Blogs from Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania

First of all, many congratulations to my fabulous sister Yvette for completing her degree in biology! What an achievement.Nice work sis! Thursday 22 March has been a much anticipated date as it’s the day that we met up with my great friend Peter, who came over from the States for a conference in Sydney. We managed to time our arrival in Sydney perfectly with the last day of the conference and immediately drove out to the Blue Mountains for a weekend camping trip. We set up camp in the Bents Basin State Conservation Area at the edge of the Blue Mountain National Park. Nice work, boys, for putting up the tent in the dark! It was beautiful waking up to the morning mist and dew-covered spider webs. What’s more, the blue skies promised a lovely sunny ... read more

Up at 7am and headed off to collect my car, albeit a day late, from the rental place. Today I'm off to the Blue Mountains, somewhere where I've been before but in, as you may well have come to expect by now, much worse weather. This morning the sun is out, I've nabbed an upgrade on my car (new Toyota Corolla today, quite spacious, though appears to have been driven into a yellow post at some stage and had its parcel shelf removed...) and a sat nav to boot. My first thoughts of driving through the centre of Sydney are riddled with fear. Perth I can handle, but Sydney? This place is manic. Thank the Lord for the sat nav as it carefully directed me over ANZAC bridge and onto the western distributor. Handily the sat ... read more

On Tuesday I went on an overnight trip to the Blue Mountains, which are about 2 hours west of Sydney. They're given their name due to the eucalyptus trees that cover the mountains (that are actually canyons) and these let off a vapour that makes the air look blue. As we left Sydney at 8am, the weather had decided it was against us and thick grey clouds were gathering overhead. It didn't take long for it to start raining, and the visibility was so bad we didn't think we'd be able to see the trees, let alone the mountains we'd got up early to see. Nevertheless we drove on, and first stopped at Glenbrook, one of the first towns in the Blue Mountains. A lot of the area is covered in grass and so is perfect ... read more

Hi all - or as all as are reading this! Thanks for the comments guys - glad to know some people are actually reading it! I am just writing a couple of lines while I'm waiting for my washing to finish - even us globe trotters have to succumb to the mundane things in life.... (lol) Will pop back later possibly while it's drying! Anyway, we went to the Blue Mountains and it was another lovely, sunny day. I fed some wallabies and some kangaroos; stroked a Koala, then took a glass-bottomed cable car across the top of the rainforest and down into the forest. Took a fab walk around the rainforest, then up again on a train (the steepest hillside train apparently!) Was a bit scary looking down at a 55 degree angle! Better go ... read more

Heute habe ich einen Ausflug raus aus Sydney gemacht. Mit dem Zug ging es in das 100 Kilometer entfernte Katoomba zu den Blue Mountains. Die Blue Mountains sind ein Gebirge in New South Wales, wo früher Aborigines gelebt haben. Die Aussicht über das Gebirge ist traumhaft. Dort gibt es eine Bergformation die The Three Sister genannt wird. Der Legende nach waren drei Schwestern in drei Brüder vom verfeindeten Stamm verliebt. Um keinen Krieg ausbrechen zu lassen wurden diese vom Medizinmann versteinert bis sich die Lage beruhigt hatte. Leider starb der Medizinmann und kein anderer konnte sie wieder lebendig machen. Nette Legende. Was ich dort oben so toll fand, war die Stille an manchen Orten. Ich hatte einen Aussichtspunkt für mich alleine, weil ich etwas weiter in die Wildnis gegangen bin als andere. Traumhaft! Zum ersten Felsen ... read more

Hello dear people! you have all been pestering me to write my first blog entry so here it goes... not too much has happened yet, but this is just so you know I am alive!! I had a long longgggg journey from vancouver last week - left sunday night at 11:55 PM, had a 14 hour flight to Taipei, Taiwan, then an 18 hour stop over in Taipei, then another 9.5 hour flight to Sydney and arrived in Sydney at 1Pm wednesday the 19th. basically about 3 days of travelling - luckily i am good at sleeping on the plane. (the time change is 17 hours from BC to Sydney i think) When i was in Taiwan (i had A LOT of time to walk around...) I found a flyer about this FREE TOUR around Taipei ... read more

Good morning - its just after 8 am and as I am staying at the YHA in the Blue Mountains and have got 4 hours left of my internet connection before my money runs out - I thought I would do a quick blog of the last few days. Bet you can't beleive I am up so early!!!! Arrived here in Blue Mnts - which is about 11/2hr drive west of Sydney. A good road to get here - but then its a toll road... it seems that any faster travel on a road or a tunnel you have to pay... there is an electronic tag things in the car which adds it all up - so I will pay Jo for that when I give her the car back....well thats convenient anyway. So I managed ... read more