Deliver Us From Swedish Furniture

Sydney, the land of tunnels and tolls

Sorry for a lack of posts. I’ve actually been running around a lot and not had a chance to post anything about the fun and games that I got up to down in Victoria….and it’s not going to change yet as I’m feeling all Humed out.

I drove the near 900km of the Hume Highway in my brother’s car, which he kindly donated to me while he’s away on his honeymoon….well I thought it was the kindness of his heart, but it turns out that while working for Holden (that’s GM in these parts) he gets a new car every 10 000kms, so my driving this will mean he gets back and can order himself a new one…. Anyway he’s got a Commodore, which is a big lazy thing that you point up the road, hit the cruise control button and watch the world go by. I was a bit annoyed with the Hume highway though, unlike the roads in the US across the midwest, this one actually has a few curves!

The Highway was actually built to connect up Melbourne and Sydney, although the two cities have never really seen eye to eye and you get this feeling from the highway itself. During the early part of the 20th Century, Melbourne was the seat of government for Australia. However Sydney, the oldest and, by then, biggest city, didn’t like this state of affairs, so they reached an uneasy compromise and built Canberra as the capital, a little way off the Hume Highway. So as I hit the highway and start driving it is all dual carriageway with a 110km/h speed limit (in the state of Victoria this is close to light speed!) until you hit the New South Wales border, when things get a lot more single carriageway like. There is a lot of building work going on and a promise that 90% will be dual carriageway by 2009, but it’s amazing that all the slower roads fall on the Melbourne side of Canberra….anyone would think they didn’t want those pesky Melbourne-ites visiting the place

Anyway the journey itself was fairly uneventful, wending my way through the bush, which was a vivid purple for large portions from the lavender farms along the way, for ten hours with occasional stops….one of which involved a close encounter with a huntsman spider! Most men are familiar with the weird sensation of not being able to go if there is someone else stood too close to you? Well I was quite happily, well going, when I looked up into the rafters of the shedlike dunny as my eye caught some movement and I was confronted with a scary beasty from the depths of the woods….very suddenly I simultaneously wanted to go and not go at the same time!

Apart from that, the next most scary thing was navigating Sydney’s notorious road system. I was driving up from the south-west and I wanted to get to Manly, on the coast in the northern part of Sydney. I was not sure whether to follow the route around the West of the city or the one that takes you under the airport and up the eastern side. As it happens the decision was made for me as the western route was a toll road and would only let you play if you had a tag on your car. The other route was also a toll route, but at last I could pay in good, old fashioned, plastic money with a see through bit. Anyway the traffic thickened dramatically as I reached the signs saying 40Km to Sydney (about 25 miles) and soon I was fighting my way through thick trafic with people diving in and out, while trying to follow the signs while keeping an eye on the speed limits that changed every few minutes which the Aussies enforce these with the religious zeal of a government paying for the work on the Hume Highway with a few more speeding tickets. By this point it was also getting dark so I was knackered and getting dazzled too…. After cutting up and getting cut up a few times I paid a toll and found myself streaming through a 3 lane tunnel under the airport, although the three lanes did become two very suddenly a few times and I wasn’t the only one to find myself in the wrong lane. A few more dubious cut-up manoveurs and I found myself on the Eastern Distribution (they must have got consultants in to think up that name!) where another toll was required. I then saw a sign ahead for the bridge or the tunnel….decisions, decisions. So, I am in Sydney, so I am going to go over the Bridge, one of the world’s most recognisable landmarks. So I turned off and promptly found myself in the tunnel. The tunnel emerged on into Northern Sydney and you suddenly go from a well lit, two lane tunnel, into a dark squllion lane mess, which invariably means I will be on the wrong side of for my turn off…..oh yes, there it goes!

Once you escape this you find yourself victim of one of the things that makes Sydney so spectacular, it’s geography. The whole place is based around a series of inlets and harbours, which means the land around it rises and falls, quite dramatically at points. One of these is occurs as you approach Manly, when you suddenly find yourself careering down a steep, twisty slope with three lanes of traffic for company. For added excitement, they then decide to make it two lanes, with no warning, just as you reach max speed at the bottom of the hill…. Finally though I made it to Manly, where I am staying. So you find me writing this, perched up on top of the hill overlooking the harbour, with Sydney’s CBD looming over the other side of the harbour….more to follow!