The Greatest Journey -- The Last Steps

Having covered such a large expanse of Australia, it was welcome pleasure not to have a long drive ahead. Canberra to Sydney is only less than 3 hours and there isn't much to see along the way, although a few points of interest there are. This was Isabella's last full day in Australia as she flew out to New Zealand to begin a magnificent bicycle tour. This would also be our last couchsurf experience and we would be staying with a young German man named Julien Mueller in his apartment in Sydney.

On the way out of Canberra, we stopped at the Weerewa Lookout over Lake George. Lake George is a very ephemeral lake that fills and drains depending on the climate. In drought, it is empty but in the recent past there has been enough water to reach the highway. With the recent rains, Lake George's southern end was filled with water and ACTEWAGL, Canberra's water and electricity provider, had built some large wind turbines on the far shore. There's still water in it today, probably more than in January and I hope that I get to see it full one day.

From Lake George we drove to Goulburn, Australia's oldest inland town, or so it claims. The thing Goulburn is noted for is the Big Merino, a large merino ram constructed out of concrete. In keeping with our tradition of stopping at large things, Isabella and I got out and took a photo of it.

From there it was on to Sydney and although we got a little lost along the way, we eventually found our host's home, a small thing on a side street but very pleasant. It turned out that our host sang in a band called Julien Mueller and the Full House and they would be singing at Darling Harbour that evening. They specialize in sort of Frank Sinatra-type songs. Deciding that it would be worth a look, Isabella, myself and another couchsurfer went down to Darling Harbour to check it out.

Darling Harbour is quite an active place. There you find the Powerhouse Museum, the Sydney Aquarium, the Maritime Museum, an Imax theater and a sizeable shopping center. We arrived in the evening and there were many people there. The big attraction, though, was the buskers who plied their craft wherever you walked; some were better than others. Eventually Julien and his band got going and I must say they were very good. I was impressed with the quality of the musicians and Julien's voice. Quite a crowd gathered in the sort of amphitheater created by the semicircular steps. By the end of the show, several people had bought the band's CD, including Isabella, and I think it was not out of pity but out of genuine admiration.

By the time we got back to Julien's it was quite late and Isabella had a plane to catch in the morning. We were all too tired for any sort of farewell ceremony so we just sort of lay down and nodded off to sleep. I was sad that the adventure was over but glad that I'd had an opportunity to travel the country with someone and to see some unusual and not often visited places.

I drove Isabella to the airport in the morning and bid her fair winds on her upcoming adventure. Isabella had decided to take a 2.5 month bicycle tour around New Zealand so she was off to Auckland. As she flew off, I was on my way back to Canberra. Returning the vehicle I calculated that I had driven exactly 10 700 kilometers in the month or so Isabella and I had been around Australia, an average of over 400 kilometers a day. Taking into account that I drove the Canberra-Sydney route twice alone, I think we covered roughly 10 200 kilometers together, not a bad sum.

Although Isabella and I had finished this adventure, there was still one more to come.