Blue Mountains

The first day at the Blue Mountains it was doing what it often does at the top of a mountain - raining! However, you'll see we put the first few hours to good use. This is Elvis melting real chocolate in the bowl, then adding milk and then drinking it through a straw. The whole thing is melted by the candle in the bottom (I had some too!).



This is a Cafe we stopped at for tea and scones (with jam and clotted cream of course). The place has thousands of tea pots, so this picture is for Ma Hodgson - a lover of fine china!

...and this picture is for Sister Poll, who loves her Doll's houses

The next picture is for the Elves's - lovers of sweet shops!

You can see some of the blue mountains in the background. They really are blue, which is caused by the eucalyptus oil evaporating from the tree leaves. The sun then catches the oil and creates a blue tinge.

To the left of this picture is three rock monoliths. Aborigine's story says that these are three sisters that were turned to stone when men from another village tried to take them by force - I couldn't figure out why the men didn't get turned to stone, but there's the old days for you.

A free cup of tea if anyone can work out why Elvis is extremely nervous in this picture.

These are brass statues of the three sisters I mentioned earlier, Elvis is having a dance with this one

This one wasn't up to dancing - as you can see she has her hands full!

The next pictures are all from an amazing walk through the mountains. Unfortunately, it should have ended being 'an amazing walk' but this one turned in to a bit of a nightmare. Half way through waterfalls, rock faces, valleys and native bush - it rained - really rained. Just as we were about to finish the walk, we got lost (we later found out that the path we should have took went through a small waterfall, but it had rained so hard it was impassable!) We ended up off track for 30 minutes then decided we were lost - the only option was to go back. The problem was the last bus was in one hour and we were three hours down the track. To cut a long story short - we made it back for the last bus. We literally ran all the way back - up steps, ladders through rivers and waterfalls. We were really pleased to get back (Elvis even give the bus driver a hug), we thought the drama was all over then..............

..... when we got back to the hostel and got in the shower, we noticed we were carrying some unwanted passengers. If you're faint of heart - switch off now. I had four leeches on me, three on my legs and one in the middle of my back - Elvis had six on her legs. I nearly collapsed but I have to say Elvis handled it very well! The next time we went out we had the trousers tucked firmly into the socks!