← PreviousDiscovering Australian wildlife, and a scare in the water at NewcastleBy the time March came around, we'd already settled into a little routine. We'd found an excellent, affordable Thai restaurant, Kao Yum, where we went regularly with our group of friends. The pizzeria right next door was called Redforno and had become our second HQ. At weekends we visited Sydney's various beaches, alternating between Coogee, Tamarama and Bondi. It had been hot and sunny for the first two months, but a rainy spell set in and lasted, forcing us indoors most of the time.
The cinema was only affordable one day a week, Tuesday, known here as "cheap Tuesday", and we took advantage whenever we could. We went a little apprehensively the first time, as we didn't really know whether our English was good enough to pass the test of the cinema without subtitles. We went to see Logan, the latest Marvel film, and apart from one character with a particularly strong accent, we understood everything said in it. It was satisfying, because we'd arrived in the country without really knowing where we stood, and over time we realised our English was really very good for French people. That gave us a significant advantage.
This routine was comfortable, but it was precisely what we'd fled in France, and we were already itching to move. We started eyeing up road trips between Sydney and Brisbane, and the bad weather setting in hardly encouraged us to stay in Sydney any longer. Between workdays we planned our route, and in mid-March we rented a campervan for 6 April. With the date fixed, the rest of the month passed faster under dull, dreary skies, an "exceptional month, in the bad sense", according to the locals. After a final fortnight of work, we handed in our notice, told our landlord our departure date and made the rounds of our friends to say goodbye. Would we ever see Sydney again? Just in case, we went back to all the places that had made an impression on us, the Opera House first and foremost, where we spent a long time.
The owner of the house where we rented our room couldn't come to do the check-out inspection in the end. We decided to call him on WhatsApp video and show him the room that way. Of course, we'd taken care to scrub everything and leave the place spotless. We left with a clear conscience, knowing he'd return our deposit fairly quickly. Laden like mules with our two suitcases, the laptop bag and the drone bag as well as the backpack, we headed for the bus stop that was to take us to the rental agency.
That was without counting on the reliability of Sydney's buses. We'd got used to not relying on the timetables, or even, more radically, on the buses turning up at all. After twenty minutes' wait, it became clear we no longer had time to wait for a hypothetical arrival. So we got out the smartphone and moved away from the main streets to order an Uber. A few moments later, a driver in a white saloon pulled up beside us. He was Italian and had emigrated to Sydney ten years earlier. A little naively, we told him about our love of Italy and our wonderful trips all around the Boot.
"You know, Italy is only good for holidays. It's normal that foreign tourists don't realise, but it's very hard to live there. I love my fellow countrymen, but daily life is too complicated. Now I live here and go back once a year. It's very good like that."
Our conversation moved on to more everyday topics, and after about twenty minutes he dropped us near our agency. It was in a vague, very depressing industrial estate. The buildings looked tired, as if worn out by the heat. The trees weren't faring much better, and the bit of road left to walk was pitted with potholes. We finally reached the prefab that served as the company's office. A young woman welcomed us very warmly and we sat down while she went through the paperwork. Since our bad experiences with rental agencies, we'd become very wary, so we were delighted to go through the terms with her.
Everything seemed to match our online booking and we moved on to payment. To our great surprise, our Australian bank card couldn't be used. As they needed to pre-authorise a deposit, they absolutely needed a debit card. Luckily, my French card had the word printed on it. As the English word is spelled exactly the same, we managed to negotiate paying with our Australian account and then using my Caisse d'Épargne card for the deposit.
We'd been lucky; the young woman explained that they often had to refuse rentals for that reason. Once that scare was over, we inspected the car, a Ford Falcon, and hit the road. We hadn't driven for three months, and we reckoned Cassandre was best placed to handle driving on the left for the time being. We set off on a journey that would take us very far if all went to plan, and after a few slightly tricky kilometres, due more to the length of the car than to driving on the wrong side, we crossed the Harbour Bridge and officially said goodbye to Sydney.