So, the motorway (the M23/M31) directly goes from Canberra to Sydney but, of course, I could not simply take the direct route but I did not want to take too long - The trip down from Sydney probably took me about 8 hours but I wanted to make the most of my last full day in Australia by spending at least a bit of time in Sydney. So, I decided to take a slight detour to Yass which is slightly to the west of the main roads and probably added a couple of hours to my trip but made me a lot happier!

A short distance along the road I had to stop for fuel so I pulled into a small petrol station which also had quite a lot of groceries but also - in the far corner - a butcher who was selling pies. He advised on the “chunky lamb” pies but since they had just gone into the oven he suggested the “chunky beef” instead which was very nice indeed - Tasty and not very greasy - I stopped at a tourist information booth to both eat and use the free public toilets…another one of those old-style towns…

Yass is quite a ways off the main highway along a wonderful wandering road through some gently rolling hills. This is wine country with signs peppered all along the motorway. I made a U-turn at the end of the high street and returned back to the motorway on the way to Sydney.

The road was relatively uneventful with rolling hills causing a few issues with the cruise control. The larger trucks are generally quite polite though a few did cause me a few seconds of minor terror.

As I approached Sydney the traffic, of course, became pretty bad. After passing through the long tunnel I remember from my trip a week ago in the opposite direction we pretty much came to a stop. My hotel is in the middle of the city - pretty much right beside the Sydney Harbour Bridge in an area of the city called “The Rocks”.

The navigation unit guided me through the maze of one way city streets including several that had a very slow speed limit of 20 km/hr (!). I was amused to see the name of one that I followed for a while: Oxford Street (thinking back to London)! There are a lot of tourists about. Finally I climbed a steep hill, turned right and pulled up in front of the hotel where, luckily. there was a parking space free. A quick check with the front desk confirmed that the car park I had passed on the street opposite was where I could park the car at a discounted rate (still, $45/day…).

⇒ Continue to A Brief Visit to Sydney