Sydney (for Jan. 29)

Travel day today, so not much to tell.

We went to a mall with a wireless hotspot in the morning and used up the last of our prepaid time to catch up on the blog. Then I got the haircut I needed before we left home. We tried to reserve a hotel room about noon (10 AM Sydney time), but our first two choices near the airport were both full. Looks like we will have to start planning further ahead.

We returned our car at 1 and got a lift to the airport. Our flight was running a little late, so we only got out about 4. The 3 hour flight was uneventful. We had a nice light meal with complimentary drinks. Air New Zealand is not Air Canada!

By the time we got through Customs, picked up our car, and got some money, (and including a 2 hour time change) we got out of the airport about 6:30. This was the beginning of a small adventure. I was under the impression that the car rental company provided maps with the car. That was certainly the case in New Zealand. I had purposely not bought maps at home because I thought they were provided. However, that turned out not to be the case here. We received a single page map of Sydney, equivalent to a Regina map showing only Albert Street, Broad Street, and Victoria Ave. In our hotel guide we had a map that showed the equivalent of Knowles Crescent or 18^th Avenue East. There are only clues where the latter fits into the former. With a little detective work and a couple of wrong turns, we finally found our place on the north shore about 7:30.

After checking in, we explored a nearby area that was like the Cathedral area with way more eating places. We found a place that had a road atlas in the window, so that will be our first stop in the morning.

Our new car is a Ford Falcon. Can I grin and bear it for a month? Will I be a Ford man at the end? Stay tuned to find out!

In New Zealand, we never saw a screen on a window and never had a problem with bugs, other than what I mentioned earlier. This hotel has screens on the windows. A portent of things to come?

A few more New Zealand afterthoughts. We never saw any noticeably homeless people any time during our stay and never encountered any panhandlers. The highways were rarely very busy. About the busiest stretch we encountered outside a city was the last leg from Timaru to Christchurch. There was very little divided highway or expressway in the whole country. There was about five miles entering each of Wellington and Dunedin and a few miles south of Auckland that we turned off of. There is very little trucking there compared to home also.