Blue and yellow purple hills

So it's all back to mundane normality this week after the fun of having Mark's parents visit us over the last couple of weeks.

What joy it was to have days off work and outings! These included Manly, the zoo, Darling Harbour, Glebe, Newtown, Leichardt, and so many other various locations, but one of the highlights was definitely our trip to the Blue Mountains last Thursday.

We caught the train to Katoomba, which took a couple of hours. Sydney's western suburbs are so depressing to travel through, although the train did sweep me through two of my most favouritely-named suburbs: "Doonside" and "Rooty Hill".
Katoomba is lovable. It's all a bit old style, with a plethora of little cafés and a tiny proper 1970s shopping arcade (think "Arndale") full of antiques-y shops along the main street. The street leads straight out into the bush if you follow it down, and everywhere is so quiet and spacious. It's obvious why the towns in this area are such popular weekend retreats for Sydneysiders who spend their weekdays stuck in offices and being jostled all over the street and stuck in traffic jams.

We did a walk from Katoomba to Echo Point, from where you can see the Three Sisters. It was a cloudy day, which was actually good, as the lack of direct superstrength australian sunlight made the temperature more bearable for walking.



There is a cable car that does the trip in a slightly more direct way. But we went for the long way round.



The 'Mountains' are more Hills, really. But still, we all like a good sandstone formation, don't we?





Mark looks like a little sprite perched upon this log.

I'm looking forward to going back in Autumn for another walk.

The weather has turned quite dramatically this week. Whilst last week was glorious sunshine and temperatures in the low 30s, I have now just had to turn the TV up to hear it over the heavy rain drumming away on the roof, and am wrapped in a scarf to keep warm. Hopefully this will reach as far as to provide a bit of respite for the poor people of Victoria who have all been so tragically burned away.

Life on Mars is about to start on the TV, and I need to put some new audio books on my iPod to help pass the time during a depressingly uneventful period at work this week. I shall be back soon with some sort of ** Cultural Review ** as there is so very much I could rave on about!