In Cars With Strangers...

Third day in the Blue Mountains! We thought we would go for a walk, have a quick look at the town, and move on in about 2 days, but boy were we wrong! The mountains are amazing- they look blue from a distance when the sun hits the mist of oil given off the eucalyptus leaves (fyi). We are staying in the town of Katoomba which is full of used book shops and quaint cafes serving coffee and cake and hippie families with home knit sweaters. It is pretty funky and very excellent.

Yesterday we went on a 6 hour bush walk at Wentworth Falls and through the Valley of the Waters and Darwin's Walk (Charles Darwin was actually HERE and did that very walk in 1836- the ecologist and conservation biologist thought that was very exciting). The National Pass that we were walking on is a natural ledge along the cliff face, so there were amazing views of Jamison Valley at every clearing, we saw TONS of waterfalls, walked up and down a ridiculous number of steps, and saw loads of wild (extremely loud) cockatoos. And all of this only 2 hours outside of Sydney!

Today was misty and rainy and Hannah and I decided we should actually try and figure out what to do with ourselves for the next 7 weeks! We looked at some maps, realized we had loads more time to do what we had planned on than was necessary, so modified our plans. Now we are thinking of flying down to Melbourne and taking the train all the way from Melbourne to Brisbane and hitting lots of parks and beaches on the way.

After our afternoon cake and coffee we went down to the visitor center and got a map for a local walk to Leura Cascades. The weather cleared for a bit and the falls were lovely (though nowhere near as impressive as the ones yesterday). Just as we were heading back it started to really rain, and the fog rolled in in earnest. We realized the map and directions we had were total crap, and it was starting to get dark. Luckily we left the path for a road near a nice restaurant and asked some people outside a) where we were and b) how could we get back to town? They were lovely and offered us a lift. Going against all advice we have ever gotten, we took them up on the offer and are still alive to tell the tale! It was a good thing they did give us a ride though, it was much further back to town than our rubbish map showed (why are these things not drawn to scale?!) and it left all of us with a more interesting evening (don't worry Mom, it won't become a regular occurrence).

Tomorrow we are going on a tour to Jenolan Caves- huge limestone caves with lots of stalactites and stalagmites and all that good stuff. We are thinking of staying an extra day to do a walk in the nearby town of Glenbrook down to an area where you can often see wild grey kangaroos! The guy at the info center said they might not be out in the middle of the day, but he was also wrong about just about everything else, so we might give it a go.

Pictures to come when internet isn't so expensive!