It was tough leaving Simon, his family, and their garden of Eden, but at 11:45pm and warm from the bonfire, Si drove us to the Greyhound bus stop for our 12:20am ride. Little did any of us know it would be a long and sleepless night because the bus never showed up!
Due to Mia’s seizure and hospital stay, we’d decided this would be our last late night/sleep interrupted trip as we felt good rest was crucial for her. She’d been sleeping, so we woke her to head to the bus stop. When we got there, we laid her down on the bench and covered her with a blanket. Si left and we waited. And waited.
Finally about 1am, we gave up hope that the bus was coming. There were no hotels open in the small town and I didn’t want to wake Si to come get us. I called Greyhound, but they were all sleeping. I called the police to see if we could pitch our tent in the grassy area, and they said we could. Mind you, two people came to clean the bathrooms about midnight and told us to be careful as there were sketchy people in that area. I asked the police about this and he said to “be aware”. To which I questioned, “While we’re sleeping?!” Needless to say, I was so freaked out that I got 2 hours of sleep. At 5am I researched how to get to Sydney and found a train that left at 7am. I immediately booked three tickets. There was a gas station across the street that opened at 6am, so we packed up and headed there to get “food” so Mia could take her pill.
The kind attendant let us know we couldn’t get Uber because they don’t run there, which I’d tried to get the night before to no avail, and he gave us the number to a local cab company. As is true with most situations in life - it all worked out. But I definitely contacted Greyhound when they were awake, and after some back and forth, threw us a few pennio for our troubles. The train was wonderful and we made it to Sydney.
Although our time was cut short, we had a fun time in Sydney visiting Taronga Zoo, the Opera House, and Manley Beach. From Taronga Zoo, we took the ferry to Circular Quay to see the Opera House, but it was packed. We came to find England’s King & Queen were there.
More pics here.
Mia sleeping on the bench under the black blanket
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