Triple Airbnb

Another day. Another Airbnb!

It was a holiday of airbnbs.  We stayed in 3 altogether.

Previously when we've gone to Australia we have visited another city or part of the country rather than go straight to Sydney.  However this time because different states had different Covid rules we just went straight to Sydney.  I booked us a great studio walking distance from Andy & Naomi's so that we had somewhere to recover from the flights without interfering with Hopper Junior life.

Andy had booked a long weekend at a cottage on a farm where we got to meet the animals - goats, sheep, lambs, chickens and a horse.

From this base we had several trips out.  We went to a place called Sofala where we spent some time in a secondhand bookshop.  The village was a rust lover's heaven!!

Sofala had been prosperous during the 1850s because gold had been found there.  Andy took the children panning for gold.  I think he probably enjoyed it more than they did!

We also visited Hill End another gold mining town.  Only a few of the buildings remain.

We also visited History Hill Museum and Mine.

The next day we went to an amazing fossil museum in Bathurst.

The next day's outing included a 4.3km walk on Peel Common.

On the way home on our last day we went for a walk at Walls Lookout.  You really needed your mountain goat certificate for parts of it, despite what the website says, so I didn't do all of it.  However the scenery was magnificent.

After going back to Ramsgate Beach for a couple of days we went off to Joadja where Andy had booked River Cottage - airbnb number 3.  I'll tell you about that in another post.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

In the back of beyond

At this point in our trip I was keeping an eye out for emails or texts from Singapore Airlines and information about returning home either from the Australian government or from the UK.  I had seen that Singapore Airlines had cancelled three flights for the next Monday, but that ours was still on track to fly out of Sydney.   SO we continued with our plans to stay at an Airbnb place Andy had found in Capertee.   Coincidentally I had just finished reading The Finder which featured Capertee.

We set off on Thursday morning, stopping off at The Three Sisters viewpoint in the Blue Mountains.

I tried taking photos as we drove along but not all were successful

This was the beautiful three-bedroomed, two bathroom cabin in its own grounds.

And fabulous views.

On Friday we went to Mudgee and had a walk round.  We found an excellent playground for the children.

We then travelled on to Gulgong where Andy, Roger & I went round the Pioneer Museum. It was absolutely packed full of items.  To be honest it looked like everyone for miles around had decluttered their houses and farms and dumped everything with the museum.

Lots of lovely rust though!

Then we went on to Lowe's winery for lunch.

On Saturday we drove to Rylestone where we bought food for a picnic.

We went to Wollemi National Park where Andy & Crusoe went in the water.  Sadly the flies were so annoying that we ended up eating our picnic in the car!

The rock formations in the park were interesting.  Lots of the tops looked like roofs on rock houses.

The countryside we drove through to get back to Capertee was fascinating.

Andy loves to build a fire.

And the beautiful sunset.

On Sunday we packed up and started the journey back to Brighton-Le-Sands.

We stopped for lunch at Bilpin Cider where we had pizza.

By now we were checked in for our flight home the next day.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

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