Having arranged to spend the weekend camping with Tareq, Ali and their two kids, Zai and Mya we made our way to Catai National Park on the Hawkesbury River. The place was pretty nice, but only 60 kms from Sydney so we weren't expecting it to be too quiet. That was true when we got there but we found a big undercroft to put our tents next to and took to staring down cars as they arrived after us, slowing down looking like they wanted to usurp our place. As seasoned campers now we made sure it was clear that we didn't want others near us by strategicly placing footballs and cricket bats around before we started putting up both our tent and Ali and Tareq's before the rain started.

The rain took a little longer to arrive than we had expected, which was great, but when Ali and Tareq arrived at about 7:30pm and with dinner cooking it really started…..and didn't stop. The night was an early one as we were all tired and wanted to get up and do loads the next day but upon awaking it was clear there were not many options. A trip to the pet store to get some worms and live crickets to catch some fish and a shopping trip for some missed food items took most of the morning and by the time we got back the girls were rugged up in their winter gear and drinking red wine under the dripping awning of our tent. Refusing to believe it was cold, TK (Tareq) and I kept the shorts on, grabbed the kids and took them to the little jetty at the end of the camp area and set them up to fish. The standard tangles and cries of "Daddy, can you bait my hook?", " This sinker is too light can you change it?", "There aren't any fish here…." were ringing out but surprisingly all the kids managed to hook a fish. None of size and looking more like small sardines, they were fish and they had been caught, so excitement all around and we deemed the trip successful. With shivering bodies we hauled the kids back to the tent and started a fire which brought about the standard arguments about how best to set one up and how it should be done before we got dinner underway with the rain teeming all around us and the puddles of water getting deeper. It was then that we realised that TK and Ali's tent was smack bang in the middle of what was fast becoming a running stream and water was pooling between our tent and theirs at approximately 2-3 inches an hour. Given there was no let up in sight we put our heads together and worked out the best option was to dig a diversionary trench and run-off area which would have made even the cleverest engineers tip their hats. After digging a trench about as long and as deep as the best they would have seen in the Somme, the dinner was consumed and most of the crew went to bed. TK and I stayed up, put the world to right, played lots of Death Metal and drank bourbon before eventually staggering off to bed sometime after 12 and before 6am.

The thud thud thud in the morning was either my head or the rain, and when we all managed to drag ourselves up to make coffee it turned out to be both. We all weren't really in the mood to hang around too long so a rather slower than usual pack up ensued with Fiona pushing us hard to get the tent down in the brief dry spell, despite the fug of a heavy night surrounding TK and I. WIth the tent down and some more fishing in the rain the hangover had disappeared so we bolted out of there and set to a lunch stop at a RSL where we could try and win another meat tray. TK knew the place so we settled there and had ourselves some proper greasy pub food and about 4 glasses of coke. The tickets we bought for the raffle didn't produce a winning tray of meat but the meal was good and we left feeling like the weekend wasn't wasted.

Waving goodbye to TK and Ali, we made our way to the Blue Mountains up the windy road to Katoomba. A last minute decision to take a cabin was a good call as the rain started again and we all tumbled into bed and lights out by 8pm. The next day was pretty spectacular. We ended up staying right next to the perfect spot to see the famous Three Sisters and spent the morning walking along the Katoomba Track and the Ferber Steps down the side of the escarpment with views of Katoomba Falls and the fantastic vista of the Blue Mountains and Mount Solitary. When we reached the bottom, we stared up at the beautiful scenery and then held our breath as it seemed we had descended into the tourist mecca of the area called "Scenic World". Yes, it was actually called "Scenic World" and was a very slick operation of ferrying, mainly Chinese and Indian tourists, along a 40 metre steep train ride, cable car and skyrail, all within 45 minutes with views of the same thing. We got caught up in the excitement and did all three but left faster than you could say "sweet and sour pork and a bag of prawn crackers please" after we exited the final "ride". Somewhat disappointed at the mass of tourists we were stoked to hit our next campsite at the Boyd National Park, about 20 kms from the Jenolan Caves. The only ones there apart from a lone German backpacker, we had a really nice time just sitting around and listening to the bush and getting ourselves back to nature. A lovely campfire that evening with plans of hunting for wombats the next day had the boys and us feeling really glad about our trip again and we regaled stories of the three echidnas we had seen on our way into the campsite and how we were bound to see more on the way out.

The next morning we started the day with a long bush walk and then headed off to Jenolan Caves. On the way we almost ran over one of the rarest marsupials in Australia as we rounded a steep corner and saw a spotted Quoll in the middle of the road. We skidded to a stop just in time and wondered why this timid creature wasn't budging. Suspecting he was injured we got out to find that he wasn't injured at all but had chosen the middle of the road to sit and do a poo and was staring daggers at us as he finished his business. Not wanting to take a photo of him whilst he was in his "moment of solitude" we waited then rushed after him when he had finished to get evidence of our spotting him. We took photos of him and his poo to show the rangers as these are the largest carnivorous marsupial in Australia and very very rare, vulnerable and almost endangered. We were all so super excited to have seen the Quoll that we weren't sure the caves at Jenolan could top that. How wrong we were. An unbelievably steep decent into the valley to the Giant Archway that is the entrance to these caves we were blown away by the two caves we saw. Starting with a 1.5 hour tour of the Imperial Diamond Cave we were taken in and down through some spectacular tunnels and caverns with some excellent crystals and other amazing geological phenomenon. The next tour was even better and probably the most amazing caves I have ever seen. The Orient Cave had caverns and caves that had been formed over 300 millions years ago with stalactites, stalagmites, shawls and flowstone shining off the torches. It was just so incredible. One of the caverns was over 25 metres tall !!!! Full of crystals…..wow!!! We were knackered when we had finished, as there was loads of climbing up and down narrow stair cases and ladders and with the walk that morning the boys were getting fractious when we told them they couldn't catch water dragons (big lizards) within a bulls spit of the rangers station so we left and headed back to our camp site. We collected some firewood on the way back and set ourselves up for a night around the fire which didn't disappoint and so spent a good deal of the evening and into the night chatting about our best parts of the trip so far and what we wanted to do with our remaining time on the road which was fast disappearing.