Driving on the Left and First Impressions

Dan has driven - I have not - YET. Dan's first driving experience was from Sydney Airport to Karuah, New South Wales. It is about a 3 hour drive and luckily Priscilla and Dominic left us their Tom Tom (GPS) or we never would have made it (or at least I never could have navigated it)! It was so weird to be sitting in the Canadian driver's seat but to really be the passenger. I kept jumping and flinching which, of course, was not very helpful to poor Dan who was trying to stay on the left side of the road and to navigate round-abouts that are more than one lane! Until he started to feel comfortable, he would veer away from the centre line which would leave me either almost in the ditch or on those rumble strips. We made it safely though and now how feels like a pro!

Observations about Australian roads:

They are so polite (example)

rather than yield - "give way" (there are more but at the moment I am unable to give more)

very few traffic lights - lots of round-abouts

We also noticed the fire risk level signs. Where we have "Extreme" as our highest level, they have "Catastrophic" (yikes!).

When we were driving toward Narrandera, we also noticed that we were in some areas where the road actually could become a flood way. In these areas there would be flood level measuring sticks that would go up to 2 metres. This was a little unnerving as it would be higher than our vehicle. Wow!

Overall, it was hard to sleep in the car because we never really got bored. The scenery is spectacular here. Along the coast there are high hills and lush vegetation. We saw many trees that we had never seen before and tried to identify them by guessing, although, we really have no clue at this point.

The Blue Mountain area is also quite breathtaking - not like the Rocky Mountains rugged appearance, but more tropical and again, lush. We were not far over the mountains, when we entered rolling hills and another beautiful landscape with ranches and sheep and cattle grazing. This was also where we saw our first "mob" of kangaroos. It was so exciting to see them hopping along. We didn't get a picture as they were too far away. We WILL get some soon though and be sure to post them!

The area around Narrandera seems to have gentle rolling hills and trees and is quite picturesque. We haven't ventured too far from our new home yet but look forward to much more exploring in the area.