Monday, January 9

This morning we left Sydney and headed north to Hunter Valley, into wine country. We are now settled into the Hunter Valley Youth Hostel and have already made a run to the local grocery store to cover meals for the next couple of days. Reflecting on conservation differences between Sydney and what I was use to at home concern water and electrical use and automobiles. I had actually been asked to confirm that water in the toilet bowl really does swirl the opposite direction down under from the northern hemisphere, but so far I have not been able to do that because they don’t use enough water to allow it to swirl at all. Most toilets down here have two flush buttons, one for low flow if you are flushing mainly liquids and another slightly higher flow if you are flushing more. They also do not use toilet seat covers/liners. I imagine they are saving a lot of trees, water, and manufacturing costs in addition to eliminating that business expense. On a side note, I have been informed by our Sustainability Coordinator, Chrissy Cooley that toilet seat liners are not regulated, which means there is not a sanitary requirement for their production. Janet