The Blue Mountains

Our seven weeks in New Zealand exceeded my best expectations – it is a truly beautiful place; a continent's worth of scenery compacted into an area not much bigger than the UK. That said, it was time to move on to a place a great deal bigger than the UK.














Our first port of call was a brief visit to Sydney (we'll go back in a few weeks for a longer visit). We met my friend Glen in a sports bar in Pyrmont, before decamping to his flat overlooking Darling Harbour. After sipping some sparkling wine on the balcony, I contemplated the folly of returning to Blighty.














We did the touristy things that you tend not to when you live in a city: took the ferry from Darling Harbour, under the harbour bridge, round to Circular Quay; had drinks and nibbles in a bar under the shadow of the Opera House; then spent $18 a pop on cocktails.

We picked up our new hire car (a tiny, under powered, Hyundai Getz) in Kings Cross, then underwent a comedy of errors trying to get the sat-nav to direct us through the harbour tunnel (I had to drop my camera for repair in a trading estate in North Sydney). Two hours later, and we'd picked up our bags and joined the back of the queue out of Sydney.

The destination was Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. The hope was that the temperature would drop – it didn't. We started at Echo Point, which gives rather good view from the edge of the plateaux to the valley below. However by 10:30am, it was already far too hot – time for a nice long walk. Nine hundred and sixty steps takes you down to the valley floor, via the stone pinnacles of the Three Sisters. An hour or so along the (thankfully) partially shaded valley, and you reach three options for your assent: 1000+ steps; a cable -car; and the world's steepest funicular. We took the 52° funicular.














A glass-bottomed cable-car, and a cliff walk, and we were back at the car. Unfortunately the inside of the car was now so hot I couldn't touch the steering wheel without inflicting severe burns on my hands – I miss New Zealand.














The next day we decided that leaving the air-conditioned cocoon of the car for any length of time was a bad idea. We drove to a couple of good look out points, and into the carefully named Megalong Valley, before looping down to the Jenolan Caves. When the mercury is shooting past 40°, the natural air-conditioning of caves is just wonderful. The caves are also quite pretty.














We spent our third night in Bathurst, and took in the towns T-Rex in the Australian Fossil & Mineral Museum in the morning, before dropping south to Canberra.