She'll be coming round the (blue) mountain(s) when she comes...

On Wednesday - another bright and sunny day, I'm just sayin' - we took a day trip up to the blue mountains. Jo and I have been a few times now and we both really love it up there. Something about that clean mountain air i guess...though i can't say he loves watching me spend hours trawling through second hand book shops and antique stores. But hey. Who's counting right?

Ok, so away we went, and after a quick lunch our first stop was Scenic World, which basically has a bunch of different activities you can do amidst the parkland of Katoomba - home, of course, to the famous 3 sisters. We hopped on the skyway first, which is trundles you across a canyon of sorts, and even has a glass bottom, for those who get excited about that sort of thing. Here's Dawn looking not at all concerned about being on the skyway...

We did get lovely views of waterfalls and miles and miles of bushland - beeeeeautiful!

On the other side, there were several walks you could take, so we did indeed take said walks and took in some of the beautiful scenery along the way.

Jo and his mum at one of the look outs

Dawn at the base of the waterfall! Pretty :)

The 3 Sisters - legend has it that the three sisters were real - aboriginal women from the Katoomba tribe. They fell in love with three brothers from another tribe, but tribal law forbade them to marry. The brothers would not accept this, and decided to use force to capture the sisters, causing a big battle (men. *shakes head*). Because the lives of the sisters were in danger, a witch doctor turned them into stone to protect them. He intended to turn them back into humans after the battle was over, but alas, as sometimes happens in battle, he was killed, and in a cruel twist of fate, was the only one who could reverse the spell. And so, dear readers, the sisters remain as rock, reminding generations to come that boys are soooooo totally not worth the trouble they cause.




Goofin' around with the skyway in the background.

Next up, we took this train thingy that heads straight down into the valley. It's VERY steep, but we put on our Indiana Jones hats and survived it.

Dawn and I on the train thingy

Oh, that's me riding a copper horse.

Once we got off the train, we took another long and windy walk through the bush. Very cool down in the valley, and we were lucky enough to spot a lyre bird digging around - they are very shy and very rare to see in the wild! We also came across an old cabin used by the minors back in the day - cause they did a lot of mining down there, apparently.

Dawn and I in the cabin. Do you feel transported back in time? Neither did we.

Love this picture Jo!

Next up, we visited the nearby town of Leura, which has a toy and train museum that we made time to see! The museum is in the lovely old house, and it has beautiful gardens too - there's Dawn hanging out with the roses. The museum had me dolled out pretty quickly (Barbie through the ages anyone? That gal has a hella lot of outfits, let me tell you), but i loved the flowers!

Tulips!

Pretty in pink

Out in the gardens

The old house where the Toy Museum is

It was time to head back after a quick stop at the bakery (cause who can resist a blue mountain bakery. I mean really. It's the proper thing to do.) Then, back to my parents where Mum had prepared quite the feast for our arrival - fresh pasta and chicken schnitzel and sausage and meatballs....Daniel joined us for dinner too, and it was fun to reminisce on old times. We particularly enjoyed swapping stories about the mushroom man...but i reckon that's a story for another time.

So that's the visit! Phew, mammoth few days, but lots of fun. It was back to work for me the next day, and Dawn flew out that night...tearful goodbyes at the airport - little did she know she would be seeing Jo sooner than she thought!!