In the Blue ridged Mountains of NSW.

This was our second busy weekend with my mum and dad. We stayed in log cabins, on a camp site, very close to one of the main attractions, Scenic World. This is the entrance which shows an aboriginal witch doctor with his large brass member(shall we call it a wand....but not like anything you will see in Harry Potter), turning the 3 sisters to stone(there were 2 other bronze status to left of this shot). Apparently, the Witch doctor was going to turn them back but he was killed in a battle.....so



that is how the three sisters were formed. Not quite the Geologists point of view but there you go, it's a nice story. For those who want to see the 87 other views of this iconic rock formation please go to www. icantbelieveyouaretakinganotheroneofthosebloodythings.co.uk . Think this one was taken from the foot of the scenic railway in case you're bothered.



Any tourist attraction of note has to follow certain rules:
1. Force visitors to leave via the gift shop.
2. Provide a cafe selling chocolate muffins at hugely inflated prices.
3. Fill the room with sullen, unhelpful guides (the best one we saw was ignoring half a dozen perplexed Japanese tourists whilst she was playing patience on her computer)
4. Provide audio guides
I'm sure there are many rules that we have forgotten. To find out other ways to pee off the public click here. Anyway back to the audio guides. We could only afford three. Two to stop the children moaning too much about the prospect of a 30 minute rainforest boardwalk and the third to give us an educational insight into the local flora and fauna. Luckily there were not too many people around as I was very conspicuous in the way I loudly narrated the words from the audio guide ad verbatim. This particular look of concentration was when I was trying to say the "significant environmental impact on the indigenous aboriginal culture" for the fifth time.



There is a downside to the lovely spell of warm weather we have had. The impressive torrents of water "cascading down the sandstone escarpments into the valley (Cue Generation X) a thousand feet below." are actually a bit rubbish.



and there is the valley a thousand feet below, below our 8 feet. This was all part of Scenic world.
"The ultimate blue mountains adventure" and after riding the world's steepest (this was a rare use of the ultimate superlative adjective because they usually have to quantify themselves by using phrases like ....in the Southern Hemisphere or .... in Australia or ....in NSW) incline railway and strolling through the beautiful Jurassic rainforest and travelling by cable car to the moutain top we finished our morning by "experiencing the thrill of walking on air"...... um sometimes you know that the reality won't live up to the hype. Cynicism aside it was a great morning. It was particularly fun to hear Hanne's loud squeals as we plummeted into the valley on the aforementioned railway.



Jamison's valley from the Gordons fall lookout. Nice composition thinks Tina.




Having done a reconnaissance mission . Chris informed us that the lookout was 123 steps down. This was Alf and Hanne taking the 122nd and 123rd step back up having given their respective knees and hips a jolly good workout. Needless to say we did not go far that evening except to see
the obligatory IMAX "6 storeys high" screen view of the blue mountains.



That'll be the three sisters again. Beatifully framed by Jessica looking a cool cat in her hat (AKA Akubra which was kindly given to us by a Mum at Glendore school) and me looking like something that rhymes with cat in my hat.



would that be the three sisters again?



right that's enough, although this unsuccessful family shot has more metal fence than three sisters in it.



Not quite having the "thrill of walking on air" was not our biggest disappointment. Something told us that sensation was not going to happen. We did however expect a lot more from the Norman Lindsay gallery. This was Sunday afternoon and things were not going well anyway as Hanne and Alf followed us on what they thought was going to be a 2km diversion from their planned route and it ended up being 50km. They had been frantically flashing us and waving at us before finally deciding to overtake us and pull us over Starsky and Hutch style to ask in true Aussie advertising campaign style "Where the bloody hell are you.... going" I think she wanted to say a lot more to but realising we were going to be saying goodbye for 9 months after this excursion she decided to bite her lip. Anyway following recommendations from school staff and plentiful eulogising from all the guide books about its beauty, importance, iconic status and wonderful collection of Art work we thought it would be all worth it. How wrong can you be. Now apologies to any young children reading this and any Australians who hold Norman Lindsay in high regard but I don't think that a $26 family ticket to see three rooms full of painted tits represents good value for money.
The most interesting thing about the whole afternoon was the town name. Faulconbridge... it contains half the letters of the alphabet, all the vowels and no repeats.
Despite the relative disappointment of this we certainly had a gorgeous weekend, lovely to be able to share it with Hanne and Alf and as we said our goodbyes we wished them well as they headed off back to Sydney before heading off to New Zealand and Thailand so no doubt they'll havemany more adventures to share when they get home.