New years day was a lazy one in Sydney. Ruth slept in until 1pm and Jade until 3pm! Me and Sal chose to Skype home late morning to catch the celebrations at midnight in England. It's so strange when you really recognise the time difference. We were celebrating the new year, while at home people were eating their lunch, then, we had been home and had a full nights sleep before our friends and family got around to their celebrations! While Jadie slept, Sally, Ruth and me went for a mooch around the shops and then went back to the hostel to get changed. We had decided to go for a nice meal by the harbour side that night. As it was still a little early, we went for a stroll around the Botanical gardens and saw the palace gardens. We then found where we wanted to eat, it was a little pricey, but it was worth it for the twilight view over the harbour bridge. After this we went for a drink at the opera house bar which is on the waterside and plays good live music, although this was a little pricey too, it was nice as a one off!

The next day we were planning to spend a whole day over at the Blue mountains. Therefore, we set a couple of alarms early, but then slept right through them! It wasn't too much later when I woke up realising we had missed our intended train, so we got ready and headed to the station, only to miss our train by 5 minutes and have to wait an hour for the next one! Eventually we got on a train and took the two hour trip over to a little town called Katoomba in the blue mountains. From here we caught a bus to take us to our first destination, where we then took the sky train to 'Scenic World'. The mountains and national park cover 1million acres and were formed the same way the Grand Canyon was, and are a similar size Jamaica.
The sky train took us over a valley and offered views of the park and the Three Sisters Mountain formation. These rocks it their name from an old aboriginal story. The sky train also had a glass floor to see the valley floor nearly 300m below. Once in Scenic world, we took the worlds steepest railway down to a section of the park to see the nature and wildlife and stroll around the long walkways. To get back up to the top we took the cable car which was quick. The park was really busy today so involved a lot of waiting! The area also had walks nearer to the Three Sisters, or over to Gordon Falls and Leura Cascades which are very picturesque waterfalls. As today was a public holiday, the buses didn't run until very late, so we decided to go back to the town of Katoomba and visited a nice local pub for a drink. Refreshed, we went for a little walk around the town. It was really small but very cute and quiet. Before we came away travelling, we had considered this town to do some WWOOFing (willing workers on organic farms). Basically we would work in exchange for our accommodation and food, and also meant we didn't need a working holiday visa which is much pricier than a tourist visa. At this location however, we wouldn't work on a farm, but in a local cafe. After doing some research, we found that the cafe belonged to a group of people called 'The Twelve Tribes'. This is a community in which the members give up their possessions and their income is shared among the members of the community. However, other views they hold have caused some controversy among them and the other communities in the Blue mountains and are considered to be a cult group. They have some sort of meeting every day at 7am and 7pm and an all day Saturday meeting which we were unsure of. Deciding this wasn't for us, we are now going to work on a farm inland in Tamworth next week. We still popped into the cult cafe and it did look very nice!

We decided to get something to eat in Katoomba before going back to Sydney and we went back to the pub we had been to earlier. However, it was now packed and had a really long waiting list for a table. On our way out to find somewhere else, a lady suggested another quieter pub on the other side of the train station. This pub was really nice and the food was really good and great value for money. While we were eating, we were entertained as it was the Katoomba amateur song writers night. Unfortunately we were sat right next to the stage while we were treated to an ill piano player, a man telling a poem about McDonalds gherkins, a woman singing and telling us over-passionately about her gypsy background and singing gypsy songs, a woman who sang depressive songs about her relationship with the earth and a harmonica player. This is when we decided to leave as we were struggling to keep a straight face. Katoomba has talent(!)

We are currently on the train back to Sydney. It has been nice to get out of the city after our last 10 days in it and walk through the forest and get some good fresh air!

Tomorrow we plan to go to Manley beach, and that evening we are staying over at Mel and Dave's house as they have kindly offered to put us up, as we had no accommodation sorted for our last night in Sydney! It sounds like we will have a nice last day and night in here.

Amy. x