

So from the Blue Mountains we traveled up the Old Western highway, and turned onto the New England Highway. These highways pass through some really fun small towns as well as some larger Bozeman sized towns. Right now we are in Armidale which is about the size of Bozeman, and has the University of New England. So really, it has a Bozeman feel to it.

Plus, by getting out of the city, we've been able to save quite a bit of money on sleeping costs! In fact, we have become "vagrants" over the past few days. Living in the car, and when we need to sleep, we've just been finding rest areas to pitch the tent in. It has been quite fun! The problem is finding showers though! :) Oh yeah, and it's been really cold. For Pat at least. He didn't bring a sleeping bag with him so we've been fashioning sleeping bags out of blankets, switching sleeping pads, and slept in the car. Finally we went shopping for a bag!

Also on the New England Highway we saw our first kangaroos! Funny little creatures and surprisingly agile. Instead of jumping over a wire fence, they'd jump through it! Quite impressive.

The Kangaroos were in wine country, so we stopped and did some wine tasting. We went to a GREAT winery called cruikshanks, that makes the best port wine I've had. (In fact the only port I've had until now) I suggest you look them up if you want wine, and maybe order some!

And finally, that day we drove to Tamworth and looked at a giant 12 meter tall golden guitar. Of course it was such a tacky touristy thing that I had to take a picture. Well, that is the point that I found out that I couldn't find my camera. I had thought I left it in my polar fleece. Not there. Maybe in the pants I changed from at the first winery. Not there. We tore apart the car. Not there! So I tried calling the first winery we went to to see if I had dropped it there. Well, I ran out of credit on my phone. So I had to go top up and buy a new sim card for Australia. Well, after stopping at about 10 different electronics stores and gas stations, I finally found the sim card I needed. So I tried calling the winery, but had to activate my sim card to use my phone. And guess what! When I tried activating the card, the phone companies system was down. So I tried on the Internet. System still down. Everything I did from that golden guitar onwards went terribly awry! And I still don't know where my camera is!

So, I only have a couple minutes left, so I should get going. But as soon as my camera reappears (hopefully) I'll get some pictures up that I've been promising for about the last month now! See ya!

(And I only got 2 comments on my last post. . .you all are slacking as much as I am! Thanks though to the two people that did comment. ;) )