Day 4

We're waking up in Hutchisson / Jervis Bay, no more than 1/5 of the way to Melbourne, which is more or less our destination. Tomorrow we will head inland to Canberra and hopefully visit the Australian parliament among other things. Also we decided to rearrange things slightly and add one night to our Melbourne time, for 5 total. Melbourne is huge, about the same as Sydney (5.5m). Our guy in Sydney told us that for many years it was the richest city in the world, due to nearby gold mining.

Last night we met up with Elizabeth and Andrew = our friends from North Vancouver who are retired Air Canada with free travel privileges and come here 1x-2x per year. Going to go for a casual walk today and then they head back to Sydney and Vancouver next week.

I finally thought of a small negative about Aus: like many, probably most countries: cars have right of way over pedestrians, both legally and in practice. It is up to you to stay out of their way and time their crossing, they will not stop for you, ever! Also, generally few marked crosswalks. It seems a bit contrary to their all-outdoors, ultra-active culture, but that's how it is.

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