Decided on an early trip to the Blue Mountains some 90k outside of Sydney and rather than go on a tour bus we travelled by local metro and train to Katoomba (gateway to the Blue mountain, 2,500 feet above the city).

Unfortunately, as we were going up the clouds were coming down, so by the time we reached our destination we were in thick cloud with no stunning views to be seen! We were so not prepared as still in Lilliput costume(shorts and flip flops) and had having left any wet /warm weather gear in the hotel we had to splash out on some most fashionable plastic ponchos! Having established that the weather was set in for the day we had no choice but to get the next train back to Sydney! So 6 hours after we left we were back with nothing to show other than soggy flip flops and two lovely additions to our wardrobe!

It seems that Sydney and the east coast is suffering from the residue of the two cyclones that hit the East coast of Australia the day before we arrived and has had a knock-on effect on the weather!

Once back we went to the opera cafe in the quay to warm up, recover and book a restaurant for the evening. Had a great meal and Tom had his first Kangaroo steak - poor Skippy!!

A highlight that evening was an invitation to the 'Sydney opera House' as Sue had managed to book tickets for 'Madam Butterfly' - the acoustics and setting were absolutely brilliant and although Sue was totally spellbound by the performance not sure that Tom shall be rushing back to see another Opera!.