Sydney & The Blue Mountains

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Hi Guys

Sydney

So we arrived in Sydney at 8am after another night bus. We caught the metro to our accommodation at base hostel and got checked in after a small wait as it was so early. We spent the first day exploring Darling harbour and most of the inner city. Sydney is a really nice place you can see why so many people want to come and live here.

The following day we decided to get the ferry across to see Manly Beach as we had heard so much about how nice it was. We walked down to Sydney harbour to get the ferry as it saves a bit of money than getting it from Darling harbour. The good point about getting this ferry is that it goes right past the Sydney harbour bridge and the Opera house, so we were able to get some nice photos without having to do one of the cruises. It was another glorious day so we just relaxed by the beach and treated ourselves to some tasty fish and chips. It is getting close to Christmas now, there are Christmas tree's, lights and decorations on the streets. But no mater how much decorations there are I don't think it could ever feel like Christmas with the sun beating down!! It's just not right to be eating ice-cream while sitting under a Christmas tree. On our way back on the ferry the wind was howling and it was freezing sitting up on deck waiting to see the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House again, but it was worth it to get the photos. We had a short walk around the Opera house and again got some more photos. We had a nice walk back to the hostel through central park and the botanic gardens. We have also booked our car for tomorrow so we can head out to explore the Blue Mountains which we are really looking forward too.

Blue Mountains

We were up early this morning to collect our car to head to the Blue Mountains. You can get a train pretty easily but we wanted to have the car so we could get to see as much as possible in the 2 days. We collected our blue Suzuki Swift and took off. Our first stop along the way was at Wentworth falls. You can do a number of walks here from a half hour to all day. We did a short walk that took us along some very high cliffs looking out over the valley and the waterfall. Ian decided he wanted to head down all the steps to the bottom of the waterfall to get some photos and left Laura at the top as she was not very comfortable with the height. Ian got his photos but returned out of breath after having to climb all the stairs. The views over the whole valley were really amazing and the falls are really worth seeing. We drove onto the town of katouba where we had booked to stay for the night. We had booked the no 14 guesthouse and were really pleased with our choice. It was exactly like being at home in a nice country house. Our room was lovely and the kitchen and dining area was lovely with a fire going in the evening made it feel very cosy. We spent the whole day hiking through different tracks surrounded by amazing views. We got to see the famous 3 sisters rocks and had an amazing day. We headed back to our guesthouse made dinner and sat around the cosy fire chatting to some people from the guesthouse and relaxed after a hard days walking up and down steps and tracks.

The following morning we decided to head to the next town Blackhath to go see Bridal Veil falls. Again the views of the valley and the falls were spectacular. We did a short walk to break in the morning before driving on to the beautiful Blue mountain botanic gardens were we had a lovely picnic before getting back on the road to Sydney. We arrived back in Sydney at around 4 and spent the rest of the evening in the hostel uploading photos from our couple of days in the Blue Mountains before heading out for an evening walk around darling harbour.

The following morning we took the metro and then a short bus to Bondi Beach. The beach was so busy as it was Saturday but it is a really nice beach and we had a nice day getting in and out of the water and messing in the surf, oh how I would love this every weekend. Unfortunately we didn't have time to try some surfing which Ian thought he would have been great at so we will have to wait and see about that one. The town is a bit run down in parts but it has some nice shops and restaurants and overall it seems like a nice place to live, even with the noticeable Irish contingent. We headed back to the hostel to get our stuff together, have some dinner a catch our last night bus to Melbourne!

Bye for now.

Lots of Love

Laura and Ian xxxx

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