It took me a while to get started in the morning, because I was
on denial about Sydney traffic. There are some fine freeways in this city, but
the good ones are toll roads without toll booths! You are supposed to register
with the toll authority, which then charges your credit card with whatever
amount tickles their fancy. I, of course, am not going to give my credit card
for open charges to anyone (same is true of Melbourne, Brisbane, and other
large cities). So what to do? Ah, enter my GPS unit, which can be directed to
set a route that avoids the toll roads, which normally works just fine. This
time, however, the stupid thing set a route directly across Sydney, so I worked
my way through streets across the megalopolis, at an even but very slow pace.
Finally, around 10:30 am I left the urban footprint behind and headed for the
northern extension of the Blue Mountains.
After I left the M-31 freeway behind me, I entered Yengo
National Park using a narrow, winding road. It was the perfect antidote to the oppressive
drive through Sydney. A beautiful forest that shared the deep canyons of the
Blue Mountains with small mountains valleys and meadows, so I took my sweet
time driving slowly and letting the green of the mountains flood my spirit.
Eventually I reached Wollombi Valley, which bombastically announced itself as
Australia’s finest wine country. It was a pleasant rural valley, with lots of
charming farm houses, but to me it looked like they might have a dozen vines
total. Wollombi Valley eventually led me to the town of Cessnock, which sits in
the middle of Hunter Valley, just like Napa sits in the middle of Napa Valley.
Now they were talking. Many more vineyards with fancy wineries in them (but
here it is winter, so all the plants are bare sticks), as well as a few plantations
of olive trees. This is an intermontane valley, so the vineyards are spread
over gentle hills, with very little flat land in between, so I had fun driving
the narrow mountain roads and stopping to enjoy the landscape.
In Cessnock I found the best camping park so far, with an
ample open kitchen that allows me to proudly look over my own vineyard (the
camping spots are separated by rows of four vines, so for this afternoon I can
say I am the proud proprietor of a row of vines in Hunter Valley!).
I am still a bit alarmed at the prices of restaurant and
pubs here under, and most of the supermarkets goods are commensurately highly
priced (a cut of meat is likely to put you back AUS$ 20). I was thus immensely pleased
when I found that they have Aldi in most major towns. I remember Aldi from the
years I lived in Germany as a chain that manages products under its own label,
at a considerable discount with respect to comparable products in other
supermarkets. So today I will fix myself a couple of hamburgers accompanied by
spinach and cheese spanakopitas for less that AUS$ 5 😊. Speaking of
hamburgers, Australians are big into barbecueing, but instead of having a charcoal
fire and a grill all campgrounds have a stainless steel hot plate, with a hole
in the center for draining grease. In good places you just push the button and
the hot plate heats up, you grill your stake or hamburgers there, and after a
few minutes the thing turns off automatically. Tonight I shall eat like an
Australian using the “Barbie”!
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