The blue Blue Mountains

The title I've chosen for this blog post makes me want to burst out into song.  Which is daft because the song is about another country entirely.  Nothing daunted - here it is: Blue Ridge Mountains.

Now that's stuck in your head lets return to my Australian trip.

The five of us went off to the Blue Mountains for 2 nights.  Andy delighted in taking Roger and I on long, strenuous walks.  The first one was on a really hot day so I was worn out by the time we got to the end and almost didn't make it up the final climb.  However the views were great.

Going down always meant the prospect of having to go back up!

A waterfall

Another waterfall

The long climb back up

The view at the top

And the spectacular sunset.

The next day the 5 of us went to the Jenolean Caves.  They were spectacular,  We went on two guided tours.  The first had over 900 steps and the second had over 400.   It's a good thing that what we saw was so great that I could ignore the pain in my knees.

 

 

And this little man?  He slept through all of the first tour, woke up for lunch and then went back to sleep for the second tour.

The next day was another of Andy's long walks.  He said it was mostly flat.  That's a bit like the 'mostly dead' comment in The Princess Bride.  It wasn't mostly flat - it was another of the up and down ones.

And lots more steps at the end of the walk.

We had another day and a half in Sydney before we came home. On the Sunday Roger & I went to Cockatoo Island and on Monday the 5 of us went out to lunch and stopped off to look at this beach.  Looks like somewhere we need to explore next time we're in Australia.

I hope you have enjoyed your armchair travelling with me.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

From the land down under

Welcome to day 8 of my blogging challenge and the third post about my trip to Australia.  I was planning there would only be 3 but there's so much to share with you that there will definitely be another travelogue post about the Blue Mountains. 

On the Sunday after we returned to Sydney from Tasmania, we walked down to King's Cross where my all time favourite fountain sits in the middle of a small square.  Apparently it was the first ever dandelion fountain.  It's was built as a war memorial to commemorate the Battle of El Alamein.  It's different every time you see it depending on the light.

I took this photo the previous week on my phone.

Andy suggested we went for a walk.  We drove to Maroubra and took a bus to Coogee.  The five us walked back to Maroubra and had a late lunch.  Obviously the baby didn't walk - he was carried!

We spent Monday morning with the family and then whilst Andy worked, Roger & I walked into the city centre via the Botanical Gardens.

We were watching a dolphin play in the harbour when these two massive cruise liners left Sydney.

We walked around to Circular Quay and up into the CDB and eventually found what I was looking for.  Angel Place and these bird cages.

We met up with Andy & Naomi later to go to the Street Food Market that was being held in Hyde Park.

Roger & I got up very early on Tuesday to go to the fishmarket.  We got there at 8am but sadly the auction was over which was what Roger had wanted to see.  We walked round the retail fish shops and I took lots of photos of the amazing arrangements of the fish.

We walked a long way back into the city and I was very taken with this on a building site fencing.

We walked through the new park that has been built at Headland Point which gave us this view of the bridge.  I'm going to share the photos of the park in a separate blog post because there was the most amazing pieces of sandstone.

It looked like the weather was going to deteriorate so we got on the ferry to Parramatta where we had lunch.  And it didn't rain.  I rather liked these tools as a scultpure on a roof.

When we got back to Circular Quay we met up with Beth who I have known on Facebook for a while.  I love her photographs and it was great to meet up with an online friend.

On Wednesday after breakfast with Andy & Naomi at a cafe gloriously called The Rusty Rabbit, Roger & I went to the Museum of Sydney.

We took a ferry to Watson's Bay.  You may have noticed the mention of ferries quite often in our travels in Sydney.   They are such a great way to travel.  It's like going on a mini harbour cruise.

We walked round the headland to the lighthouse and back for a seafood lunch.

A different view of the Opera House from the ferry.

We went to the Pylon Lookout on the Harbour Bridge which gave us some different views of the bridge.

And of Circular Quay.

This has been a long post so I will stop now.  We spent the next three days in the Blue Mountains which I will tell you about another day.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

From the land under the land down under

After our first few days in Sydney, Roger & I flew to Tasmania.   We hadn't been before and it was our plan to do the whole island in 5.5 days.  We arrived Sunday afternoon and were leaving Saturday afternoon.   However after Roger had done an in-depth study of the guide book he decided we didn't have sufficient time so we decided not to do the West Coast.   This is a photo heavy post - and there are so many more I could have shared with you.

On Sunday evening and all day Monday we concentrated on Hobart and the surrounding area.  The hotel on the first night was here - the building on the quay behind the boat.

On Monday we drove to the top of Mount Wellington where we almost got blown away by the wind.  The strength of the wind was actually quite frightening, but the view was amazing - if a little hazy!

We went to MONA - the Musuem of Old & New Art.  Apparently it's raison d'etre is to make viewers uncomfortable.  This was the only exhibit that I liked.  Cascading water that wrote words.

 

Everything else was not just uncomfortable, it was so far out of my comfort zone as to make me feel ill.  We left fairly quickly.   Apparently this goldfish installation was okay because they didn't use the same fish for each session!

 I quite enjoyed this notice in the car park.

We did a self-guided walking tour of Hobart.  I liked these sculptures.

Tuesday was an exceedingly hot day and we spent most of it in the air conditioning of the car.   We stopped off at various picturesque places along the East Coast.

And stopped at an ice cream farm set up by an ex-pat Brit.

Wednesday was somewhat cooler and we started off by visiting a waterfall.

We arrived in Launceston and walked into town and along one side of the gorge to the end and then climbed up the side of the gorge to walk back to the town.

The peacock was displaying at the mid-point of the walk.

On Thursday we drove from Launceston across the middle of Tasmania ending up in a place called Hamilton.  It was a bit of a one horse town!   The tourist office had found us a cottage to stay in.  The town supposedly had 4 places where you could eat.  One of them did breakfast and lunch, one of them only did lunch, the pub that served dinner was shut, so that left us with the only place that was open.  Fortunately the food wasn't too bad but if you're travelling through Tasmania I would give Hamilton a miss.  However we did see a wallaby during our travels that day.

On Friday we travelled across the middle some more and down into the Port Arthur peninsular.  We stopped off to check in at the Norfolk Bay Convict Station.

We were so glad we did as the owner gave us lots of advice about what to see in the area.  He also suggested we went on a boat trip which we booked for the next day.   We carried on to the Port Arthur historic site.  A short boat trip was included in the admission and then we walked round the site.

The view from the boat of the convict colony.

The view from the prison although I doubt the convicts really appreciated it.

Then we went to some coalmines where some of the convicts worked.   This was a timeline marked out with chains.

 And the view from a prison cell.

Our last day in Tasmania consisted of a boat trip and the flight back to Sydney.  The boat trip turned out to be one of those fast boats where you get wet!  However the boat was only driven fast between interesting points to take photos and then we were given lots of time to take photos.  The geology was fabulous.

A New Zealand Fur Seal

This wave crashed right over the boat

Australian Fur Seals

Apparently this was a calm day!  Heaven help those who go on a rougher day!

I hope you've enjoyed a short(ish) tour around Tasmania.   There's one last post about the rest of our visit coming soon.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice