A frustrating day in all!

We rise early, pack up the campervan, and set off for the last final 35 kilometres of driving, copy of map highlighted showing exactly where we are to go

1) pick up keys to flat we’ve rented;

2) pick up bags we left at Sullivan’s Hotel (now the Arts Hotel);

3) drop everything at flat; and

4) return campervan to Maui depot, near the airport.

We negotiate our way to the M4 successfully, and the drive is easy. We sail past the Sydney Olympic Site, and, as the motorways tend to do here, the dual carriageway ends and we are driving on city streets, which are still marked as the M4. We hit congestion, the radio announces a bad accident about 5 kilometres further down the road, and it takes over 1 hour to get past it. We continue to follow the M4, as our maps tell us to do, and all of a sudden we are approaching the Anzac Bridge, which we know enough to know means we are lost. We stop, check our maps, they all tell us to follow the M4, which the road signs tell us we’re still on, but the maps show the M4 in a completely different part of town. We drive around in circles for an hour before we figure out how to get to where we need to be. We finally get within 1/2 kilometre of the rental agency’s office when traffic again grinds to a halt. A crane ahead has dropped a load into the middle of the street, tying up traffic in all directions for another 30 minutes. When we finally get to the Fox Studios, where the rental agency is located, nobody can tell us where the building we’re looking for is (contrary to the assurances we’d been given that “everyone will know the building once you’re at the Fox Studios). This is where mobile phones come in handy, and we get the agency on the phone and they guide us as we drive to the building.

The rest of the day goes swimmingly – we get our bags, drop them off at our super deluxe apartment in downtown Sydney, and head to the airport to drop the campervan. We get back to the CBD by 1:45, grab a bite, and head to the internet cafe to update the web and check emails – we have not been able to do this since Coolum Beach, due to a lack of internet cafes on the road. We get all settled in and – something goes wrong. We cannot upload to the website, and we cannot pickup or send emails. We spend too long trying to figure it out, and, still frustrated, head home for a nap.

Welcome to Sydney!