Blogs from Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 15

We are on the move again, this time up to Epping. Epping is a very pretty, family orientated suburb to the north of Sydney, which is surrounded by bushland. It is fair to say that we are seeing more of Sydney than your average tourist, as even the locals wonder why we would live here. It appears that we haven’t got the backpack thing sorted yet. Gregor’s cousin kindly lent us her car while we moved house and we managed to fill it up completely - literally struggling to find space for a bottle of wine. Mmm … well it was a small car and we are not really travelling just yet. Although it seems like a strange move to most people, there were good reasons. Becky had a job there for a few weeks before ... read more

Catching the train from Sydney to Katoomba today, so packed up all our stuff and made our way via the Metro to Sydney Central Station. Passed a couple of late night revelers sleeping it off, propped up against a wall under a "No Stopping" sign - would have made a fab photo, but we were too loaded up to get the camera out! Main line services are great and again all the trains are double deckers so there was plenty of room. The journey out to the mountains was only 2hrs so we arrived about lunchtime and managed to find the new hostel. It's very cold here and the wind is strong and really biting - must be coming from the Antarctic! Very strange to think that we were surfing on the beach only yesterday. The ... read more

Today was a very beautiful day...the sun was shining and it wasnt too hot. I took a train for 2 hours to Blue Mountain. It was so beautiful. I got on a bus..where you can hop on and hop off for the whole day. It took me to scenic world...where I got on a trolly and it took me down the mountain. The veiw was so pretty and breath taking. I wish I had someone to share it with. Then I got on a train and at a 52 degree drop....I was a little scared but it was so cool. Then I walked through the rainforst for 1 1/2 hours and took another trolly back up the mountain. So awesome. I then walked around the town of Katoomba and caught the next train back to Sydney. ... read more

Every hit movie has a sequel. While the vast majority of sequels are atrocious, occasionally one finds that the sequel is in fact, much better than its parent film. This finding brings us to today’s topic: Jurassic Park II. I don’t know if all trips into Australia’s wild Blue Mountain region require passage through the wild and unruly herds of Aussie critters in the Featherdale Wildlife Park. Seeing as how I’d been out Salsa dancing until 3 a.m., I was thoroughly unprepared and not as sharp as I usually am when I am faced with battling bloodthirsty wombats and such. I awoke at 6 a.m. to warm up and to apply my Drop-Bear repellant, ate breakfast, boarded the mini-bus with my fellow BCA students, and wondered how many of my comrades I would lose on this ... read more

We decided to get out of town to celebrate our 9th anniversary. Even though the blue mountains are only a few hours away, we haven't yet had the chance to visit! We found our delightful B&B in Katoomba just a short walk away from the Three Sisters rock formation which draws all sorts of tour busses to Katoomba. It was a rainy evening, but we decided to brave the wet and cold anyway. The entire rock face was beautifully lit for the evening, but since it was only about 5 degrees, we headed back to our B&B to enjoy the central heating! Saturday was a dreary, rainy day. It was so foggy, we could barely see the rock formations from the lookout that morning. We spent a little time picking up a picnic lunch in town ... read more