Day 55 - Sydney to The Blue Mountains

Leaving Sydney today and I'm really sad again. The Four Seasons has been our home for 5 nights and the staff have been absolutely super, especially those in the restaurants. The hostess said to us at breakfast this morning " Why do the nice ones have to leave early and the not very nice ones stay "I've never actually stayed anywhere before that has a pianist playing a breakfast time, nice touch, and he was English; really good breakfast too. As it was lovely and sunny first thing we decided that we would go up to the rooftop pool for a swim and a sunbathe before checking out and heading for the Blue Mountains, but typically by the time we got there the clouds had come over so we just had a swim and didn't bother with the sunbathing! Went over to Kings Cross to pick up our hire car and then headed off after a quick detour back to the hotel to pick up the luggage. The trip to Katoomba should only take 90 mins but it was closer to 2 hours with the amount of traffic around; hope it's not too busy on Tuesday as we have a mid morning flight out of Sydney and it's looking like we'll have to leave at the crack of dawn! Katoomba is a smallish town in the Blue Mountains with something of a Frontier town feel about it and whilst it isn't that high in terms of mountains, it is only a max 14 deg here as opposed to 24 deg in Sydney - brrrr. Lovely hotel again though , not sure we will be using the outside infinity pool unless it warms up significantly tomorrow. Bill has taken himself off with his binoculars and left me to write this - hope he's not too long as I'm getting hungry; might have to have a G&T while I'm waiting for him to return. Finally resorted to going out to find him and consequently going for another walk down to see the Three Sisters from the lookout at Echo Point; have to say it's quite spectacular and with the blue haze from the Eucalyptus trees a really beautiful sight, but so cold. I know it's relative but our bodies have been used to temperatures in the mid twenties and for it to drop suddenly 10 or more degrees is a bit of a shock to the system - well mine anyway.

Went into the town for an relatively early dinner and just as well we did, Lynda had told us that some of the Aussies go to bed early; I didn't really believe this but as we were eating our meal at 7:45 a couple came in and asked if they were still serving and they said they were closing - what's that all about. Just as well we went when we did, obviously this place is not like Sydney that seems to go on 24hrs a day.