Blue Mountains

It's always the way, isn't it? When I have loads of time on my hands I have nothing to blog about. Then, as soon as I do something interesting, something blog-worthy happens back in the UK, the 'free' internet connection at the flat goes wonky and I'm actually given some work... Famine or feast.

Befroe I forget though - HAPPY BIRTHDAY for the other day to Fiona. Hope you enjoyed your meal on Islay.

Anyhow - we headed out of the city last Saturday and up to the Blue Mountains, about 3 hours out of Sydney. It was the first time Alec has actually been out of Sydney since he got here and only my second, so it was good to get out and see another side of Oz. The train journey up to Katoomba was lovely - with lots of little Aussie towns along the way and cacti growing by the track. As we got further up into the mountains the views opened up and we could see the high-rises of Sydney's CBD in the distance, beyond the miles and miles of trees.

Stepping off the train in Katoomba 2 things hit us - firstly (and mainly) the cold. It certainly is chillier at 3000 feet! It felt like December! Once we had adjusted to the temperature drop (about 8 degrees cooler than Sydney) the second thing we noticed was how fresh and clean the air was. As much as I am loving Sydney, I am still a country girl at heart.

Katoomba is a lovely wee town and it has all the essentials like a bead shop and 2 chocolate shops. We decided to take the hop-on hop-off explorer bus around the area and the first stop was The Blue Mountains Chocolate Company. (It's such hard work being a tourist!).

It was lovely and cosy in the wee shop and it would have been rude to pass on the offer of their 'internationally famous' hot chocolate. This involved being provided with what looked like your own little oil-burner so that you can melt real chocolate in the small cup and add warm, frothy milk to your own taste before stirring the mix with an interesting invention which was half spoon half drinking straw. We opted for one milk chocolate and one dark chocolate and spent a happy 30 mins varying the mix of the 2 chocolates and milk to find the perfect combination. Yum!

So - buoyed up by our sugar rush we set off to to the Scenic Skyway to take the glass-bottomed cable car over a deep gorge with a massive waterfall to the visitors centre. More great views. We had lunch from the mountain-top BBQ, including emu sausages - an acquired taste. If that wasn't enough adventure for one day we also managed a trip on the world's steepest railway (I think 'vertical rollercoaster' would be a better description!) before a wander through the rainforest and a cable car trip back to the top.

This left us with a little time to admire the mountain views and the '3 Sisters' before heading on to Leura - another pretty little town with lots of galleries and a permanent 'Christmas shop'. In fact, we were already feeling quite Christmassy by the time we got to Leura. Something to do with the bare-branched trees, the cool clear air and the faint smell of woodsmoke. Or possibly the fact that there were several Christmas trees decorating the shops. We later found out that this area is one of the favourite places for ex-pats to go and celebrate 'July Christmas'.

Strangely enough, the Blue Mountains is the closest I have felt to 'home' since leaving the UK. While NZ is more similar in climate, the houses are much more familiar here. Brick is much more common here than any other country we have been to in the lats 14 months and, with the architecture styles, it felt like we could easily have been driving through parts of the UK.

Sydney reminds me so much of Glasgow too. It's full of magnificent Victorian buildings. Very different from NZ cities.

And, after all that, it was only a couple of hours on the train and bus home. It's great to have somewhere like that on your doorstep. It was good to be back to the relative warmth of Sydney. Which has got warmer in the last few days. It was 23 degrees the other day, but they're talking about it getting chilly again at the weekend. Down to 16 degrees. And this is winter???