The Long Weekend

For anyone getting worried recently by the mock Gothic style that's appeared, I'm back to provide sanity to the blog.

We've just come back from a long weekend, taking in Sydney and the Blue Mountains. Having had 3 days in Sydney I think pretty much everything in my previous blog about Sydney was pretty accurate. Only thing to add is that it is almost impossible to get a decent cup of coffee there. They may think they do coffee, but then the Americans think that as well.

We actually spent most of our time in Manly, perferring it to the rather more obvious and in yer face delights of Central Sydney.

If you're beginning to think I didn't enjoy my time, Sydney gave us access to the Blue Mountains and we drove up there for the day in a hire car. Somebody at AVIS must be reading my blog, because instead of another 3.5l monster car, I got a 2 door Hyundai thing. Still it had a manual gearbox.

Sharon was hopelssly underwhelmed by the sights in Sydney, probably from an over saturation of iconic photos over the years, and me gibbering about the bay view. I got my own back in the Blue Mountains though, acheiving the impossible, and rendering her speechless with her first view over the Blue Mountains from Katoomba.

Unfortunately, regarding the view, I'm rendered pretty speechless as well. We took photos and I can describe what I saw, but I just don't think I can do justice to the experience.

Katoomba was good although clearly touristy, with everyone wanting photos of the 3 Sisters and goes on the cable cars or Mountain Railway. I'd forgotten about this, the worlds steepest incline passenger railway, which takes you from the plateau to the forest floor. You climb into seats on a mini railway type set up at a reasonable incline and then the cable lets it run. Just after leaving the platform you drop over the edge and start running down a pretty steep slope. Sharon is a bit stressed at this point, and I joke about "wait 'til we get to the steep bit". Unfortuantely 3 seconds later we did, and you think you're about to tip over its so steep. All the time going down I've got this Indian behind me with the most charictured accent reciting endlessy "Holy Shit, Holy Shit".

We wandered on from Katoomba to Blackheath and Govett's leap. This was like Katoomba but with even greater views and with no cable cars no tourists. Huge ampitheatres with 300foot vertical cliffs to the valley floor with waterfalls tumbling over the tops and freefalling until they hit the forest 300 feet below. The falls would have been truly spectacular, but this is Australia at the end of the summer!

There was some mad path desperately clinging to the rock face that helter skeltered down to the valley. We went as far as a lookout, and although the rest of the family wanted to continue, self preservation and vertigo got the better of me.

Managed to work on International relations on the way back to Sydney. We got stuck in a traffic jam for 1.5 hours and the guys next to us start complaining that they lived 5 hours north and they got nothing like this. The scale of the Country got the better of me, and I replied with "I'm from Melbourne, and we don't get this either, New South Wales is shit isn't it". At which point they reminded me that 5 hours North was still NSW!!

Now back in Melbourne, and as the coffee kicks in I can't sleep!!