Blue Mountains/Farewell Dinner

Today was our trek to the Blue Mountains. Bus pick-up was at 7:30, then because it was through Gray Line, we drove around the city doing other hotel pick-ups then to the depot and then out of the city. First stop was at the Featherdale Wildlife Preserve. Nice little zoo with a lot of birds, kangaroos hopping free, wombats and echnidas. They have some Tasmanian devils, but they were sleeping and we couldn't see them. Did see a really cool white peacock and some more of the little penguins. This time I was able to take pictures of them.

Next stop was Echo Point. Really nice view over the Jamison Valley and looking at the Three Sisters Rock formation. Aboriginal legend is that they were 3 sisters who upset the local shaman (we never did find out exactly what they did to upset him), and he turned them into stone. It was quite pretty, reminding me of the Grand Canyon (but more muted in color) and the Blyde River Canyons in South Africa. Didn't try and see if it really echoed.

After that we drove to the Scenic Centre. Here we had a little annoyance, our tour did not include the cost of the Railway or Cable Car or Skyway. We took the Skyway across and were able to see the Kootumba Falls, which are probably pretty impressive when it's rained, but were not that spectular today. We ate lunch when we got to the other side, then opted to walk along the walkway through the woods instead of going down on the cable car or railway. Had a couple more stops on the way back to Sydney, then on the highway back to the city. I felt right at home during that ride, there was an accident on the highway and the back-up stretched for MILES and miles. Fortunately, it was in the other direction. We got back to the hotel at 6:15, instead of the 5:30 we'd been told. Today was the Melbourne Cup horse race and apparently a lot of people here in Sydney take off early after lunch and drink their way through the afternoon, so traffic in the city was horrendous, but our driver was able to bob and weave his way back to someplace we recognized, so the ten of us from Globus were able to hop off and get back to our hotel to get ready for dinner.

Farewell dinner was at a waterfront restaurant and was quite good, with nice view of the bridge and the opera house.

It's sad to say good bye to these folks. Everyone has been super nice and got to say, this group has gotten along quite well.

My time on the computer is almost up, so I'll sign off now. We're leaving the hotel at 8:30 to catch our noon flight to LA (wish us luck), then I have a long layover in LA and will be back home Thursday morning.

Oh, and don't forget to vote.

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