Daily Update #03 – Australia & New Zealand 2018

Next hotel & new location

We bid farewell to the Blue Mountains this morning.  We stopped at a much quieter lookout, west of Katoomba and continued west to travel down the mountains and toward Bathurst.  After a quick visit we then continued onward to Canberra, our new home for a few days.

Australia’s Racetrack

At the end of Bathurst is the Mount Panorama racetrack.  The pinnacle race is the Bathurst 1000, where for many years Ford & Holden V8 powered cars would duel for the lead.  Outside of track events, the course is a regular two way road with 60km/h speed limits, curbing at each corner, concrete barriers on each side, and driveways.  Yes, there is a small collection of properties that can only be accessed via the track.  Most notably is that there is a winery, however it was closed when we drove by.

After visiting the National Motor Museum we took our rental car for a leisurely drive around the track.  Once I figure out what to do with the video, expect our stroll through the track to turn into an exciting 30 second video.  The elevation changes, and corners can only be understood via video.

Drive to Canberra

We drove in the neighbourhood of 400 km today, and with wonderful weather and overall light traffic it was enjoyable.  Although we past many of these warning signs, we didn’t spot a single one in the wild:

Canberra

I will gladly reserve judgement on the city once we have time to explore it, however I found the approach into the city, via road, feel like we were heading to a provincial city.  First there is no divided highway to the city, instead you turn off the Sydney-Melbourne highway and after a few kms it’s one lane each way.  The one positive from being close to opposing traffic was that I did spot our first Corvette, on the move North from Canberra, being a red C3.

Tomorrow we explore Australia’s capital.  As always check out our Instagram feed for more humourous pictures.