Canberra via The Road Less Traveled

What a fun and varied drive from Sydney to Canberra.  We saw beautiful country side, fantastic scenery in the Blue Mountains, and ended up on “the road less traveled” during part of our trip.

We left the Holiday Inn – Sydney Airport about mid morning.  As we were leaving we noticed two Aboriginal elders performing some sort of ceremony at the Holiday Inn.  We don’t know the specifics but it was interesting to see them in their ceremonial paint.

We successfully navigated through the city streets and onto the Motorway headed West toward the Blue Mountains.  I am sure glad I had previous experience driving on the other side of the car and road.  Having my Garmin to navigate our way was a big help.

Our first stop was in Glenbrook at an information site.  There we picked up some additional maps and some ideas of additional places to visit, time permitting.  While in Glenbrook we also stopped for some “brunch” since we had skipped breakfast.  Glenbrook is a small town with a relatively small business district.  We ate at the Café Cee, a small store front Café but with good food and friendly staff.  As we walked the street to our car, I noticed a full fledged butcher shop, next door to the grocery store.  There was also a clothier, beauty shop, among others.

The Café Cee is just this side of the building with the brick wall.

From there we drove to Katoomba and the Echo Point overlook.  The main highway is being worked on which slowed our progress.  As a result we were only able to stop at the one place in the Blue Mountains.

Thirteen years ago, during our previous trip to Australia, we tried to see “The Three Sisters” in the Blue Mountains on a guided tour.  Unfortunately it was so foggy that we never saw a thing.  Therefore on this trip one of our goals was to visit the Three Sisters.  We had a beautiful day.

Note the deep canyon.  That is part of the beauty of the area.

This is just to prove we were there!

Here is a street scene from Katoomba.

From there we decided we needed to head for Canberra if we were going to get there at a reasonable time.  When I programmed my Garmin, I simply put in the three places we wanted to stop and let it choose the road.  We were surprised when we discovered it had chosen two lane roads that ended up bypassing many of the towns along the main route.  It turned out to be a fun drive with very little traffic and through some beautiful sheep and cattle country.  We followed a ridge line for most of the way and had nice views of the deep valley floor and other mountains.

I started to wonder a couple of times if I was going to end up on a gravel road when the road narrowed to more of a lane.  We drove down a couple of mountains and back up the other side in some places.  It was really a fun drive with good weather (except for the wind).  Temperature was a cool 14 degrees C.

Dayna….can you figure out what that temperature is in our measurement units.  You can get our Dad or Mom to help you with this question.

Eventually, we rejoined the main road into Canberra.  For a long distance, this road ran along the edge of a very broad flat valley.  The valley was lush and green (it is early spring here).

The shadow line is because we were on the west side of the valley at the base of some additional mountains.

Our final surprise of the day was the Hotel Room we got at our hotel.  We usually ask for a queen size bed, and expect a fairly simple room.  Much to our surprise our room has a living room, dining/kitchen area, and a loft for the bedroom.  NICE!

Tomorrow, we explore Canberra…..until then….