Wrapping up Sydney and hitting the road

So, I hung out in Sydney for a second day. I shot some more photos of the Opera House and a video as well.  I haven't worked on the photos yet, but I did put a quick video together.  This was about 6:45 in the morning and it was so peaceful there on this little point sticking out from the pier.  This video was taken with my Canon 7D and I'm really impressed with the video quality.


I went out to the normal "Opera House/Harbour Bridge" spot hoping to get some shots of the Opera House bathed in the morning sun, but I was shut out again.  It was funny, to the left the city had full on sun and was perfect, but the Opera House was bla grey.  I stuck around for about 20 minutes hoping a sliver of sun would come out, but looking behind me at the forbidding dark clouds, I knew it wasn't happening. 

The rest of Monday I walked around the city checking out the Maritime Museum, the Sydney Aquarium and whatever else looked interesting.  Not a whole lot to say except I was ready for bed when I got back to my hotel.

Tuesday morning I checked out of my hotel and hopped on the train back to the airport to pick up my car. I had booked an automatic, but when I was checking in at the front counter, the guy asked if I would take a manual.  I said "sure" and he seemed a bit surprised and repeated himself, "Are you sure? It's a manual, you'll manually shift the gears." I don't have a problem shifting with my left hand. Growing up I used to shift for my mom all the time.  Also, my dad dislocated his right should and couldn't use it for 3 months, so I always would shift for him when we went out.

I have to say though, I was a bit nervous about driving in Sydney.  There's a ton of traffic and of course you're driving on the left side of the road.  When you've been driving from the left seat in a car for a long time, changing over to the right side makes the car seem HUGE.  The car I have isn't that big, it's about the same size as a Mazda 3 hatchback, but it felt like I was driving a 71 Cadillac. After about 10 minutes of weaving through traffic, trying not to hit anyone while paying attention to where the female voice on the GPS was telling me to go, I started to settle down and get into the groove.  I do have to say that Sydney drivers are very polite.  No one honked at me and everyone let me in when I turned on the blinker. It was actually much easier driving here on the left side of the road then driving in Manaus, Brazil on the right side of the road.  The only thing that is still getting me is having the signal on the right side of the steering wheel instead of the left.  I keep turning on my wipers when I make lane changes.

It was nice getting on the road and out of the city.  My destination was Port Macquarie and I drove the Freeway most of the way.  I did take a side road along the coast for the last 40KM and I have to say, the coastline along here is beautiful.  Found my backpackers (hostel) here in Port Macquarie, walked around the town for a bit then picked up a six pack and headed back to the lodgings.  Ended up sitting on a bench with 7 or 8 people from all over the world talking about anything and everything until 11 when the owner said, "sorry guys, we're shutting it down for the night".

I think I'm going to stay here one more night.  I met some cool people and we're going to go check out some of the local sites.  Any ways, breakfast is ready and I'm starving.