Blogs from Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania

Today we drove down to Jenolan Caves, we left the van in Katoomba as the road is too narrow and steep for caravans. It took us just over an hour to get down to the caves. We have not been to Jenolan Caves for many years. It was so lovely to return and walk through the Grand Arch. Today we toured the River Cave. This tour took 2 1/2 hours and was very interesting. There were one thousand two hundred and ninety eight steps in the cave and two big metal ladders to negotiate. The caves length is 1,271 meters. We thoroughly enjoyed our tour of this cave. There were many beautiful crystal formations, stalactites and stalagmites. There are numerous limestone caves at Jenolan but we only had the time to explore one of them today. ... read more

Anzac Day is fast approaching and so is the cold weather, I remember when we first moved into Canberra and everyone warned us how cold Canberra would get in the winter, I was still very disbelieving at that point, but the word on the street was that Anzac Day was the trigger point and the temperature would plummet. They were not wrong. Anyway, we have spent 3 years in Canberra, which also means 3 winters, which also means that we have spent probably 2 years and 9 months long in Canberra than we originally anticipated. I have grown to enjoy the winter, not from a temperature point of view, but let’s just say that the scenery in and around Canberra is beautiful in the winter, enhanced by the lovely blue skies and sunny days. After much ... read more

La La La von den blauen Bergen kommen wir, von den blauen Bergen ach so weit von hier. Reisen, das ist unsre Wonne, scheint auch nich so heis die Sonne. Von den blauen Bergen kommen wir La La La.. Tag 1: 6 Uhr in Kirribilli>>>> Muttertier, AUFSTEHEN!!! Nachdem ich den Mutter erfolgreich aus dem Bett getrieben habe ging es zusammen in die City, Miss Sophy und Alex einfangen. Obwohl wir direkt vor dem Ausgang der Fáhre standen, auf der Miss Sophy sich befand, ist sie erst einmal schnur stracks an uns vorbei gelaufen...ein eindeutiges Zeichen, dass wir erst einmal eine gemeinsame Kaffeepause einlegen sollten, bevor wir in den Reisebus einsteigen. Gesagt, getan. Mutti und Alex schlúrften gemútlich ihren Kaffee, an eine Hauswand gelehnt, wáren Sophy und ich durch die Gegend stracksten um den blóden Reisebus zu ... read more

It was our last full day in Sydney and so we dragged ourselves off, sniffing and clutching tissues, to catch an early train to the Blue Mountains. The two hour trip up was through the suburbs of Sydney and then the ribbon development that straddles the railway line - and so gave us no inkling of our destination. On arriving at Katoomba we were greeted with a typical mid-Oz town that suggested that we may have made a mistake!! We ordered a coffee and received some good advice off the waitress - stroll down to the sights and save $38 each on the unnecessary hop-on-off bus. We took this advice and walked for 15 minutes past wooden built, but non- descript bungalows. And then suddenly, around a corner, everything changed - we were confronted with magnificant ... read more

This morning we got up in time because we planned to visit the Blue Mountains. We drove up to the mountains along highway 4. It took almost 2 hours and we saw the temperature drop from 18 degrees down to only 6 degrees. When we got out of the car we first had to put on some extra layers. We stopped in Katoomba and as Adam’s father John had suggested we bought a round trip ticket for Scenic world. It included the steepest railway ride in the world (52 degrees) down to the bottom of the valley as well as two cable car rides one back up out of the valley and one horizontally over a waterfall, the views where incredible. We saw the famed “three sisters”, three enormous stone pillars that rise from the valley ... read more

I arrived in Australia 6 weeks ago and I’m living in Wamberal, on the Central Coast of NSW. My partner’s mum is from the Blue Mountains so we went there to visit her and spend some days in the area. The Blue Mountains are only an hour train trip from Sydney or 90 minutes drive journey from the heart of the city. It’s worth it to go just for a weekend if you are in Sydney and you want to enjoy nature and do some hiking there. The Blue Mountains has multiple bushwalks with cascading waterfalls, stunning rainforests, beautiful flora and fauna and breathtaking panoramas. The Australian bush doesn’t show seasonal changes in the same manner as the softer vegetation in Europe. But, right now, still in Autumn, you can see hues of red, orange ... read more