Tuesday 20th May. We awoke bright and early, said a prayer and performed a non-rain dance as today was the day that we were heading for the Blue Mountains. The Blue Mountains are renowned for their unpredictable flippant weather and over the last couple of days (according to the news) the temperatures at night were dropping to nearly freezing. As we headed out through the masses of mini roundabouts and traffic lights of Sydney's Northern Beaches and hit the motorway we smiled at each other as it felt like we were on the road again, back on holiday. The Blue Mountains are situated about two hours west of Sydney and make up a part of the Great Dividing Range. This range divides a huge section of the east coast with most of the population, hip urban city dwellers living by the sea and dusty deserted towns like Radstock where the locals are still debating weather the wheel will catch on or not. The mountains get their name from the fog that settles in the valley and mixed with the dew from the eucalyptus tree give the appearance of a blue haze. The first stop on the agenda was the Norman Lyndsay gallery famous for tasteful nude paintings.The late Norman Lydsay's house and surrounding grounds have been converted into a living memory of his work. We took a long stroll around his huge garden admiring sandstone sculptures of his big bummed and breasted beauties and explored the surrounding bush. Our non-rain dance seemed to have paid off as there was not a cloud to be seen and the temperature was now rising up into the twenties. After leaving the gallery in the late afternoon we decided it would be a good idea to fine Euroka as this was the decided spot for us to camp. Euroka is part of the Blue Mountains National Park and allows camping for a small fee. We found the site, a huge open area with a few compost toilets dotted around and not a soul in sight. Out with the stove and the wine, we sat eating pasta whilst watching thousands of cockatoos swooping into the valley to roost, all of which swung past us to see what we had on the menu. Turns out cockatoos don't like chilli and olive pasta, but crows do. Just as we were washing up an adult kangaroo hopped past and looked over at us before jumping over the fence. As it got dark, slight anxiety washed over us as we were camped up in the middle of nowhere with no-one to hear us scream. But come to think of it you are probably safer here where no-one knows where you are than parked up in the car park at Bondi beach. The following day the sun was out again and a cloudless blue sky stretched out before us. We took a very long 4 hour round trek to find the red hand caves., an indigenous settlement with hand prints and stencils on the walls. We arrived to find an overhang completely fenced off with Perspex yellowed by the sun, and managed to get a few glimpses of the hand prints. Lovely walk though. We drove further on to Wentworth Falls, and after climbing through thick bush to avoid a building site that blocked our original path, found the most spectacular view, a vast carpet of trees on a valley hundreds of feet below and a river running alongside us before throwing itself off the edge of a cliff. We gazed out across the chiselled sandstone outcrops and hazy blue forest. When we left the Falls it was getting dark and upon sniffing our armpits and realizing that Danny smelt like a gibbon we decided to stay in a hostel. We drove to Katoomba, the home of Echo Point and The Three Sisters and what would be our home for the night, The Blue Mountains YHA. This hostel had a huge commercial communal kitchen and more beanbags than bums. The following morning, smelling like roses, we left early and walked the few kilometres from town to Echo Point and got our first glimpse of the The Three Sisters. The three jagged formations were named this by a sorcerer who had turned three beautiful aboriginal sisters into stone to stop the unwanted advances of frisky young men, but the sorcerer however died before he could turn them back. As we looked at the rocks I couldn't help but think that the sister in the middle is a little plumper than the other two. We walked several kilometres around the mountain top to Scenic World Skyway where they have a glass bottomed cable car that crosses the valley below which is 500m wide and 300m deep. We walked down the tracks and steps that led to the forest floor, admiring waterfalls and rainforest, then got the cable car back up to the top and went on the glass floor skyway.After walking back to the three sisters our feet were sore and so decided we deserved a beer. We stopped at a bar that was empty and just closing but the bar maid served us a beer before heading home, leaving us to utilise the free internet and international phone as the building itself was still open, so for $8 we had 2 beers and lots of free internet and a phonecall back home. We waited until it was dark then photographed the three sisters again as they are illuminated at night, before walking back to our van which was still parked in the hostel car park. To be our camp spot for the night. That night in the hostel car park it reached 2 Degrees C, too cold for us, so we swiftly drove round to K-Mart the following morning and purchased an electric blanket for the van. Yes that's right people! You heard us! Hard core travellers. We also bought a toaster for $10 but every time we went to use it, it would blow the fuse on the battery. Today we drove further on to Evans lookout and wrote postcards. Looking at the view of rock and forest we wanted to scoop it all up into our arms and deposit it into the front rooms of people back home, the camera just can't capture it. We also drove to another lookout point in the Blue Mountains, Govitts leap, where the highest waterfall in the range was trickling over the edge of a huge cliff, and then down into Megalong Valley and stopped to cook up soup. Mount Victoria is where we were spending the night and our lonely planet bible had recommended a pub with blazing open fires and a town hall that screened movies. The Imperial at happy hour was heaving with locals and after a couple of beers talking about football with a local (well, soccer, and what were we doing? we hate football and don't care that Man U beat Chelsea in the Euro watsit thingy) we headed for the village hall. Walking down the hill we saw the hall lit up with old fashioned light bulbs framing the exterior and the sign Mt Vic Flicks. We felt like we were in the 1950's. We sat amongst the 80 seats and ate stale popcorn out of paper bags, waiting for the only showing of the night, and week come to think of it, The Darjeeling Ltd. The following day we decided we wanted to reach the highest point in the Blue Mountains, one tree hill at 1,111m. We put on our walking boots, stretched, and then drove Sheila to the top. The views were breathtaking as we stood on the highest rock and looked out at all the morning mist trapped inthe valley below us. The next stop was the Zigzag railway. Built between 1866 and 1869 to carry workers down to the sandstone mines. It zigzags down a steep hillside before swapping tracks and direction at each end of the zig or zag. After our railway ride we headed for the Jenolan caves. We had pre booked tickets to a Hungarian gypsy concert in the caves. This was to be fantastic. There was a guy on violin (Gustaw) and a guy on a classic acoustic guitar (Georg). They played in the Cathedral chamber, a section of cave with really high stalactite littered ceilings and with no amplifiers. The concert was a mix of beautiful and haunting music and with bats flying above our heads. After the music had finished we were given the opportunity of a free guided tour of the Lucas cave and then free cheese and wine with the musicians. We opted to skip the tour as we had already pre booked two cave tours for the following morning and so headed for the cheese and wine with the musicians (cheese…yeah right!). We got chatting to Gustaw, George and their wives. They were staggered to hear that we are living in our van and sleeping in the hotel car park in the middle of winter. After a few glasses of wine (free wine) Gustaw said we could stay at his place, 50kilometres away, we politely refused as we would have to drive back early the following morning for our cave tour (plus we couldn't afford the petrol money). In the morning we had a tour of the River cave, consisting on 1298 steps and still pools of the underground River Styx which displayed stunning reflections. The River cave houses some of Jenolans biggest crystal formations. The caves date back 340million years and scientists believe they have only discovered12% of them. We had a self guided tour of the Nettle cave, the first cave to be discovered at Jenolan and took a walk around the Blue lake. This lake really is bright blue due to the sulphur (or something) in the water running from the caves. Walking back to the van from the caves ready to head back to Sydney for work we looked up at the sky and realised that we had had blue sky and sun for our entire week. Non-rain dances really do work.

CREEK OF THE WEEK: PIANO BRIDGE CREEK.