Clare writes:
hello, hello... sorry about not being online for a week...we've been heading down through unknown territory and staying in some unexpected places over the last few days... along with the usual tourist tick boxes of Byron Bay and now the Blue Mountains.
Everyone said we'd love Byron bay and it was an attractive town with jolly little delis, rugged headland, great beaches.....however.... i had an unpset stomach so was laid up for a couple of days, and also it was - guess what? - raining again. Also it was stuffed with people - most of them twenty two with a surf board under one arm and a crate of beer in the other. Dear me - i sound terribly middle aged, but I seem to prefer a nice quiet drive in the countryside these days...
...so..o..o.. off we headed inland into an area that wasn't even written up in our (900 page) guidebook and was absolutely STUNNING!! The road up through the Gibraltar Ranges and surrounding wilderness areas and national parks was steep, winidng and spectacular - with amazing lookouts across virgin rainforest (note: Sheila says all forests are rainforests really - or how would the trees grow?) where the air rang with bell-birds and rainbows shimmered over valley upon valley into the distance.
We stayed in places no-one has heard of, and came back partly via the Waterfall Way where we hung over dizzying precipices to gawp at torrents tumbling down sheer rock faces - including Australia's second highest - the Wooloombimbi (or something like that).
We're just past the half-way point of our grand trip and on our last few days in Australia now - a few days here in the Blue Mountains an hour out of Sydney (it's required on your visa that you take a picture of the three Sisters (see blog pic) - so we have), then back into the city to sort out various things, do my gig and get ready for Fiji!!