The Blue Mountains

The Blue Mountains are about 120km west of Sydney and on Monday we headed up there for some walking and exploring.

We headed to Blackheath (named after the one in the UK) and found our guest house. The most famous rocky outcrop is known as the 3 Sisters. The area is located on top of a plateau and the walks are down into the valleys through lush vegetation and lots of stairs!! On our day of arrival it was lovely and sunny and clear skies.

So you can imagine our 'shock' in the morning when we awoke to drizzle and mist and we couldn't see anything!! We headed to a place called Scenic World where you can go down into the valley on a railway which is really, really steep! Originally the railway was used to bring coal up from the mines located down in the valley, now its just people but a thrilling ride down!

Then we walked around in the trees and tree ferns and then headed back up on the cable car.

There is a cable car that goes across the valley affording great views on a clear day....so with all the mist around we headed off to Leura, a lovely little town up the road to Katoomba. Had a nice lunch and a stroll around and found this fantastic stationery shop with lovely cards, books and all things papery!

We headed back to Scenic World and stood on the balcony looking out across the valley and then all of a sudden the mist and cloud started to lift and the deep, lush green valley below and mountains beyond were revealed. We ran to the cable car to make our journey across while we could see the view. It was amazing and the cable car has a glass floor that you can stand on as well. After getting back the mist and cloud descended again and we were left with more drizzle. We were very lucky to get our "window" of opportunity to make the journey across the valley.