Woke up this morning hoping for nice weather, couldn't have got better. Wall to wall blue from dawn till dusk. So good we couldn't even play spot the cloud! Got picked up at 7.45am from the hotel for a trip up to the Blue Mountains. What a fantastic trip. It started with a visit to a visitor information centre where there was a presentation by some Aborigines (all done for the tourists, but hey that's what we are). From here we got our first view of the Jamieson Valley, this was immense and had 4 stone stacks named the 3 sisters and the odd one on the opposite side was the orphan. all sorts of Folklore tales about these. We then moved around to a Skyway which was a massive cable car holding 80 people at a time, which swept us across a very steep part of the valley, with stunning views.
At the other side the slopes were nearly vertical and there was a choice of a cableway and a train (up one, down the other). We chose to go down on the cableway as the queue was shorter. A great ride, and at the bottom found there were walks of various lengths on boardwalks through the rainforest. It had also been where coal mining had been in the 18th Century, and remains of the industry were still visible. We took the longest of the walk options and it was fascinating, among the trees they had a modern art exhibition, with pieces similar to the ones Chatsworth have, although most of them were a lot smaller to blend into the landscape. When we got back to return in the train, that was something else. It turned out it had only been operating for 2 weeks and had cost 34 million dollars to build. When we sat in it, we wondered why the seats were at such a strange angle - very laid back. We soon discovered why. The gradient was so steep that we were nearly stood up. Brilliant.
The coach then took us to a nearby village called Leura where we had lunch. We found a takeaway that did sandwiches cheaply and got 2 lunches for the price they were charging for 1 in the trendy cafes. They had a magnificent "candy store". The like of which you could not imagine. Pete has never had so many choices of Liquorice at any one time.
Back on the bus and we were due to stop at a wildlife park. Not really bothered as we had already seen one of these places in Melbourne. However, it was very good and all the animals were in tip top condition. They even had Kooalas that were awake and loads of huge fruit bats which I found disgusting, they gave me the creeps. kangaroo, Wallaby, Emu, Pelican and lots of beautiful birds from parrots to owls and peacocks.
Once again back to the bus and we were on our way to pick up a boat which would take us down the river back into Sydney. To get there we had to drive through the Olympic park. It was good to see and know how well used it still is. I hope we utilise ours in London as well.
The boat ride down the river into Sydney as the sun was setting was something else. It lasted just under an hour.We got on in full sun and got off in the dark. Still not a cloud to be seen and the skyscrapers all lit up were beautiful.
As we walked back to our hotel we found an Italian restaurant on the waterfront so had an early dinner then walked back to the hotel.
Have had contact from Catherine who informed us she had done a skydive from 1400ft. She is braver than me. Looking forward to meeting up with her on Friday and hearing about her trip.