Back in Sydney -again! The plan was to spend three or maybe four days at a push here, but by the time I arrived at the airport and used my one $50 note to get a cab - unjustified luxury - I had already decided I needed longer, as I was going on boot camp. I had reached the stage of being disgustingly unfit, the weigh in at the skydive mearly emphasizing this and I needed to sort it out! So I decided to stay a week, which luckily Peter and Kathryn were ok with! I started out on my mission by taking Pete's bike to Centennial Park on the monday and pathetically cycling round a few times before having a water break, then doing a few more laps then cycling home. It was a rubbish attempt, but I felt like I'd attempted something! The Sydney festival was going on all through January, so in the evening I went out with Pete to meet a friend he'd met travelling and we went to the Barracks to watch Mr Scruff - I'd never heard of Mr Scruff, but he's apparently British and seemed to like tea and whales (both of which I approve!) and the music was pretty good so it was quite fun! The next day I decided to alternate my training and ran to Centennial Park. This was a mistake - in the baking heat wave - as by the time I got there I was already shattered and overheating, so I did another pathetic session then ran/walked home. I finally managed to get myself to the Botanic gardens in the afternoon which I'd been meaning to do since November 07! they were really pretty, especially in the sunshine and there were great views of the Opera House. My favourite part was the Succulent garden where there were loads of cacti and aloe plants and the flying foxes that hung in groups from all the trees. After this I hurried home in order to get ready to go out again - busy day for me on my Sydney standards - to meet up with Janice and Claire from CXH. I'd previously attempted to catch up with both of them too but never managed it! I had a great evening with them and their respective men and Nicole who also used to work at Hammersmith Hospital and we ate pizza and drank too much wine... On wednesday Pete and I went to Kathryn's work for an early breakfast which was amazing before he headed off to work and I did some severley overdue shopping in Bondi Junction (i.e. things I had needed when I arrived 2 months ago!) I then stepped up boot camp and cycled 10 laps of the park, which is about 40km. When I got back Kathryn and I went down to Clovelly beach for a swim and I headed into town to meet up with Pete and his friends after work. From where we went to watch "Run Lola run" on a big open air screen with a live soundtrack in Darling Harbour - another event happening because of the Sydney Festival. It was pretty good, although I'm not entirely sure what the band added to the film by playing live... Thursday also involved a 40km cycle which I had intended to step up to 50 but it was even hotter that day, and since I only ever manage to get out just before midday, I didn't really stand a chance. I tried to go snorkelling in Gordon's bay but even as I walked down the weather was closing in and I could see fork lightnening coming down over Coogee. Five minutes into my swim the cloud came over and the rain started to fall, so my afternoon on a nice hot rock in the bay was cut short! Then I again had to face the horrible (when you're stiff) walk back up Clovelly road! Peter had taken Friday off work so we could go to the Blue mountains, so after a much needed Green Mango breakfast we were collected by the car hire people who took us into Bondi to get our car. I'd never driven an automatic before, but after the initial confusion with spare feet lying around doing nothing, I seemed to get the hang of it. We headed out on the highway and up to Katoomba, where we found ourselves a YHA and headed into town to explore. After a very large lunch we walked down to Echo Point to see the Three Sisters - a rock formation, famous in the Blue Mountains. They were pretty cool, but we decided they'd lok better at sunset so planned to come back later. We then set off down the giant starway to the bottom of the cliff which was really hard on the knees, although I appreciated going down when I saw other people climbing up! At the bottom we followed the path round the foot of the mountain for a couple of kilometres to the base of the scenic railway, but had to rush it as the last one went at 4.45 and it was already past 4! When we got there I was expecting something pretty much like the Peak tram in Hong Kong, which I guess it was to an extent, but it was open air, with the passengers facing out from the hill, rather than in, with only a bit of netting to stop you falling out the front - and nothing to stop you falling down! The signs said it went at a gradient of 52 degrees, but I'm sure the chairs were not designed for that steepness! After an ill timed toilet stop at the top, we missed the closing of the ice-cream shop, which was horrible as it was sweltering heat and we had been speed walking in places to get to the train in time. Instead we set off round the cliff top walk, headed in the direction of Echo Point again. Along the way there were several lookout points which were pretty spectacular, but since the whole walk and echo point all faced the same direction, once we'd seen a couple, they were all the same! We were aiming at some cascades that were further along the cliff and the signposts helpfully told us they were 2km away - no problems. Unfortunately, the signs got less helpful after the distance had reduced to 1km then 750m as they then started saying 2km again...bit odd! We finally came to what we thought were the cascades, and were completely underwhelmed, given we'd been walking about 4 hours in the sticky heat and were expecting something impressive, but on the return leg we realised we hadn't got the best view of them and they were pretty beautiful after all - phew! We decided to head back to the hostel and get the car as the Sun was taking its time to go down and we couldn't face the walk back to the hostel after watching sunset through the most uninspiring suburbia we'd started with. We were glad to dump our stuff and jump in the car and head back to the Three Sisters. The Sun was still far from set, but the way the clouds were lying, the shafts of light were shimmering through the hills in a magical kind of way. Breathtaking! Me being me, then went and over did the photography and took millions of pictures of pretty much the same thing. Before the Sun even hit the hills, the cloud came in even more and after realising we weren't going to see it hit the horizon, even if we waited another hour, we gave up and went back to town and went for dinner! The next morning after another large breakfast - totally justified given how stiff we were from the previous day - we jumped in the car and headed the wrong way from Sydney, out to the Jenolan caves. This is a massive network of caves that you can take tours in to the west of the mountains. We had planned to be back home early afternoon, but the trip out there was longer than anticipated so after finally getting there and signing up for a 1pm tour we stood no chance! We followed the guide, who was pretty good as cave guides go (and didn't go into great depth about stalagtite formation as we had expected!), around the Lucas Caves. The Cathedral cave was pretty impressive, they demonstrated the acoustics by playing some classical music on a stereo! Apparently they have actual concerts in the cave... They showed us some broken columns which were formed due to the gradual moving of rocks with water flow through the caves and lots of crystal formations. After this we started the long drive home, which I acidentally made even longer by suggesting the Bells line of road, the scenic route, which on a map did not look hugely longer than the highway, but in reality took hours longer. After this we were supposed to go out for one of Peter's friend's birthdays, but since we got back so late, I decided to drive to make it easier. This resulted in us driving round and round the city centre at midnight on the way home, looking for Woolloomooloo (my favourite place name in Australia - what other word has 8 O's??) so we could get a Harry's pie for dinner. You can tell Peter doesn't drive - we did lots of circles!! but the pie was worth it... My last day in Sydney was pretty chilled, doing admin - dull! On the monday morning I managed to go for a proper run - felt slow but had Lance Armstrong's voice come over my iPod telling me I'd recorded my fastest lap - go me! After this I went to Google for lunch with Peter before heading to the station to catch a train to the airport...very sad! I was also in a really bad mood as I'd not managed to find any decent accommodation in Melbourne - due to the tennis - so was headed for a dodgy place in St. Kilda - after getting used to the luxury of staying with Peter and Kathryn! back on the road again...