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Published: January 9th 2012
Hi All,
We hope everyone had good New Year Celebrations and are getting into the swing of 2012! Anton and I are now on a health kick as carbs, biscuits and chocolates have crept up on us and the clothes are feeling tight! We will hopefully be back to our normal sizes by the time we return home!
Firstly I need to say 'woohoo' to Holy Cross as we came 1st in the Plymouth league tables! I'm so chuffed and gutted I wasn't there to share the celebrations. Well done everyone and a special shout out to Mrs Cotter who was instrumental in getting Holy Cross to the top!!
Well, we had a few more days in Bondi after New Year and spent some time relaxing on the beach - which was full of gorgeous, fit bodies (hence the new healthy regime!) but who knew it too! We said goodbye to Rory and Ben on Wednesday morning and took the train from Sydney to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. Our hostel was down a massive hill, which was fine with heavy cases on the way down but we were not looking forward to the trip back up three
days later! We arrived late afternoon and started to look into things we wanted to do. The hostel had a weather report on the board which said that Thursday was going to be stormy and Friday would be clearing. We had decided that we wanted to visit the Jenolan Caves and go on the Trolley Bus Tour to visit the major attractions around the Blue Mountains, so our weather guided itinerary was to do Jenolan Caves on Thursday and the tour on Friday. We bought our tickets and headed to the local cinema to watch a documentary called 'The Edge', which was about the Blue Mountains. I think Anton would have rather watched a new release but the lady at the desk gave us the documentary tickets for $10, which was $6 less than watching a new release film. It was quite a good film and was very informative about the Blue Mountains but I think we both would have rather paid the extra money and watched a proper film! After the cinema we went to the supermarket to buy some food and then went back to the hostel to cook. The hostel was very nice and had a lot
more families than backpackers. That night, we played some games, as we were back to having no tv, and then packed our bags for the caves in the morning.
We woke up to a grey start and were glad we were going to the caves. The bus picked us up at 9:15am and we had a 1.5hr drive to Jenolan Caves; the drive was spectacular. We got talking to a couple on the bus who were over visiting their daughter, who had moved to Bondi. They were telling us where they have been in the world and the moajority of their holidays involve cycling or hiking (We didn't like to tell tham that we like less active holidays, so made out like we love hiking!!!) When we arrived the weather had completely changed and it was beautiful blue sky and warm - lucky we were going to be inside as we didn't bring any suncream! our first cave was Lucas Cave and had 900 steps in it. We ended up not really noticing the steps because we were so busy looking around and we stopped frequently to look at particular parts of the cave. Our guide was really good
and you could tell she was passionate about caves. We found it hard to believe that they were found back in the 1850's and the founders only had candles with them. Now adays the caves are lit up by halogen lights and are so magnificent. We were taken into different chambers of the cave and there was one chamber called the concert hall and they actually do hold concerts in there. The tour lasted 1.5hrs and I was quite cold by the time it finished, so it was lovely to come out to warmth. We had 30mins to eat our sandwhiches before starting our next tour to see Orient Cave. This cave was far more colourful but our guide was not so good and not as informative as the previous guide. Once the tour was over, we had a quick look around the shop and then headed back to Katoomba on the bus. That night Anton taught me chess, but he didn't let me win (even on my first go!); he said that his dad never let him win and it was more satisfaction when he actually beat his dad for the first time. I pretty sure I'm not going
to turn out to be an avid chess player, so I doubt I will ever beat Anton!
The next morning we woke up early, bounded out of bed and opened the curtains to see......not much really! The fog was so thick that we coulnd't even see across the road! Bloody weather forecast! This was perfect weather to visit the caves and yesterday was perfect weather to see the sights! Well, I suppose you lot are so used to reading about a mishap in our blogs that this doesn't really surprise you! We put our best foot forward (as my mum would say) and headed out anyway; I kept telling Anton that it would brighten up! Needless to say, there weren't that many people boarding the tour bus! We decided to stop at Leura, which was a shopping street and have a look around, and hopefully the weather would improve as time went on. We found a lovely aboriginal shop that was closing down and managed to get some hand burnt music sticks for $19. We had a good look around the shops and then stopped for a coffee before going to see a teapot museum! Yes I know that
doesn't sound like us, but it was now raining and the fog hadn't lifted! It was like stepping into your great-auties house with loads of trinkets around. They claimed to do Devonshire cream teas but we weren't falling into that trap again! It was then time to catch the bus, so we waited near the teapot museum and waited quite a long time. We then questioned whether we were waiting in the correct place, just as I saw the bus heading down another road into the fog! We were waiting in the wrong place and then had to wait another hour for another bus! We decided to stop at Echo Point next which has views of the 3 sisters. The weather hadn't brightened up and we could not see a bloomin thing; we couldn't even see 15meters in front of us! We had tickets for the skyrail, cableway and steepest railway but thought these would be wasted as we couldn't see anything. We decided to wait until the next day and hope the weather would have improved and use the tickets in the morning before getting the train back to Sydney. Echo point had a small plaza with shops and
cafes, so we spent some time in there. They also had an aboriginal cultural centre where we watched an aborigine play the digereedo and some aboriginal dancing; it was great to see. We also purchased a boomerang which was hand-crafted and painted by an aborigine. After Echo Point we took the bus to 'The Blue Mountains Chocolate Factory'. They weren't making chocolates at that point but we had a little taste of their belgium chocolate - divine! We were very good though and just bought some hand made chocolates for Tracy and Andrew and nothing for ourselves!! (it's so hard being good) After that, we headed back to the hostel.
We woke up to glorious weather on Saturday, so got ourselves packed up, checked out, stored our bags and walked down to sceneic world where we had tickets for the steepest railway, the scenic skyrail and the scenic cableway. First trip was the steepest railway and at 52 degrees, it vertainly was steep! It was once used for mining. When we saw the drop, we were amazed how the carriage stayed on the tracks! The views from the top were stunning and we were so glad that we didn't
decide to do it the previous day. Once at the bottom, we did a 10min boardwalk to the cableway; along the way they had informative sections about the place when it was a successful mining area. The cableway was a lot slower and we were able to see the 3 sisters from the carriage; once again, the views were amazing. Our final trip was along the skyrail which had a glass-bottomed floor where we could look down 70feet to the rainforest canopy. From the carriage we saw the 3 sisters, Mount Solitary and Katoomba falls. We then left sceneic world and walked to Echo point to see the 3 sisters up close! I was gutted because I forget to pack Barnaby and couldn't get a picture with him and the views. We stayed a while and took some great pictures and then started our walk back to the hostel to collect our bags for the trip home. We did contemplate getting the trolley tour bus back and hoping that the driver wouldn't see that our tickets had expired, but we didn't have to bottle. We made it back to hostel in time to collect our bags and start the journey
up the horribly steep hill to the rail station! We had walked about 100m when Anton realised that we had forgotten our coolbag with a lot of our food!! Luckily we hadn't started the incline by then and he quickly ran back to get it. The walk was horrendous and, like the walk to the lighthouse at Byron Bay, I was hanging out by the time we reached the station!!! (It tired Anton out too but he likes to proove his fitness more than me!) We caught the train back to Central Station in Sydney and then caught another train to Bondi Junction, where Tracy and Andrew (Anton's cousins) were going to pick us up to spend our final week in Australia with them.
Lots of love to you all (only 3 months until we see you all again!!!!) xxxxxxxx
Special kisses to Thomas, Lauren, Erin, George, Niah, Evie, Matilda, Isaac and our little Jonnie! xxxxxxxxx
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Del & John
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Morning!!! up early to take Greg to the train station to begin his 14week training for the BA. love your latest blog, full of detail as usual and the colour in the caves are wonderful. Guess you must be with Tracy now enjoying your last few days before going to NZ. love to all Mum & Pop xxxx