Moving on and a bit of blue...

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Our bags were packed and our adventure is due to start as we bus ourselves up the east coast. Before we left Sydney it had been our plan to see the Blue Mountains which we had heard were extremely beautiful and well worth the 2 hour train journey. Matt booked us into a hostel... oh no sorry, booked us into some tents on hostel grounds, why not eh?! We had set off relativley early but had to do annoying house things like tidying and handing keys back in Bondi Junction to the TFPG, a frustrating and out of the way de-tour. Anyway we eventually got ourselves onto the train which was a huge double decker train and very comfortable. We arrived into the Katoomba station in the Blue Mountains area and checked into our tents. The first thing we knew we had to do was to go straight to the Three Sisters and see them for our own eyes after seeing so many postcards and pictures of them,as we only had one night and 2 days in which to do 'The Blue Mountains'. It worked out that at that time of day, 2pm-ish, that between 4 of us it was cost effective for us to jump into a taxi and go to the scenic world of the blue mountains. This includes a steep almost vertical train ride down into the rainforest and a short walk on a wooden railed path to a cable car that then takes us back upto the main road. We did exactly that. We then walked along the cliff tops through the bush towards the Three Sisters. The views were amazing, scenery that I have never seen before. Vast expances of rainforest and Australian bush, covering large mountains and canyons.... WOW!! The walk was about 45mins to and hour with awesome views all the way along. On our arrival to the best viewing point for the Three Sisters I was dissapointed to see big concrete viewing platforms and railings all the way around, as the rest of the walk had been fairly open and natural. Un-planned we ended up there for sunset so the Three Sister (three large rocky out-crops standing on their own) shone golden as the sun dropped behind the mountains opposite them. Apparently the Three Sisters used to be worshipped by Aboriginals as each one was meant to represent a different female all frozen in time by a man??!?? or something along those lines. The sun set and the cold mountain air set in so we headed back to our tents in Katoomba. Wednesday we were up early and went to hire bikes thinking a nice ride along a well cycled path would be a good way to see the mountains in our own way. Little did we know we had to be professional and fully fit mountain bikers in order to complete the trip to best viewing point. The path was rocky and very hilly some hills were simply un-ridable!! so we got off and pushed our bikes up some of the hills. In the boiling hot sun this was not an easy ride, at all!!!!!! We did however find a rocky over-hang that had amazing views and fantastic photo opportunities (see hands out vast landscape and all 4 of us stoud on a rocky out-crop). It was quite scary stoud on the cliff top as the drop to the trees below was a seriously long way. We moved on but only found the path get steaper and steaper and rockier and rockier, so with the time we had in which to complete the trip we decided it may be more sensible to turn back and head home. I don't remember ever feeling such burning pain in my thighs and calf muscles, with the sun sucking every last drop of energy from my body. The feeling of relief when we eventually arrived back at the Bike hire shop was as if my life had just been handed back to me. We went straight to the nearest pub for an ice cold beer, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! it could possibly be the best and most earnt beer I have ever had! That night, after a quick stop back in Sydney, we got on the first Premier bus up the coast to Coff's Harbour.

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