We are now back in Sydney again after a couple of days taking in the sights and sounds of the Blue Mountains just an hour's drive away.

We arrived fairly early on Monday morning after the short trip from the city and dropped Alan and Lorna off at the B&B they had booked themselves into, and while they got themselves settled in we headed on around to the campsite, where we bumped into Toyah and Stuart who had also chosen this weekend to visit. It was strange how easily we settled back into camp mode (no, not like Dale Winton!!) after the last three weeks in the luxury of the apartment, but maybe it was because we knew it was only short term this time. Once we had our little camp de Hilton set up, it was back to collect the folks before heading out to investigate what Katoomba had to offer.

The main attraction is a rock formation known as the Three Sisters, which have various tales and myths about its creation including one that says an evil wizard turned three sisters into rock and then himself into a bush turkey, which is why there are so many about, and another that says something about a good wizard turning them turning to stone to hide and then dying so nobody could turn them back. Something like that anyway. Guess it could just have been years of weather erosion etc...but there's no fun in believing that now, is there!?

Our first stop was at the Three Sister's lookout at Echo Point. On a clear day, the view across the valley is pretty spectacular, with Mount Solitude in the distance and a blue haze settling across the landscape due to all the Eucalyptus in the area - hence the name. Unfortunately however, this was anything but a clear day, as the mist had settled in and all we could see from the lookout was a wall of white. And white nothing too. Just try to imagine seeing nothing but bright white with no distinguishable shapes or forms and no shades of anything. Just pure, obstruction free, unadulterated WHITE! Undeterred, we continued on around the road to the Gordon Falls lookout but were once again greeted by a wall of white as far as the eye could see. Which was about three metres!

Realising that views and scenery were not going to be in abundance, and that photograph opportunities would be limited, we headed into town to a cracking little cafe called Mountain Memories, and wondered just what our memories of this place would be if the weather didn't improve. Thanks to a glorious feed our spirits were lifted after lunch and we set out on one of the shorter walks around the Katoomba Falls. There was a definite eerie quality to the walkway as the mist cut through the trees and shrubs of the forest as we made our way down the track, and when we came to the falls lookout it was surprising to suddenly be faced with a clearing in the air. The lookout was fenced off just metres from the rock face at one of the falls' shelves, but being the middle of summer there was no more than a trickle of water, as if someone had left a tap running at the summit. By the time we reached the top of the track again we decided to call it a day and make sure that we were tucked up in the tent nice and early before it got too cold, and just hoped that the weather would improve the next day.

Luckily, we awoke on Tuesday morning to glorious sunshine so we headed straight to Echo Point to make sure we saw the Three Sisters before any more mist came in and from there it was back around to Gordon Falls again. It was an odd feeling to see so much (and realise just how high the lookout was that jutted out over the valley) in an area that yesterday could have quite just as easily looked out onto a brick wall. After spending a while trying to get the folks to the edge of the platform so they could actually see something, we gave up and headed to Scenic World - the base for a walkway around the national park area.

The first part of the trek was in the Skyway (basically a gondola with a glass floor) that was suspended 230m above the valley floor and spanned the chasm below, which allowed us to look down onto the falls that we had walked down to the day before. While we both made our way across in the Skyway, Alan and Lorna decided that walking around the chasm was the route for them and we met up with them a couple of minutes after we arrived at the other side. The next part of the trail snaked along the cliff face and provided lots of fantastic views across the valley and gave us a couple of opportunities for some interesting angles of the Three Sisters.

After a few hours we had made it back to Echo Point and stopped to recharge and refuel before attacking the next part of the trek - the Giant Stairway. For some reason we had expected to come across some huge stairs leading down around the valley (probably misreading it as the Giant's Stairway) that an ogre was supposed to have created, but instead what we found was one bloody long stairway cut into the side of one of the 'sisters'.

Now we're sure that it took great skill and a hell of a long time for the people to carve this feature into the side of a rock, but when you're trying to descend them it just seems like somebody is playing one huge practical joke on you! As they are carved from rock, they're not exactly even and years of people walking on them has eroded most of the edges so there is a permanent layer or gravel on them for people to slip on. Combine this with the fact that they are VERY steep, they're no more than a metre wide, people are passing you trying to go up as it's a two way thing and that there is only a straw thin handrail along the edge that people could easily slip under or crash through, and it makes for quite an interesting experience. Oh yes, and there is a drop of several hundred feet just beyond the handrail!!

A little way down is Honeymoon Bridge, which leads across to the first sister where there is a stone bench sitting in a small alcove just big enough for ten or so people. Now this really was messed up!! You're sitting some two hundred metres in the air, in a small area that has been cut away from what is essentially a huge rock pillar jutting straight up with nothing supporting it, that looks about as sturdy as a small child's building blocks that are about to come crashing down, and everybody seems completely oblivious to it all. Madness personified! There are supposed to be 891 steps all together and it took us almost an hour to navigate our way down to the relative comfort of the bottom, although we were still halfway up the side of a mountain.

We continued along the walking trail for a couple of kilometres before arriving at the Scenic Railway, which the folks took back up to Scenic World, while we filled our bottle with rain water that had been funnelled down the mountain and then carried on around a little further to the Cableway. This was another gondola type contraption that would probably have given us some amazing views across the valley had it not been packed so tightly that even breathing was an issue!! Once we reached the top, we had a quick coffee before taking a quick return trip on the Railway ourselves. Apparently it is the steepest railway in the world, although it is only a hundred meters or so long, but on the way down it didn't seem to be anything particularly extraordinary. However, on the way back to the top on the return journey, the 52-degree angle really became apparent. The train faces only one direction so on the way up we were going backwards and the slope became so great that everyone in the carriage had their hands against the roof, as it felt that we were going to tip out and fall back down the track.

After some dinner at one of the pubs in town, we headed back out to Echo Point to see how the area looked at night. We arrived just after sunset and there were some pretty amazing colours reflecting on the rocks, and once the sun had disappeared completely, the Three Sisters were lit up by floodlights from across the valley.

After our 5:00am rising to watch the sunrise over the valley was quashed by the weather, we enjoyed the joyous task of taking the tent down in the rain, before settling down for breakfast with Alan and Lorna. Toyah and Stuart also joined us for the biggest breakfasts that have ever been put before man, as it was our final goodbye as, after four months of meeting up along the coast, they were on their way around to Perth and back off to sunny old Blighty.

We arrived back in Sydney earlier this afternoon ready to make the most of our lat few days here, and that starts tonight with a much needed (and long craved for) Thai take away!