Changeover Day

One final thing to do in Sydney before we left the “Harbour City” behind: The Sydney Tower.  Coming in at 304 metres tall it isn’t the biggest tower in the world but the views of the city from the observation deck are spectacular and afforded us a last gaup at the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge (well Jonny at least). 

We left the five star luxury of The Westin Hotel and headed off to pick up the no star convenience of our motorhome.  And now we have her for the next three weeks.  I say her as it is customary in the Roughley/George household to give names and personalities to objects and Samantha immediately commented that “she had a pretty face” and therefore she is proudly called “Muriel”.  I think there are some advantages that we have given our van a female personality, we all know women are more considerate and careful than their male counterparts, but there are also some concerns: I think it is fair to say that women can be more demanding and potentially tricky if they do not get their own way – not a good trait for a motorhome!

The drive out of Sydney was challenging/fun/entertaining/scary; any of these adjectives work well, but we made it without incident or arrest and headed for Hunters Valley on the Pacific Highway 3.  The drive was quite beautiful and we soon settled into life on the road: the banging of pots, the inaudible GPS, the potholes and the swearing at other less considerate road users – we even felt confident enough to stop and navigate the challenges of a service station car park.

We arrived at the campsite via a somewhat roundabout route, the GPS taking us a strange way over a steep hill and along a single width dirt track before a phone call to the campsite reception put us back on track.  I expect there will be a lot of that over the next few weeks.

Anyway we are now in the Hunter Valley and have settled into Muriel, although it was a bit of a shock for Samantha who commented “I feel that I am on some strange reality TV show and have swapped lives to see how other people live”.

It was a good job we picked up some basic provisions in Cessnock on the way (bread, ham, cheese, water, wine, beer – there is only so much you can get in a garage on a Sunday afternoon!) as there was no a shop at the campsite.

We are off on a wine tasting tour tomorrow - the key question being when will we be sober enough to leave the wine region?

So, our first day with Muriel has come to an end without incident, well almost, we are not counting the camper park entrance barrier coming down on us as we faffed with the entry code!!!  Anyway, we are ‘cream crackered’ after the excitement of the day so having an early night – night, night.