Queenstown

So far in New Zealand we’ve seen a lot of the outdoors. Very impressive outdooredness at that – beautiful volcanoes, sublime beaches, spectacular lakes and waterfalls… you get the picture. And of course we’ve had some fantastic encounters with wildlife along the way. But as well as its untouched natural state, New Zealand is also famous for adventure tourism. You know – white water rafting, skiing, jet boating, parachuting, that sort of thing. And the capital of adventure tourism in New Zealand is Queenstown.

Queenstown is in the middle of the southern South Island, amongst the mountains on the shore of Lake Wakatipu. It’s another idyllic setting – although when we first arrived it was pouring with rain and looked incredibly bleak! We thought we should enter into the spirit of the place, and so as soon as the weather cleared up we decided to take a gondola to the top of the nearest mountain so we could jump off! Yes, bungy! Neither of us had tied it before, and as commercial bungy jumping was started in New Zealand it seemed only appropriate to give it a go here…

We fancied ‘The Ledge’ bungy. This 45m drop is placed right at the top of the mountain (conveniently near the gondola station), so as you plummet from the edge you have fantastic views of Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu 400m below you. Making the drop seem even more impressive… It’s one of the places where they strap the bungy rope to a harness you wear on your body rather than your feet, so you can take a running jump over the edge. Gary decided not to run – he kind of stepped over and then went straight down! I ran and then dived over the edge…

It’s a strange feeling as you drop – your mind knows that you’re strapped to a thick elastic band but your body protests ‘what have you done!’ as you jump! I think it’s impossible not to yelp with surprise as you actually freefall – and this goes on for some time. And trust me, it feels a lot longer than the few seconds it is! Gary had an advantage here. As he couldn’t jump with his glasses on (and he’s virtually blind without them), he had reassuringly fuzzy images as he fell – compared with my crystal clear views of Queenstown 400m below me! Argh! But then you feel some reassuring resistance on the rope, slow down a bit and – doing – bounce back up all over the place! Great fun! Really silly!

Anyway, we now have to abandon the Southern bits of the world, and start to return north. We think we’ve just passed the point where we’re the furthest from the UK in Te Auau. Now we have a very long journey ahead to Nelson at the top of the South Island, before we loose our little Nissan car and jump back on the ferry across the Cook Strait in a few days time.

Queenstown Pictures

This is a view over the beautiful Lake Wakatipu from the top of the gondola ride out of Queenstown. And it is a very similar view you get to this as you plunge 45m or so from the bungy jump…

… from this ledge! Here you can see Gary dangling from a long rope as he finishes his jump.

But here you can see a few piccys of us jumping, falling, swinging, and generally making idiots of ourselves. Its great fun! Very scary.

Another lovely view from the top of the mountain area, this time as we went for a gental walk around rather than throwing ourselves off the edge.

Gary at the bottom of the valley, on the edge of the lake near Queenstown. It’s a very pretty place from this level too.

Te Anau and Milford Sound

The south east corner of New Zealand’s South Island is occupied by a series of fjords – dramatic flooded glacier sculpted valleys. The only one of these to be properly accessible by road is the most northerly, Milford Sound. And in all fairness even Milford Sound takes a bit of effort to get to!

There aren’t many options for staying there once you do arrive either, so we checked into a motel in Te Anau, a small town on the second largest lake in New Zealand. This is the last stop before Milford Sound – the last trace of civilisation (i.e. petrol station) for the 120 km trek to the fjord itself! Te Anau is a pretty place, especially good for evening strolls as the sun sets over the mountains around the lake, but it is small. Unless you compare it to Milford village of course.

The 120 km drive to the fjord from Te Anau is spectacular. It starts along the shore of the lake before continuing down a huge glacier carved valley: dramatic mountainous snow capped cliffs on either side rising from the near flat valley floor. After passing a few more lakes the road then twisted up the side of a mountain to a new valley and followed it along – before rising to a flattened rocky area almost at the snowline. We inevitably had to wait for a while as the road plunged down through a steep tunnel through the mountain, a one-way tunnel with traffic lights set to a 15 minute delay! But at least there was plenty to keep us entertained: lots waterfalls cascading down the cliffs around and plenty of mountain Kia (intelligent New Zealand parakeets) playfully begging for food. After finally getting through the tunnel, the road then wound down the steep lower mountain slopes in a series of hairpin bends, past yet more dramatic waterfalls, to reach the forest below, and then finally to drop into Milford Sound itself.

The fjord is really beautiful – more dramatic cliff-mountains, this time half drowned in water, and even more dramatic waterfalls than any we’d yet seen en route. We wandered around parts of the shore that were actually accessible (the bits that weren’t cliff faces), and as the tide was out ventured out over the seaweed and pebbles usually covered by water. And we took lots and lots of photos!

Anyway, pretty though Milford may be, we are now moving on to Queenstown… which we are reliably informed is also very pretty! What a surprise! Queenstown is also the home of adventure tourism in New Zealand – you know jet boating, skydiving, bungee jumping, white water rafting. This should offer a nice change of pace.

Te Anau and Milford Sound Photos

A nice view down one of the glacier sculpted valleys we saw on our drive down into Milford Sound. It was a bit chilly – as you can see we get pretty close to the snow line up here. And the wind chill factor outside the car was impressive!

Milford sound itself. Beautiful valleys half drowned where the river meets the sea. It was stunning – especially if you consider the beautiful waterfalls cascading down the valley walls…

… such as this one!

This is a Kea, a highly intelligent parrot that doesn’t fly much, but wanders around mountain slopes (especially where drivers stop off to give a few crumbs)! They treat visitors to the area with the distain they deserve.

Another beautiful glaciated valley, between Milford and Te Anau. This one had a perfectly flat meadow as its base which looked unbelievably green and lush.

Sunset over the lake at Te Anau. Not a bad view from our motel room eh?

Dunedin

Dunedin is described by our Rough Guide a ‘the Edinburgh of New Zealand’. The name is even meant to e derived from a Gaelic version of Edinburgh apparently. So we weren’t exactly surprised that we arrived to bleak skies, howling winds and drizzle. Very Scottish!

Dunedin is a pretty little place though – nestled in the hills off the coast of the south-eastern South Island, near the Otago Peninsular. It’s a lot smaller than the original Edinburgh, but just as wet, and with some comparable hills and mountains around. Bleak, gorse-strewn and windswept, with the odd rain-soaked shivering sheep wandering by! Perhaps that’s a bit unfair – for most of our stay it was actually quite sunny (if a bit chilly) – but as we first arrived we drove over the hills from a beautiful afternoon on the east coast, to descend into Dunedin and drizzle. And then pulled up by our hotel just by the Cadbury’s factory whose hauntingly nice smells gave us chocolate cravings!

The journey from Christchurch down to Dunedin wasn’t quite as scenic as that from Picton, but it wasn’t bad. Most of the first half of the journey was through the planes south of Christchurch, pleasant enough - large, lush, very flat cattle pastures and glimpses of the distant Southern Alps - but a bit dull after an hour or so of driving. Fortunately the road then returned to the coast making the trip much more interesting… and much longer since we kept on stopping to have a look! Harbours with turquoise water, sandy coves, sweeping beaches with mysteriously round honeycombed boulders… and more wildlife of course! We drove off down a 5 km gravel track to an old wooden lighthouse so we could watch a yellow eyed penguin catch fish off a tiny isolated beach (while much lazier seals basked on the sand nearby). Penguins waddle so clumsily on land – but swim beautifully smoothly.

We found that Dunedin is actually a very good place to stay to see even more creatures since it is immediately adjacent to the Otago Peninsular. We spent quite a bit of time driving around this place than we originally intended - well its very pretty, and has loads of weird animals! Albatrosses for instance. The headland of the peninsular is the breeding ground for Royal Albatrosses – imagine something a bit like a seagull but with a 3 m wingspan! We weren’t too impressed with the idea of them before we saw one, but then we stayed around for ages in the freezing wind spotting more. They are absolutely huge – wings like gliders. And they never seem to flap, they just hang in the air somehow.

Just next to the albatross headland was the home of another set of birds – this time little ones. Blue eyed penguins nest there. They are only 20 cm tall, spend all their days fishing to come home in fleets at dusk. We saw about 50 of them come onto the beach and then hurry up some steps from the sand to their burrows. They were possibly as sweet as those koalas we saw back in Australia! There are less sweet inhabitants of the peninsular however. While waiting for the penguins to return home from their hard day fishing we took a stroll along a nearby beach and almost bumped into a sleeping sea lion. It was tucked up at the edge of the dunes and had almost covered itself with sand. We had taken it for a rock and only realised our mistake when we were a few meters away – this wasn’t meant to be a beach where seals or sea lions were common! And sea lions are actually very big, grumpy and aggressive, so you are never meant to get within 5 m of one - or between it and the sea. Which is exactly where we were when we saw it! It seemed to be snoozing happily however, so we walked swiftly past, and then climbed onto the top of the steep sand dunes behind it to walk back along the beach to where our car was parked. Much safer and more sensible yes? Well, we thought so. But the very rough track along the dunes gave us an excellent view of the sea lion at a safe distance, so we couldn’t resist a few photographs. At which time the monster woke up, decided he didn’t like us and barked very fiercely. Showing lots of big white teeth! We got the hint and dived away into the shrubbery on top of the dunes. Not the best route! A quarter of an hour of scrambling through tough grass and spiky shrubs brought us to the side of someone’s back garden… where a local dog took offence and we got barked at again. And we were only trying to have a nice stroll on the beach! Leave us alone!

Ah well, next we go to Te Anau, a lakeside town close to the Fiords of South Western New Zealand. Apparently this is the gateway to some of the most beautiful places in New Zealand. Which based on what we’ve seen so far should be pretty impressive!

Dunedin Photographs

This bay was at Oamaru, halfway along our route from Christchurch to Dunedin. Apparently yellow eyed penguins can be seen here in the evening, but unfortunately we were here too early in the day to see them (so we stopped a little further down the coast to spot one instead). It was a lovely cove anyway, with a pretty cliff-top walk overlooking the beach. If you’re wondering, I’m balanced on a 5 cm wide fence at the top of the cliff so Gary could get as much of the scene in the photo as possible… and behind me is a near vertical drop down to the beach below. Nice to have a good sense of balance eh?

A very beautiful beach, with some very beautiful boulders in the distance on the left...

The Moeraki boulders. These spherical lumps of rock were stranded halfway along a vast and beautiful stretch of sand… kind of in the middle of nowhere. Lots are now broken up, revealing a sort of honeycomb interior, but there are plenty of intact ones too. The largest are about 2 m diameter – perfect for jumping between! I think I must have hopped back and forth between these rocks about 25 times before Gary got the timing perfect for the photo… and he didn’t exactly volunteer to have a go himself. I don’t think he liked the thought of falling off into the surf and getting wet! Wimp!

Gary by the rocks, from the safety of the beach. Well, at least he thought he was safe. A few minutes later while photographing me perched on a different rock he didn’t notice the waves coming in so got his feet wet anyway!

This picture was taken near the albatross centre on Ontago Peninsular. The headland overlooked a bay almost sealed off by an impressive sand spit. And this headland was home to more than a few seagulls as well as albatrosses – these two flew straight at me as I was about to take a photo of the sand spit, so I thought I might as well snap them too.

A magnificent Royal Albatross. Yes, I know, it looks like a sea gull. But it’s not. It’s much bigger, OK? Trust me. You have to see these things in the flesh to appreciate the 3 m wingspan, but I think this photo gives some sort of an idea.

The first small group of very very sweet blue eyed penguins coming home at dusk. These little ones were followed up the beach 10 minutes later by a group of over fifty! But by that time it was so dark that photography was impossible – even this photograph was a nightmare to get in the very low light!

Our friend the grumpy sea lion. No, he didn’t eat us, but I think he would have liked to! And he was certainly big enough. This photo was taken from the top of some sand dunes behind him – so we weren’t blocking his passage to the sea (apparently they really don’t like that). And we weren’t even very close. But his bark was still loud enough to send us running!

Christchurch

Christchurch is about half way down the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand. As we had to check out of our Wellington Hotel at 6.30am to catch a ferry across the Cook Straight to Picton and then hire a car for a 4 hour drive, we were stealing ourselves for another long, tiring travel day. Generally travel-days have been the least enjoyable parts of this trip – its being in the interesting places and having a chance to explore them that’s fun.

But this time we were wrong. OK, the day didn’t start too well – getting up at 6am is not our idea of fun, and we had a freezing 30 minute walk along Wellington harbour to get to the ferry. But at least the reflections of sunrise on the water were pretty. Unfortunately the ferry ride itself wasn’t so great. The boat was just too cold! Imagine a freezing, crisp, clear morning on a boat with no heating and all doors held permanently open. I spent the entire time shivering like crazy – even Gary found it cold towards the end. Luckily the coffee bar people took some pity on me and gave me cups of hot water to hold as hand-warmers! The café did serve BLTs but, unluckily for Gary, only at lunchtimes…

So we got into Picton a bit tired and disgruntled and migrated to Ace Rentals to pick up our hire car. This was funny – they gave us a Nissan Sunny practically identical to Gary’s car back home – only a newer, cleaner model, with a manual gearbox and power-steering! So he was delegated the driving seat for day (on grounds of Nissan experience) and after a moment working out how to use a gear-stick again he zoomed us off south towards Christchurch.

Here the travels became much more fun. New Zealand is beautiful. We have seen lots of pretty places, idyllic scenes, and dramatic views on this trip, but they are usually at least slightly spaced out. Most countries have boring bits – industrialised planes, sprawling suburbs, etc. New Zealand doesn’t. It has consistently amazing scenery that continuously changes. So we started by driving through vineyard-filled valleys flanked by green forested mountains, before swiftly hitting the most stunning coast I’ve ever seen. Volcanic mountains slopping towards black-sand beaches, long curving bays – or other areas where sheer cliffs descended straight into the water and the road was forced to twist through a series of tunnels. And best of all, halfway down the coast at Ohau Point was a colony of seals, apparently the largest group on the South Island. There were dozens of them! Lolling on the rocks, sunning them selves, or occasionally getting up and flopping over to the sea for a swim. Beautiful!

Anyway, getting to Christchurch was stunning, so it’s just as well the town itself was pretty or it would have been a bit of a letdown! Actually, surreal is probably the best word I could use. Christchurch is actually named after the Oxford College, and so you might expect a bit of an English atmosphere. But we didn’t expect the punting! They have a very shallow river running through the centre of town that looks as if it belongs in either Oxford or Cambridge. As we walked along the river through the lovely botanical gardens and watch tourists being punted, we found it hard to believe we were the other side of the world from Cambridge, with a 13 hour time difference! Really weird!

While we were in Christchurch as well as exploring the worryingly familiar centre of town we ventured on a drive along the nearby Portland hills. Actually this was a bit unexpected. We had a few hours to spare in the evening on a really nice day when I’d just twisted my ankle falling down a broken drain… so we thought we might as well go for a drive recommended in our Rough Guide. It turned out to be (perhaps predictably) spectacular. The summit road gave stunning views in both directions – back over Christchurch and the surrounding planes stretching back to distant mountains, and onward to a volcanic crater lake connecting with the sea. But the barren mountain-top itself was even more familiar to me than punting – fields and fields of sheep – just like Wales! As it’s spring here there were loads of pretty lambs around too, looking a great deal sweeter and fluffier than their mums.

Anyway, now we will move onward again, further South to Dunedin – the ‘Edinburgh’ of the South! And for the first time this trip we’re actually looking forward to the trip more than arriving…

Christchurch Pictures

The scenery on the coastal drive down from Picton to Christchurch is really stunning - volcanic beaches, black sand, crashing waves... and that's not considering the wildlife. Take this huge, graceful bay for instance. We didn't really know how to photograph it - too big and magnificent!

And of course every now and then you do meet the wildlife - this is a fur seal. He seemed reasonably happy to pose for us!

One of the most starling things about the coast is the colour of the water. Its almost turquoise!

OK, this is surreal. Christchurch has several areas that could have been taken straight out of Oxford and Cambridge... especially punting on the river. Though the water is so shallow here that it must be a doddle!

Driving out from Christchurch to the Portland hills... on one side you get stunning views over the town and surrounding planes (with a few fields of sheep in the foreground)...

... And in the other direction you gaze out over a volcanic lake. New Zealand is far too pretty!

Wellington

Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand, nestled at the south end of the North Island. It’s a shame it’s not connected better to the largest city, Auckland. You’d think it should be… Unfortunately the rail service here has more or less become defunct – only three trains a week run between the two most major cities in winter! So road is the only option, meaning a 12 hour bus ride. Or 13-14 hours if your bus breaks down… Great.

Anyway, a very long time after leaving Auckland we checked into a cosy little hotel in central Wellington with a very friendly owner. And the following day after a lot of compensatory sleep we started to explore the town! Like all the cities we’ve recently visited Wellington is on the coast. The bulk of the town centre lies just uphill from the water, and across from the working harbour. Above the CBD some hills rise swiftly, and similar to Hong Kong they have an old-fashioned tram that ascends from the city centre to the summit. OK, it’s not quite such a dramatic peak, but its still a fun ride with good views from the botanical gardens at the top. We were really lucky – as we left the tram a fine rain started to fall over the town below while we remained in bright sunlight. This led to very weird lighting and a fantastic rainbow over Wellington. The walk back down to town was equally nice – someone had marked out a scenic route through a series of pretty gardens with some pink flowers spray-painted onto the path. We’d never have found such a pleasant route if we had simply followed our map: even Gary had to admit (probably for the first time in his live) that the flowers were a good idea!

But unfortunately our luck with weather did not hold. And after a lovely walk back to the hotel along the waterfront it conspired to rain for most of the rest of our time in Wellington. Although I’m not entirely sure how rain was possible as it felt as if the temperature was well below zero! We managed a quick dash along the Oriental Promenade (another waterfront walk) the next day before having to run into a café for shelter. Fortunately they did a good BLT and chicken caser salad!

What worries us is that our next move is south, across the Cook Straights by ferry to Picton, the major port of the South Island. And from there we’ll be hiring a car and driving even further south to stay in Christchurch for a few days. Before heading even further south… we’re getting near to Antarctica here! We thought we’d be catching nice sunny springtime weather in New Zealand when we planned this trip – we haven’t got warm enough coats for this! I wonder if when we reach the snowline Gary will still wear his sandals!

Wellington Photos

Wellington Harbour, with some pretty menacing clouds overhead. They soon made their presence known in other ways, making us flee for shelter in a café (or perhaps that was Gary’s excuse to get his BLT fix).

One beautiful view down into Wellington from the botanical gardens, complete with the tram that brought us up and a rainbow! It looks a little like a child’s painting! And of course there's also a photo of Gary with the nice rainbow and Wellington spread out behind him.

And as we descended from the tram terminal we passed through the impressive botanical gardens (following the path marked with pink flowers). This part was full of things that looked like alpine cacti.

Walking the plank! I thought it would make a nice photo if I walked to the end of this random plank sticking out over Wellington harbour. And it did… but as I walked out the wind suddenly picked up – as you can see I’m bracing myself against it. Trying desperately not to fall off into the icy water below!

A lovely sunset over the harbour. New Zealand is a very pretty place!

And a lovely sunrise! We had to make a painfully early start to get to the ferry for Picton, but at least we were rewarded with the first light of day falling across the water.

Auckland

Auckland is New Zealand’s largest city, but not it’s Capital. It lies perched on a very narrow section of the North Island, and so appears to have more than it’s fair share of coastline. As a result Auckland has a very pretty harbour which is made even more scenic by several little volcanic islands just offshore. In summary – a nice place. Friendly people too. The only downside is that it’s more than a bit chilly. Especially when the wind picks up. Or when it rains. Which is pretty often. Auckland does remind us quite a lot of Wales!

OK, Wales does not have any volcanic islands or a SkyTower - or anywhere near as many sushi restaurants for that matter. We spent most of our time wandering around as usual. We took a ferry over the harbour to Devon Port – a suburb with a lovely waterfront full of little cafes with good views back towards Auckland central. The highest point of Devonport is the optimistically named Mount Victoria, which is more of a volcanic hill than a mountain (the summit is only 190 feet above sea level). But it does give stunning panoramic views of the Auckland bay area – the city centre, volcanic islands, harbour bridge… And if you wander back to the ferry terminal along the sea front you can at least see a little evidence of the volcanic eruption: the rocks along the shoreline are all jet black lava-flow relics.

We also spent some time wandering through the town suburbs. Parnell is a short walk off to the east of the CBD, and has yet more cafes and boutique gift shops, a University, and a lovely park called The Domain. We wandered by accident through the student’s campus, grabbed lunch, and then strolled through the park grounds on the way home. There was a pathway through a forest area called ‘Lover’s Walk’ and in keeping with this, Gary (very uncharacteristically) picked a buttercup for me - probably the fourth time he’s given me flowers since we’ve been together… about 6 years! However once we’d walked 20 yards down the path it was closed off for renovation… I think that says it all really.

But we had slightly more success in town – Gary managed to get his hair cut. This was less of a traumatic experience than in China as the hair dresser actually spoke English, so communication didn’t consist of holding up a passport photo and mime-language! The results are nice, but when he hasn’t shaved for a few days his stubble gets longer than his hair now.

Anyway, we now face an excruciatingly long trip to Wellington - an unbelievable 12 hours by bus for a distance of only 658 km (that’s about 400 miles). The speed limits are a bit slow here by our standards, and buses are never the nippiest in any case. Ah well, it should be more comfortable than a coach in Laos or India!

Auckland Pictures

Auckland - this picture was taken of me (aptly) on Mount Victoria, the highest point of Devonport. You can see Auckland town itself in the background, complete with Skytower and a very active harbour. This was probably the warmest day of our trip so far - beautifully sunny - but even then we had to wear coats. I'm missing the warmer temperatures of Asia, but Gary's in his element - wearing sandals in hailstorms!
Gary in Devonport, on the harbourside. You can see some lava flow on the left of the photo - the lack rocks just visible above he water. There was a pretty impressive set of sea-gulls resting there, about twice the size of the ones we see in the UK.

Auckland has a lovely park called The Domain, with a few trees which are made for climbing. I couldn't resist the one below!

And finally a picture of Gary in the rainforest part of The Domain. Under a few particularly nice palm trees. I didn't know they had palms in New Zealand - thought it was too cold!

Return to Sydney

Sydney isn’t a bad place to spend your last few days in Australia. It has a lovely city centre – although many of the outskirts we dove through to get there weren’t quite so hot. But get to the centre, near the water and its beautiful on a nice day. Almost as scenic as Hong Kong. Almost!

We climbed Sydney Tower and wandered around the botanical gardens to the far side of Sydney’s Opera House on a stunning day. Beautiful views, warm breeze – lovely. Unfortunately the weather went off a bit towards the end of our stay, and so when we took the ferry across the harbour to Manley it rained on us all day. As a result, the lovely little seaside beach looked as if it was off the North Sea rather than the Pacific! And the breathtaking views of the city centre and Opera House from the boat on the way back were, well, murky. Have a look at the pictures below to see what I mean. Ah well, at least being brought up in Wales has taught my Mum to always carry an umbrella and a pack-a-mac…

Which brings us to the end of our stay in Australia. Mum flew back to the UK a day before we flew to New Zealand… to arrive home in Wales several hours after we checked in to our very plush hotel in Auckland. Poor thing! Now she’ll experience the particularly evil form of jet lag that crossing 12 time zones brings and have to go to work on Monday! Now you see why we think travelling around the world with out working is the way forward.

Return to Sydney Pictures

The lovely Opera House and Harbour Bridge from the Botanical Gardens on a truely beautiful day. We walked from here around past the Opera House - where we found the white shiney roof is actually made up of cream diamond tiles. Strange!
Hyde Park Sydney. Not quite as large as the London equivilent, but still pretty green and nice. They had loads of strange giant photos on display while we were there - along with a food festival. Nice to know they really use their public spaces out here.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge with my Mum sitting on a bench (the Opera House was right behind me as I took the photo). Lovely day...
...and not quite such a nice day. This is the beach of Manley - a peninsular in the Sydney Harbour. It's a pretty town, but we didn't really explore it properly as it was just a bit damp!

On the boat trip back from Manley to the city centre you do get fantastic views. The ones we had were dramatic - but a bit dismal! On the other hand it did lead to this is a very atmospheric shot of the CBD and Opera House.

The Sydney Opera House at night. With a just about clear sky. A few minutes after we took this photo it started to rain again... the nice weather was asking a bit too much. This makes me wonder what its going to be like in New Zealand...!

Katoomba

OK. Australia. Down under. Christmas on the beach. Vast central desert. Hot weather. This is the traditional perception, right? Erm, well, this is what we thought. And even after some chilly evenings in Perth, tropical Cairns had restored our faith! But no, we flew back to New South Wales at a horribly early hour to hire a car and drive to the Blue Mountains. This is a beautiful range of gorges only a few hours from Sydney, but unfortunately the climate is more like one you’d expect in Snowdonia. When we arrived, the temperature was a balmy 2 degrees Celsius, and the clouds promptly started to bombard us with hailstones as soon as we walked down the road from our motel to Echo point, one of the most scenic lookouts in the Blue Mountains. Hmm. Although our motel-lady-owner did say it was meant to be the coldest October in 80 years… but a few days later admitted she’d lived over on the West Coast until last year – so she definitely wasn’t speaking from personal experience!

The strange thing was that she recommended all sorts of walks and local attractions when we arrived too, but again later admitted that she’d never done any of them! This we found this very odd, especially as the motel was great, comfy and on the outskirts of Katoomba, just a few minutes walk away from the Three Sisters and the Giants Stairway. The sisters are three outcrops of rock at the edge of a dramatic cliff which local Aborigine legend claims were three beautiful sisters who were turned to rock by the tribe witch doctor to protect them from the men of a rival tribe. Although you have to wonder what fait could be much worse than being turned to rock for millennia, but hey. On one side of the Sisters a stairway of over 800 steps was cut form the rock, leading to a very dramatic and beautiful descent followed by a stunning walk along the bottom of the cliff-face. You didn’t even have to climb back up again, but could catch a cable car or railway. Anyway, it was a great walk through stunning scenery with a fun trip back up to the top. But our motel lady had never done any of it, even though she was only 5 minutes walk away. Weird!

Anyway, we enjoyed exploring Katoomba and the nearby areas. Dodging hordes of Japanese tourists as they were shepherded from one bus to another. It is a very pretty part of the world! Another UNESCO protected region – I’m loosing track of how many of these we’ve visited on this trip.

We also ventured just out of the mountains to a wildlife park as my Mum wanted to see some kangaroos and koalas. As it happened, the place we went to had a huge advantage over the park where Gary and I had seen koalas in Newcastle – some of the animals were loose! You could wander through enclosures with kangaroos hopping around and give them some food or a stoke. But they were not as strokeable as the koalas. There was one area where you could stroke a little koala while it sat peacefully eating eucalyptus leaves on a tree stump. Their fur is so soft! And they are so amazingly sweet! Fantastic creatures.

Ah well, after four days of scenic freezing we’ve now returned to Sydney, where we’ll stay until leaving Oz. Hopefully without loosing a few toes to frostbite!

Katoomba Photos

The Blue mountains... yes they really do look blue as they stretch into the distance! There are a few competing explanations for this (based on eucalyptus trees, dust, light diffraction or mist), but to be honest, whichever is right its very pretty! The 'mountains' are really cliff faces which surround a huge, impressive gorge (more on the scale of the Grand Canyon than Cheddar Gorge). This picture is taken from Echo Point, a very dramatic lookout at Katoomba.

And if you look to the left of the scene above you , you'll see the Three Sisters. These stripy rock formations are scaled by the Giant's Stairway, all 800 odd steps of it leading down to the valley below. With some nice views enroute as you can imagine!

The cliff I'm perched on below was a fragment of rock suspended above the drop a few miles away. I like heights! I had to do my climbing when Mum wasn't watching though.. Gary didn't seem to mind when he was taking the photo... Next to this you can see Gary and my mum near a very lazy kangaroo in the wildlife park we visited, and below a few adorable koalas. They make the kangaroo look positively hyperactive!

This is Charlie - a lovely little koala that we got to stroke and have piccys taken with. He didn't mind - he seemed to like the attention! A warden was very nearby at all times to make sure he was happy though. So we couldn't run off with him, much as I'd have liked to take him home!

The most evil resident of the wildlife park was without doubt this 3 and a half meter saltwater crocodile though. After our disappointment of not seeing any reptiles browsing on swimmers in Cairns it was nice to see a really nice big croc! Like the marsupials above he didn't move much either, just opened his large menacing eyes from time to time... are Aussie animals intrinsically lazy?