Blue Mountains

First of all, there seems to have been a problem posting comments for the last week or so. We think that's Kev's fault but we also think he's fixed it. Sorry about that.

Yet again we can't use USB on this PC so unfortunately the photos will have to wait until we can but take our word for it that we're now in the Blue Mountains and it's beautiful. We headed out here a couple of days ago, leaving Sydney a little underwhelmed, partly because we had a lot of sorting out to do and also because we knew we were going back later, so just kept our time there fairly simple.

We managed to get our new big red fun bus into the city near the hostel for us to leave and after driving round for a while, found a load of spaces near a school. We claimed a slot and sat trying to decipher the parking signs for several minutes before finally agreeing that we were legally parked.

We returned a couple of hours to check on it, and had a lovely yellow envelope with a $125 fine in it for... "Not parrallel park in direction of travel" - we got fined for facing the wrong direction on a fairly empty street. After that, we were quite happy to leave Sydney and head out into the wilderness, hoping that the big old bus would make it into the mountains. Oh she doesn't like going uphill...

Anyway, we've had a full old day today here in Katoomba: a 6am start to go and see the canyon while it was quiet and hopefully see the mist rising. The mist turned out to be dense fog, so we looked at absolute nothingness for a while and then found a trail down beside the Three Sisters (a rock formation) called the Great Stairway. After descending this we finally got to see the fog lift and some spectacular views of the mountains.

Since then we've been driving round the national park, looking at the views from different angles. We're in an 8-person dorm tonight which should be interesting since the other 6 are a group of French people. Between us, Charlotte and I can tell the Frenchies our names, where we live, and also inform them that we would like a cheese and ham sandwich. Kev can also tell them that "the dog seems hungry to me" (le chien semble avoir faim) - a vital sentence learned at school.

To help us through the evening, we're off to the off licence to buy large quantities of Australian wine, which is slightly more expensive than water.

Tomorrow it's off to Canberra, then onto the coast for a slow drive down to Melbourne before we settle for a month or so and hopefully a return to the world of work. It can be expensive, this living.

Hopefully the comments will work now so please feel free to go back to the previous ones and add some - we'll definitely read them!