If I only had more time...

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While staying at marks house I used one of the two days to explore Sydney on foot and the other to visit the Blue Mountains. Originally I'd planned to spend two days there but because of time restrictions that stopped me from doing one of the longer treks I decided to do all the easily accesible stuff and get it over with in one day.

When I first arrived in Katoomba (the main jumping off point for visiting the Blue Mountains) it was raining and showed no sign of letting up but I thought I'd make the most of it and went exploring some of the trails that go through the forest - it was actually much nicer walking through forest that was covered in mist and where everything was dripping wet.

I'd stopped at one point to scoff some food (bread with vegemite on it - I ate a whole loaf in one day!), at a view point that in that weather was just a grey wall, and it was here I met Helen and Jayne who were English girls about my age and had been staying in Sydney for a while already. We walked together visiting waterfalls etc for a while before seperating and going our own ways and I ended up becoming good friends with them when I followed their reccommendation and came to their hostel in Sydney.

Later that day at around 4pm the clouds suddenly disintegrated and revealed the absolutely stunning vistas of the Blue Mountains. The mountains aren't very big at all but the huge plateaus with steep cliffs decending into valleys covered in rain forest are gorgeous and I suddenly found myself wishing much more that I could stay and hike through them for 3-4 days. The whole area around Katoomba is organised pretty well with several km of trails laid out all with interesting information on the scenery, history, plant life, old abandoned coal mines etc so the day past really quickly and it wasn't long before I had watched the sun set on the infamous 3 sisters and found myself heading back to Sydney for what would be my last night at Marks house.

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Photos

The 3 Sisters
Supposedly 3 of five sisters cursed by an aboriginal witchdoctor. These are the most famous part of the Blue Mountains

More views
Thank God the weather changed or I might never have seen all this

That's $8 I'll never see again
The biggest waste of money ever. I only went on because I thought I'd managed to sneak on for free. It looks good from here but when you're on it the 1min ride isn't worth it