Blue Mountains and Sydney

Friday, October 23. Keith and I got up early in the morning and played a bit of tennis before enjoying a delicious buffet breakfast at the Crown Plaza. Given that Keith and I hadn't played tennis in about 2 months, I didn't think we did that bad – interestingly, the tennis courts were outside and were carpet – a first for me. After a quick stop at the Hunter Valley Chocolate Company, we were on the road again. Destination – Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. We decided to take the scenic route from Hunter Valley to the Blue Mountains via a road called Putty Road. It was a twisty turny road that climbed up and down mountains. Keith said it was definitely one of the most challenging roads he had ever driven. It was a great road to ride a motorcycle and we saw many of them taking the sharp turns in the road. It took us about 3-4 hours to get to Katoomba. The Blue Mountains were beautiful. They remind me of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. We checked into our hotel – Lillianfels – by far one of the nicest hotels we've stayed in. It's owned by the Orient Express and has incredible mountain views. We enjoyed an hour or so by their outside pool and then took a short hike down the Three Sisters – a series of three rock formations that are the highlight of the Blue Mountains. We then headed back to the hotel and enjoyed their indoor pool, followed by a jacuzzi, a steam room and a sauna – what a treat! Keith and I showered and headed into town to grab dinner. On the way back we stopped at the Three Sisters which were illuminated by strategically placed spotlights before calling it a night.

Saturday, October 24. Keith got up early and enjoyed the indoor pool while I caught a few more winks. We were then off on a 2 hour hike. The hike first brought by the Three Sisters followed by the Giant Stairway which brings you down the side of the mountain and into Jamison Valley. There are approximately 900 stairs that go STRAIGHT down. There were quite a few times that my legs were shaking and I had to try hard not to look down. By the time Keith and I got down to the bottom, our knees were jelly. We then hiked for about 2.5 km until we got to Scenic World – a spot which has cable cars that will bring you up, down and across Jamison Valley. We had started our hike on the early side so we had the trail to ourselves. And trust in the fact that I kept an eye out for snakes the whole time! Once we got to Scenic World we took the Scenic Railway back up the mountain (since we had hiked down via the Giant Stairway). The Scenic Railway was an old car that they used to haul coal in. It goes up at a 52 degree angle so you are almost all the way backwards as you go up – pretty cool. From there, we took the Scenic Skyway across the Valley. The Scenic Skyway was essentially a cable car with clear glass on all sides and once you leave the platform, the floor goes clear so you can see down below you – again pretty cool. After seeing the sights we hit the road – destination Sydney. We got to Sydney around 12:30 pm and checked into the hostel where our friends, Chuck and Alice (who we had stayed with in Perth) were staying. It was great to see some familiar faces. After grabbing some lunch, having a couple of beers and having many laughs catching up, Keith and I headed down to checkout Blackwattle Cove and the Anzac Bridge. From there, the four of us headed into the CBD and went to the top of Sydney Tower. The Tower provided some fabulous views of Sydney. Next we headed back to Glebe (the area of Sydney we were staying) and grabbed a delicious dinner. After a few bottles of wines and many more laughs we called it a night.

Sunday, October 25. Our friends Chuck and Alice were off bright and early. Keith and I had some breakfast and then headed off to Bondi Beach. Bondi Beach is great in that it is only 20 minutes from Sydney's CBD and it has excellent surfing and people watching. After spending the morning wandering around Bondi Beach we headed back into the CBD. We spent a few hours checking out Paddy's Market – a huge warehouse filled with all kinds of bargains in Darling Harbour. We then checked into the apartment where we would be staying for the next three nights – finally a place to call home for a few days. It had a full kitchen, so after returning our rental car we went to the grocery store to grab some provisions. It was a bit of a dreary day with heavy rain. After being on the go for so long, Keith and I lounged around a bit and did lots of laundry. Keith cooked us a delicious steak dinner and we called it a night.

Monday, October 26. Again it was a dreary day in Sydney but the rain had subsided a bit. After a lazy start, Keith whipped us up a delicious breakfast. I then headed off to the Australian Museum while Keith went to go get a haircut. The Museum had a good dinosaur display and mineral collection. From there, I wandered around Hyde Park and St. Mary's Cathedral. The rest of the day was spent on the internet trying to nail down some of our accommodations/flights for Southeast Asia – a bit of an undaunting task. Again Keith made us a delicious dinner and we called it a night.

Tuesday, October 27. Again it was a bit of a dreary day in Sydney but the rain had stopped. It was our last full day in Sydney so we wanted to make the most of it. After Keith made a yummy breakfast, we we off to see the sights of Sydney. We walked all along George Street – one of the main roads that runs through Sydney. We walked through the Queen Victoria Building – a HUGE building that is one block wide and two block long. I'm not sure what the building was originally used for, but now it's a big shopping center with high-end shops. Next we headed to Circular Quay where we got our first glimpse of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge – both very impressive and beautiful sights. We took an 1 ½ hour cruise around Sydney Harbour and Darling Harbour which provided some great views of the city. After the cruise we headed over to the Sydney Opera House to get a closer view – it's quite an impressive building. We then wandered through an area of Sydney called The Rocks – it's essentially old Sydney. We had a delicious late lunch along the water and then headed down to Darling Harbour. We spent the rest of the day doing some errands and trying to downsize our luggage for our trip to Southeast Asia – we seemed to have accumulated quite a bit of stuff (especially since we had the luxury of a rental car for almost the entire time we were in Australia) and/or there were things we found we just didn't need. Keith cooked us again a delicious dinner and we called it night.

Wednesday, October 28. The morning was spent doing final errands before heading off to Thailand. We went to the post office to mail home all of our unneeded items and the bank to get some Thai Baht. We grabbed some lunch and then headed off to the airport. After a slight snag at the ticket counter (apparently we needed to show proof that we had a flight out of Thailand which we did not have on us - fortunately there was an internet cafe where I was able to print out our onward tickets) and then me getting picked at security for a random search, we finally boarded our flight to Phuket, Thailand. More on Thailand later. So a few thoughts on Sydney and Australia. Sydney is a great city. It reminds me a bit of New York with its size and shopping but it's cleaner, far less crowded and doesn't seem to smell as bad. Like many other cities in Australia it's architecture is a wonderful mix of old and new. Keith and I have to stop back in Sydney before heading over to New Zealand in another month or so and I looked forward to going back there. Keith and I have now been gone for about 1 ½ months. I think we're gone for a total of about 4 months so our trip is a little shy of being halfway done. We miss terribly our families, friends, dogs and a few creature comforts from home (Keith in particular misses Dunkin Donuts iced coffee). Though our first two weeks in Australia felt like two months as it was constantly go, go, go, we now look back and can hardly believe our time in Australia is over. Australia was an awesome country and there are a few spots Keith and I hope to make it back to before our time in this part of the world is over.