KM 795 - Blue Mountains//Rutherglen: Misty Blue Mountains and tasty vineyards

Setting off in Sydney in a perfect sunny autumn day, our first obstacle was getting out of Sydney by driving on the left (and dealing with a huge van where everything is basically on the wrong side) without killing or hurting anybody. But it actually worked out quite alright, no casualties. And after the third time switching on the windscreen wiper (with the left hand) when wanting to use the indicator (that’s actually situated on the right) or gripping the window winder (with the right hand) when trying to shift gears (with the gear stick that’S actually on the left), I think we finally managed to remember where everything in the “cockpit” actually is.
However, the weather still didn’t work out alright and by the time we reached our first stop in the Blue Mountains, it was raining cats an dogs again and instead of the amazing views we were expecting, all we got was a wall of white fog everywhere. The next day was much better though, and the view, as we had guessed the day before, mostly was quite amazing. However, next obstacle, the car: When we wanted to leave again, the key wouldn’t turn. That was probably one of the stupidest calls I’ve ever made, calling roadside assistance and explaining them: “We have a problem with our car, it won’t start.” – “Well, could it be the battery?” – “I don’t think so, because we don’t even get to the point where you actually use the battery because the f…. key won’t turn in the ignition.” Being on a quite tight schedule, we were already horrified to be stuck in Katoomba for longer, especially when the guy with the towing truck explained to us, maybe we would have to stay a bit longer in town, as it was Friday afternoon, and maybe the problem couldn’t be fixed today. However, as it turns out, the key was just a bit worn out. The mechanic just used some sort of magic powder in the ignition and everything worked perfectly again, his only comment being: “Well, after 400.000 km, you’d be worn out, too.” Good point actually…
So we left the Blue Mountains and headed towards Melbourne for two more days of driving through the New South Wales countryside. It was a nice ride through great hillside scenery (A LOT of hillside scenery, actually), passing cute little towns on the way that you usually might expect in the American Midwest: Basically just a couple of houses and one Main Street with a couple of shops, coffee places, restaurants and bars, where the bar tendress still asks you, no matter if local or not: “What can I get ya, darlin’?!” And after having seen our first kangaroos in Australia on our first morning in the Blue Mountains, we saw some more as the journey continued. Unfortunately, they were not happily hopping around, but lying crushed beside the road. Kind of disturbs the image a bit of the nice cuddly kangaroo when you see them like this…
Our last stop before Melbourne was Rutherglen, basically one more of the above mentioned cute little villages. However, this one wasn’t only cute and little, it’s also surrounded by vineyards and therefore of course loads of places to do some mighty fine wine tasting. And guess what, we found quite a number of red and white and sparkling reasons to love Australia even more. It did stretch our budget a bit though, ending in conversations like: “Hm, that Shiraz is amazing, but 20$ a bottle, I don’t know?!” – “Hmmm… you’re right. Sooo… do we really need to pay for the camping site today?!”…
So, after some nice time in the country, we’re ready to hit the big city again. Off to Melbourne…