Australian Road Trip

Today was the first day of me driving on the “wrong”, erm, “other” side of the road (thx, Christine! =P), It was a bit of a white knuckle ride getting from SYD back to the hostel. Unfamiliar roads, fast traffic on the RIGHT and right turns added up to thrills galore.
Since I now had passengers and they had stuff, I figured that getting a bigger car than the Toyota rollerskate I had originally reserved was a good idea. I wound up with a Ford Falcon XR6. Not bad! It’s rear wheel drive, solid and not bad to drive. Why can’t Ford US build them like this?

These girls had a lot of stuff. They filled up the boot and the part of the interior that they weren’t sitting in. In short, we packed up the car (backpacks, bags, my roller and go-bag, skateboard and surfboard) and took off across the Harbour Bridge northbound around 1400.
Some on the road silliness:

Lisa #1 (because I met her first) in the backseat, drowning in luggage.

Luggage!

A very serious me, trying not to drive the wrong way down the highway

Lisa #2 (because I met her after Lisa #1) in a neat shot. I like this one.
After 2+ hours of Portishead, a meal and gas break and mixed roads, we arrived at Newcastle and their oceanside YHA. Originally the plan was to drop them off at the city center, but that wouldn’t be right, would it?

The open road
I eventually made it to Cessnock, the city in the Hunter Valley where my hostel was. I wound up taking the long way around, but didn’t know it at the time. All I did was ask “where’s Cessnock” and got there eventually. I arrived around 2000. In the dark. But I got a room all to myself, yay! After 5 days in an 8 bed dorm, this is a welcome change. I met the other guests and the staffers and wound up organizing a self-guided winery tour. Self-guided = map and recommendations. That happens tomorrow. It’s going to be fun!
It doesn’t look far on the map, but 40% of the journey was on highways with the rest of it on freeways. But strangely, it wasn’t that bad. Australian drivers generally follow the rules of the road. Stay left. Pass on the right. And I didn’t see too many overt acts of stupidity. I found out later that it’s illegal to talk on cell phones while driving here. Also to eat or drink while driving. And despite Australia’s reputation as a hard charging, hard partying, hard farting people, their drink-driving laws are pretty stringent.
Hope you two made it to Brisbane!