Blue Mountains Choo Choo

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Hi All, we're just back from a very relaxing and well deserved long weekend away in the Blue Mountains. We hired a car and booked a couple of nights in a pretty B&B just 90 minutes from Sydney.
The blue mountains are known for the blue haze that rises from the forest of Eucalyptus trees. It's a bit like walking around in a forest of Vicks Vaporub. The weather forecast wasn't great but we reasoned it was better than hanging around in a wet and windy Sydney. The weather was changable but by and large it was nice and sunny althought I'm glad we didn't rent a convertable. We ended up with a monster of a car, a Holden Statesman, with a V6 3.6 litre engine. It was 17'5" feet long and a good 6'6" wide. Maeve loved it, I thought it was a bit of a dog. The automatic transmission and huge weight really wrecked any kind of performance, oh and don't try and stop too suddenly. And it was a bit of a problem to park as you can imagine.
We stayed in the mecca of the Blue Mountains, Katoomba, with a whole 4 pubs. You really get the feeling that this area really boomed in the 1800's and early 1900's but kinda stopped there. It all seemed very old fashioned. That's probably a big part of the attraction of heading for the hills. It was great to get out into the country and see a bit more of Australia. After 4 months of planes, trains, boats, buses and taxi's, it was great to finally get behind the wheel of a car and go your own way at your own pace.
We got a lot packed into our weekend and still didn't feel like we were rushing around. We started off by stopping off at Echo Point to get a great look over the blue mountains and the famous 3 sisters. Then we checked in to our B&B which was eally pretty and quaint and a bit whiffy. It reminded Maeve of a nursing home and me of a cooking experiment gone wrong. Our room, non-whiffy, was really nice and made up for it. We then jumped in the car and headed off exploring. We went to the deserted village of Hartley, which had a booing population of 130 and was an important and strategic staging post between Sydney and Bathurst. When the railway didn't stop in Hartley that was it the village was done-for. It does have Australia's oldest post office and a strong Irish connection. Apart from the Shamrock Bar it had familys of Finns, Quinns and Lawlers as well as a catholic church. We headed to one of the bars in town for refreshment and nourishment. It was a really nice pub with a band starting up just as we left.
The next day we headed of to the Jenolan Caves. A very impressive 14km of caves and caverns of which we saw just 400m. It would take a full 3 months to cover the 14kms. We also saw a 106 year old working light bulb which was quite impressive.
That evening we headed north to Lithgow and Clarence to catch the 3.00pm Zig Zag railway. I really enjoyed this, a real working Steam Locomotive which ziged and zaged its way up and down a steep mountain pass. It's nice to be able to say that I've been on a real steam train, although we did get covered in soot especially as we went through tunnels.
On our last morning we went to Scenic world. We took a train that dropped us at 52 degrees (very steep) down the cliff face and down below the cover of the forest. We were able to walk around the trees for about an hour before getting a cable car back to the top of the cliff. There were numerous exhibits of the old mines that worked there until after WW2. After that we headed back for an afternoon in Sydney sunshine. A good weekend was had by all, and now just a short week to get on with.
Maeve is off to Tasmania for work from Wed till Friday so it'll be very strange being apart from her for a whole 3 days.

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Photos

Maeve's Honeymoon
Pity it was with a car!!

Maeve, I and the 3 Sisters
Notice the blue haze behind us