Sydney

I left a nice sunny day in Wellington and arrived in a warmer Sydney evening.  I couldn't believe that I had thought Sydney wouldn't be as warm and so here I was in boots and polar fleece jacket - but thankfully had some cooler clothes in my suitcase.  It was a long queue past the pleasant and welcoming customs officers and a longer walk to the train which I caught into town.  During the flight I had watched "The Castle" - a bit of a "take off" of Aussiess and as I stood around in queues and walked to the train I kept smiling about some of the anecdotes in the movie.  Mike had said "Get off at Wynyard Station" which is what I did but on arrival I had to phoned him because there was more than one exit. We all found each other (that's Mike, Sharon and Aaron and me) outside a burger place and we went to see Gradconnections' offices - very central, just a few doors up from the station.  Mike gave us all Gradconnection tee shirts so you might see the bright lime green shirt appearing in photos sometime or Bristolians just might see a flash of the phlorescent colour pass them as Harry and I head for work.  Then we were off on the bus ride home to Rebecca - where we had a few hours of catching up and a few hours of sleeping.  Saturday dawned warm again and Rebecca and I went to Coogee Beach while Aaron and Sharon went to meet Sophie and Mike caught his ride to rugby.  I had a lovely time lunching with Rebecca near the beach and then we decided to walk to the university where Mike said the field was - it was a long 10 minutes - and we ended up catching a taxi so that we could at least see some of the game.  We sat in the stand and watched the second half of a rather close game (difference in scores is that the opposition managed to put over a few conversions) in brilliant sunshine and talked to the opposition supporters.  Then with Mike dragging behind (sore knee, 90 minutes of running around field didn't lend itself to a happy chappy walking for another 30 minutes) so we waved down another taxi and were back at the car in no time.  Over the bridge, and well rested and showered we then went for a short walk to the Indian restaurant hailed as one of the best in Sydney by the locals (Mike and Dave).  Then off to Kings Cross for the night (well Rebecca and I decided sleep was more important) but the others were keen to catch a bit of Sydney night life.  Sunday morning saw lots of sleepy heads as we kicked everyone into action - after all we had rented a car for the weekend to go to the Blue mountains.  With the promise of a yummy picnic lunch and some sleep in the car off we went.

It was a shorter trip than I remembered and the roads were more like motorways than the narrow windy roads I recalled (it was after all 30 years ago when I last rode these roads).  We stopped for a drink at Leary (a nice little town and a bit less touristy than further into the mountains) and then Katoomba where we spotted the 3 sisters along with thousands of other tourists. These rocks are to Australia just like Milford Sound is New Zealand - it seems they are the photo on all of the tourist brochures. Anyway, the three sisters are each just over 900 metres tall and if you stand at the top you would be standing about 3000 feet above sea level (which we didn't do). Like all famous places there is a legend. The Aborigines call the tree sisters 'Meehni', 'Wimlah' and Gunnedoo'. The sisters were members of the Katoomba tribe and were beautiful. But they had fallen in love with three good looking brothers from the near Nepean tribe - star crossed lovers - tribal law said 'No way' to marriage. The brothers were so in love they hatched a plan - lets fight for them - so off they went presumably with some reinforcements. Not sure why, but a witch doctor decided that the three sisters were in danger and so he turned the three sisters into stone to protect them. The spell was going to be reversed when the battle was finished, but unfortunately for the sisters who were now rock solid and for the brothers who were still in love the witch doctor was killed and no one else could reverse the spell.

Lunch was on the grass verge by the car before heading to the worlds steepest railway and cable car near the site of an old mine and town. The scenic railway was once part of a network of tram lines built to bring coal and kerosene shale from mines down below up to the top of the hill. In 1882, a loading platform and from there the network of tramways began to develop - it is now known as the Scenic Railway but before that as the "Flying Fox". It is pretty steep and we held on tight as we went down a near vertical cliff to the bottom. The mines continued for a number of years until the depression really - offering miners a place to work and a life down at the bottom of the cliff. The mine, railway and cable car then turned into a tourist venture and in the late 1920's the first person was taken for a 'tourist' adventure. Now it runs regularly, every 10 minutes or so, except in storms and takes over 800 tourists to the depths below.  I had a great time in Sydney with my family - it was all over too fast.