The Beginning – How I got here
So the journey to Sydney began a few weeks ago, but most of the action happened last week.
I finished work on Thursday, which is the last day of Feb. I’m sure that anyone in a sales position can relate that the end of the month is a hectic time. However, my end of month was probably 15 times busier, that’s what it felt like to me. I also had to add in farewell dinners, packing, well attempting to pack. I did leave most of it to the last minute. However, I did manage to reduce the amount of packing that I needed to do by drinking my wine, the sacrifices you need to do to reduce the amount of packing…… Also add in that was supposed to train my replacement at Subaru who was a trainee, his name is Brandon, and make sure you pronounce that right! Let’s just say that we did not get along, it was probably mostly on my part, as I have a problem being nice to people that I believe are lazy……. Anyone who knows me, will know that my face will show what I am thinking, so I am sure that he knew exactly how I felt. The day before I left, I told him to make a list of anything that he is not sure about, so I can go through it with him before I leave. No list eventuated, so I was very relieved to handover the reins to a trainee that apparently knows everything about the job already! Good luck to him, it seems he may need the luck.
Friday comes along, and I am up at 5am to prepare everything for the removalist and pack the car to the roof ready for the drive to Sydney on Saturday. I did the farewells with my sisters Louisa & Melissa and stayed at Nicole and Jasons for the night. I went to bed and set my alarm for a 4am kick off the next day.
Imagine my surprise at my stupidity when I wake up at 4am exactly, check my phone and wonder why the alarm isn’t going off…. yep, I set the alarm for 4pm. My weariness from the day before must have gotten the better of me. Ooops. Good old body clock has saved me again.
So I set off at at 4:20 am on a Saturday for an apparent 12 hour drive to journey. Now, I know that plenty of people have done this trip in one day before, but I had only done a 4 hour drive at the most and this drive was going to be done after a massive week, with shitty sleep throughout the week. To me, it was going to be challenging. A saving grace, was that my friend Lauren was heading to Macksville for a carshow, which is almost halfway to Sydney, so I got to convoy with her.
We stopped at a Maccas in a Service station at 5:30am. Now, any reasonable person who likes a good cup of coffee will think that a Wild Bean Cafe $4:00 skinny latte will be better coffee than a $3:70 MacDonalds coffee…. Nope!!! So I spent $7:70 on coffee that morning, plus my bacon & egg Mcmuffin and hash brown. I freaking love hash browns!
Than the trip really began, lets just say that it was long…. so after an extremely long drive, which included potholes from all the rain, a caravan towing a car (that’s a bit backwards) an overweight guy in a ute parked on the side of the road displaying to all passing traffic that he can squeeze into a size 8 singlet (yuk) and passing the Mandarine Motel that has a big Banana on the top of it (if anyone can let me why, that would be great). I made it into Sydney..
Okay, so all my friends know that I am a Google Queen, so naturally I googled how to get to my final destination a few days before hand. I was not happy to realize that after pulling over to double check as I was driving into the heart of Sydney, I was actually was heading in the right direction. I was very disappointed with myself.
I finally made it to the end! I met up with my new boss Ace at the office as I am staying with him and his GF Cara for a few weeks until the room is available at the sharehouse that I am moving into. I was very impressed that he made me go and say hi to my Dealer Principle, as you can imagine, I was looking & smelling my finest after a 12 hour trip…..
You would think that after all the above I would be ready to crash into bed, nope not me. So we ventured into Dee Why in search of a delicious steak. We went to this restaurant Stella Cafe, now I am not sure if my lack of decent food for the last few days was affecting my judgement, but the meals here were AMAZING! The steak was awesome, the flourless chocolate cake was devine, and the wine was so so tasty.
We get back to the house, I make up my mattress with my new goose down mattress topper (purchased for $99 off one of those voucher websites) that i have not have the please of trying out and I get ready for a well deserved sleep. Anybody who is reading this, you need to get a goose down mattress topper!!! They are freaking awesome!
The last thing that I need to mention to anyone who is looking to do a 12 hour drive, do not be surprised that when you are trying to go to sleep, you may be a bit delusional and still feel as though you are still driving and that you are actually falling asleep at the wheel. It was not a nice experience, but I fell asleep and woke up invigorated to experience all Sydney has to offer. Stay tuned to hear about my adventures! Peace out peeps!