Blue Mountains

We headed off to the Blue Mountains early Friday morning. We got to Katoomba and went straight to Echo point where there is the famous Three Sisters rock formation. It was a beautiful view and seemed the main stop for people as it was pretty busy! We stopped at various other points along the way and took quite a few walks down to either an outlook or waterfall. An incredible amount of steps were stomped upon the whole weekend, I think mum will be glad to not see another step for quite sometime.

Our accommodation for this stay was fantastic, the most beautiful holiday rental I have ever seen. It was called Teddy's in Katoomba and I can thoroughly recommend it to anyone who is traveling that way. The location, the building and all the small touches made it a great stay. They had a beautiful log burning stove, which may seem strange for this time of year in Oz but we used it both nights as the temperature did drop somewhat when the sun had gone down.

On our second day we made the hour and a half journey to the Jenolan caves, a site that was discovered in the 1800's and has been a protected park since around 1866. The caves are reached by going down a very twisty narrow road, thankfully we didn't meet any traffic coming the other way and the coaches had been and gone by the time we traversed down to the village. The caves themselves are amazing, you can choose to explore any of the eleven all of varying difficulty on a guided walk through. We chose the Imperial cave which was a nice easy level and booked in on the tour. The pictures don't really do it justice as the rock formations are beautiful and many are still forming today, many times I got a drop of water on my head. It wasn't until we had got to the furthest point inside the cave that our guide decided to tell us the ghost story!!

Sunday morning I convinced Mark to get up for the sunrise over the mountains, we once again headed to Echo Point where there were decidedly less people, in fact only two others had made the effort to rise that early on a Sunday. Was definitely worth it though as the colours and fresh air were wonderful and well worth the effort.

Sunday saw us going to Scenic World where you go down into the Jamison Valley and wander around the valley floor. There are three ways down to the valley itself, you can walk, take the train or go via the cable car. The train is apparently the steepest incline railway in the world so obviously we had to have a go on that one. The valley is a nice walk around and has various species of plants to look at and they have an old coal mine with lots of history surrounding it. [Perhaps a bit of a philistine thing to say, but it's getting to the point of you've seen one Rain Forest, you've seen 'em all! (Mark)]