Blue Mountains - Sydney
The morning saw us driving back through the grimy industrial wasteland of the road through the Blue Mountains, back towards Sydney. We stopped off at the town at the entrance to the Mountains, Glenbrook, to see an ancient cave used by Aborigines. They made hand-prints with the local ochre on the walls of the cave, which are still visible (albeit through a perspex barrier) today.
The cave is along a track, accessible from a ten kilometer unsealed track road. Driving along these things is pretty good fun if you’re driving and scary if you’re not; dodging the pot-holes and seeing how fast you can go without actually damaging the car are the best parts.
The best part was when four kangeroos hopped placidly in a line across the road, seemingly unaware that we were braking sharply from 40kph not very far away.
We drove back to Sydney, planning on driving from the west into the city centre area, crossing by Hyde Park and then back to Kings Cross to the car hire depot. It didn’t quite go according to plan; initially we came up an unsigned fork which resulted in us going about 2km north-west into Sydney’s surburbia. Once we’d returned back to our route in from the west of the city, we had an encounter with a set of junctions that are amazing; there’s about six branches in less than a kilometer, all of which can change your journey dramatically. In my efforts to avoid the tunnel across the city we ended up going over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, turning around in North Sydney and finding a way through to the Harbour tunnel. After a hair-raising manouver to cross to the unsigned exit we emerged about five minutes from our final Kings Cross destination, and disembarked shakily into the drizzle.
Summary: don’t try and drive through Sydney, it’s a nightmare.
We finally got a taxi to the Intercontinental Hotel, found our room and made a trip up to the top floor to check out the pool (deserted and tranquil). Dinner was overlooking the Harbour, then a wander home to get some sleep in the vast bed.