Sydney to the Blue Mountains

We had our gay-dar on at breakfast. A few doors down from our new hotel was an outside café filled every morning with a very interesting mix of people (and their dogs)
It would become another of our favorite places in Sydney.

It was time to pick up our rental car and venture out from the city. We decided to explore the Blue Mountains. Part of the Dividing Range, the Blue Mountains were initially the impenetrable barrier to white expansion from Sydney. With no reservations in a popular weekend destination, we stopped at the Visitors Center and found a room at a small B&B in Katoomba. The Melba House was an Edwardian house converted to a 3 room B&B and run by a lovely British couple, Marion and Trevor.

With a darkening sky, we decided to try our luck at “Scenic World”. After taking a near vertical ride down to the base of the rainforest on the railway car, we took a walk through the forest. John convinced me that the ride back via gondola would be a yawn compared to a ride back on the railway car. (The railway runs to the bottom of the Jamison Valley. It was built in the 1880’s to transport coal miners and at a 45 degree angle, is one of the steepest inclines in the world). We ended up in the last car (first car if you were heading down). You literally felt that you were going to fall out of the car as it edged up the 1 mile track. There were no seatbelts or anything to hold you into the car. It was simply hair-raising.

We made it back just as the thunder clouds rolled in and the rain started to come down. We stopped for a drink at the Carrington Hotel, a beautiful old hotel with a grand veranda and then grabbed dinner at a great little Thai restaurant.