03.23.11

Turned out that John and I spent the entire weekend at Arts place. He had decided to take a vacation far into the middle of nowhere, and he had asked John and I if we would help him paint some walls while he was gone. Of course we didn’t say no. The rain had kept us from being able to do much. We did venture into town one day to take more pictures of the Opera House, and had stopped at the Shark Hotel to eat their cheap buffet for dinner. On Thursday I had a photo shoot not far from Art’s place and on Saturday I had a second shoot. The last shoots I had for Sunday and Monday got cancelled because of the rain. We took the time at Arts to relax and enjoy the modern luxuries of life such as a comfy couch, TV and proper bed. As backpackers, its not very often we get these opportunities! It was wonderful. When Art arrived back on Sunday evening, we enjoyed a nice BBQ dinner, and continued to share stories. That night was our last night at his place. The next day we made our way up to the Northern beaches. On the way, just as we made it to the ocean, John noticed our Rent-A-Bomb was overheating. We couldn’t get too far without the car wanting to burn up, so we called the 24 hour roadside assistance that came with our rental and waited for 5 hours for the tow truck to arrive. By the time we got back into Sydney, it was 12, but we had another rental waiting for us. By the time we arrived at our third couchsurfing home, it was so late that we couldn’t find any parking. As a matter of fact, we weren’t so sure we even found his house, and we were tired. After much debate and an equally long day, we decided to just sleep in the car. When we woke up, we found a nice little restaurant by Coogie beach where we had lunch and got on the internet. We managed to get ahold of our couchsurfer and he told us to come by early that day so that we could find parking. For the rest of the day we relaxed on Coogie beach.
Our final couch surfer was friendly and apologetic for the night before. We stayed up to talk for awhile but I couldn’t help but pass out on the big comfy couch he had in his living room. We had to be up at 6am this morning to catch our plane to Fiji, and here I am at the airport, waiting for our next departure!
Sydney is beautiful, despite all the rain, and we are glad that we had gotten a car so cheaply. We doubly lucked out in having found a couch to surf every night, especially since I wasn’t getting many replies that offered much hope of that happening. It’s time to go though… we’ve got Fiji waiting for us : )