Alex: Hello?
Tom: Hey, what are you up to?
Alex: Umm, not too---
Tom: Wanna rent a car and go to Jervis Bay tomorrow?
Alex: I guess so.
Tom: Okay meet me at the bus stop at 8 tomorrow morning, kay?
Alex: (sigh) Sounds good.
Such began my Saturday’s jaunt south of Sydney to Jervis Bay, a small little area just down Highway 1/Princes Highway. I say it is “just down” the highway, but it’s really about 200 km, which takes quite a while to cover, given that you can’t drive very fast on the highways in Australia, because most of the highways go right through neighborhoods and small towns, constantly abating your speed. They don’t have interstate highways here in Australia, at least not the kids that we have in the States.
Anyway, I woke up at 7:15 on a Saturday, which in and of itself was a chore, and lugged myself and my backpack down the hill to meet Tom and another guy, Bobby, a Georgetown student from New York, at the bus stop. From there we hopped on the 373 bus and rode it into town to the Avis Car Rental in Kings Cross, or at least very near there. We asked a nice looking Australian woman in which direction we should go, and she proceeded to point us in the exact opposite direction of our destination, wasting a good half hour of our time. Thanks for nothing, lady.
We rented a cozy little Toyota Corolla (see pics).
I know what you’re thinking, “why did he take pictures of the rental car?”
Well it was partly because I like pictures, but mostly for evidence purposes should we destroy the car or die, the latter being a real and serious fear of all of us as we strapped ourselves into our little coupe, prepared to begin our driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road adventure.
And what an adventure it was! Tom crept the car out of the garage and out onto the street, where things got serious. It took us a full minute to make that first turn out onto Williams St. What followed was a comedy of errors as we wove our way back to Coogee to pick up the other two who would join us, all the way cutting off other drivers, turning into oncoming traffic and, hysterically, flipping on the windshield wipers whenever he meant to signal a turn. I don’t mean to say that driving on the wrong side of the road is easy, far from it, but he seemed to have particular trouble with certain aspects of it, namely the drifting away from the center line, his brain not used to being on the left side of the road, I guess. This caused us to almost clip the side mirrors of at least a dozen parked cars, often enough to warrant me becoming the resident yeller-at-Tom whenever he began to drift. Needless to say, Bobby and I shared more than one frantic glance which seemed to say, you do realize we’re never going to make it out of this alive, don’t you?
Once out of the city, things began to calm down a bit. The five of us chatted idly as we drove, flanked on both sides by picturesque scenery: the beach on the one side, rolling hills and valleys on the other. Bobby told us a hilarious pick-up line, that goes something like,
"how much does a polar bear weight?"
"i dunno, how much?"
"enough to break the ice, hi i'm Bobby..."
We drew into Jervis Bay a couple hours later, after having a local point us in the right direction on a couple of occasions. The path that lead from the car to the beach was tucked a few yards behind the beach itself, shrouded in vines, tall grass and canopied trees, making the eventual emergence onto the beach all the more breathtaking. Hyams Beach, the part of Jervis Bay where we were, was truly beautiful. I would later read on a souvenir t-shirt that it apparently has “the whitest sand in the world,” and I’ll tell you, I believe it. A light breeze blew across the sand as we walked down to the water, before making a b-line for the water, which was by far the clearest and bluest I’ve seen in Australia. It felt like the Caribbean, I swear. The water was very warm, its floor not coated in seaweed, as it is back in Coogee. The water was calm, with gentle waves and no steep drop-offs, and we were five of only about 50 people on the entire two mile-long beach. We all agreed that the end really, really, really justified the means in this instance, glad to have braved our near-death driving experience as it lead us to paradise.
We swam for a while, laid out on the beach, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic crashing of the waves, which echoed off of the thick forests that guarded the beach, then headed up to a beachside café for lunch. After, we followed another local’s advice and visited the ruins of an old lighthouse located in another part of the bay. We’d also heard that we might catch a glimpse of kangaroos at the lighthouse, if we were lucky. That alone was reason enough to go. We didn’t find any roos, but we found great views, high atop a staggering cliff, waves crashing hundreds of feet below (see pictures).
The day drawing to an end, we decided to head back to Sydney. I decided to try my hand at the wheel of our little deuce coupe. Driving on the left side, if you haven’t done it, is certainly unnerving, at first. You are much more attentive and observant than you are when driving back home, fully aware of every car, street sign and traffic signal. If my driving instructor could see me now, I thought to myself, as I drove down the Princes Highway, literally as if I’d never driven before. Hands at Ten and Two, I guided us without incident back to Coogee, much to the relief of all those aboard. With modesty and great respect to Tom, who certainly had the harder task of getting us out of the city with hardly any directions and no practice, I could tell the rest of the crew were glad to have someone else behind the wheel for a bit.
The familiar sands and waves of Coogee Beach seemed ho-hum compared to Jervis Bay, but what beach wouldn't? If you ever get the chance to, go to Jervis Bay. You won't regret it.
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