I opted to stay on an extra day in Sydney as I got an email from Mike (he of Blue Dragon fame) saying he was in town. Obviously, Mike’s not often in Oz on holiday (he’s usually fundraising) so there wasn’t going to be much chance to catch up with him. Today was my only opportunity, so we grabbed lunch.

Other than that, I spent more time on The Walk, plotting some more of the route. And relaxing a handful of the rules regarding distance. Without route-planning software and a detailed knowledge of the locales I’ll be going through, it’d be nigh-on impossible to calculate. Instead, I’ll do at least (and as close to) 1000 miles as possible.

As I’m heading to Byron Bay tomorrow and I’ve opted to hitch, I thought it best to spec out the best “pickup points” within easy distance. The Sydney Harbour Bridge seems a good position. There’s a natural bottleneck and a rescue vehicle bay large enough for people to pull into should they not be scared off by me. The only downside is that there are around 6 lanes of traffic pulling onto the bridge and I can only “thumb” one of them. Also, most traffic will be heading south into Sydney in the morning, but if somonne can get me north as far as a motorway service station, I should be OK. Worst case, I get halfway up and stay the night somewhere different!

As I was up at the bridge, I decided to have a wander round on foot. The west side has a cycle path for crossing the harbour while the east has a pedestrian walkway. Connecting the two (on the south side at least) near the observatory is a small tunnel. Silly things I have noticed number 176: someone, somewhen thought it would be good to plant their dusty footprint on the wall in the tunnel. Someone else followed up. Now there is a huge pattern of footprints on both sides of the tunnel from end to end. Frankly, I think it looks really good – like some kind of urban graffiti, but wash-offable. However, it looks like nobody’s bothering to wash it off which is a good thing.

On the way back I finally found a Krisp Kreme doughnut (the Aussies spell it properly, unlike the Yanks) shop. I’ve been looking for one for ages as people keep telling me they’re better than Dunkin Donuts (or Donut King as they’re branded here). Well… they ain’t. They’re not bad by any stretch, but Dunkin still rule the roost do(ugh)nut-wise. As Hans said when we were travelling together, this is my blog and therefore I’m always right so that’s the end of that argument.