Recap: January part 3 - Blue Mountains and the Jenolan Caves
Mood: 
|| Stressed
Tune : Watching Demons 1x04
Most of my spare time is still being consumed by planning my two month trip through Australia starting in about three weeks. Kinda freaking out over the fact that while the middle part of the trip is planned and booked, and I am pretty sure what I want to do after that, the first part is still an undecided mess... I hope I can make up my mind and book my stuff in the next few days so I can stop stressing out over this and start enjoying the prospect of my upcoming holidays. Once everything is semi-final I'll post an itinerary on here as well so you guys know what I am up to :)
By the way, because I am travelling for real soon I'll no longer be staying at the address in Sydney that was my home for the past 4 months, which means my postal address changes. As I won't have a steady address for March and April I can receive mail on a friend's address instead. I won't post it here but if you'd like it please let me know and I'll let you know in private. Please don't send anything to the Ultimo address anymore from now on (because with Australia Post being pretty crap I doubt it'll arrive before March). Thanks ♥
January 30 I went over to Jules after work as we were heading off the next day together. She took me completely by surprise when a little after I arrived she revealed an awesometastic birthday cake she and her mum had made for me. It was in the shape of a turtle! asdgalsjd;gl;sjagdljgsadjlgasl;dfgsdjg She also gave me my birthday presents and they were 'orsum': an Elmo t-shirt, Elmo belt and a double CD of Disney classics. I also got lovely chocolate from her mum, was all very awesome ♥
^ The fantastic cake
January 31 I went on a trip to the Blue Mountains and Jenolan Caves with Jules and Jenny. Last time I went to the Blue Mountains (in 2005, also with Jules) it was the highlight of my trip to Australia and not until I saw Cape Breton Island in Canada it was the most beautiful landscape I'd ever seen, so I was really looking forward to this.
Before we went to Echo Point (famous for its beautiful lookout over The Tree Sisters) we wandered through the city of Katoomba. We visited some antique and second hand shops and we went to a store that sold Emily the Strange stuff where I picked up a new wallet. Then we headed off for Echo Point. Unfortunately we didn't have a whole lot of time before we had to go to the Jenolan Caves so we just snapped some pictures from that lookout and went to the Visitors Centre to book our cave tours.
It was another 1.5 hour drive to Jenolan and we stopped on our way at Blackheath for lunch. Was at the local fish and chips store and the guy in there was very nice. I ordered a hash brown amongst others but because he was out of them he offered me a free potato scallop instead, so I could give that a try. It was nice :)
The last 10km to Jenolan took forever to drive. It was a long and winding road and because I was sitting in the front on the left side to me it looked like we were driving off the cliff all the time! (this because I am not used to sitting on the left in the front and we drove on the left side of the road so it all looked out of place) Thank God for our music as distraction let me tell you that xD I'd brought along my new Disney CD and we had Jules's Disney love songs CD as well so we were all in a Disney spirit and questioning each other about the songs and which movies we had or hadn't seen. Fun times!
We arrived in Jenolan just in time for the first tour to start which was that of the Lucas Cave. It's the most basic cave that gets all the school trips and stuff so there weren't a whole lot of shiny crystals. It was very impressive nonetheless and mighty interesting as I had no idea before this tour how the formations grow. Some highlights included the very famous Broken Column, formations in the shapes of a bishop and the Three Sisters and a little light show towards the end of the tour.
After the Lucas Cave we raced to Devil's Coach House, a cave with a self-guided tour that came with the stuff we bought. It wasn't very interested and we were pretty beat from all the stairs we'd walked so we pretty much raced through it. After that we went for a short trip around the blue lake which was really amazingly blue because of the limestone in the water. There were supposed to be platypus too but unfortunately we didn't spot any.
Then we had dinner in a way too fancy restaurant (I was in shorts, lol!) where we just all ordered an entree each because that just about fit in our budget. Spent half an hour or so near the car, relaxing, before we went back for our last tour of the day called the Ghost Mysteries and Legends tour.
To be quite honest it wasn't very scary and the stories told were not all that interesting. But, the tour was very cool and brought us through all these different caves that otherwise we would only maybe see one or so of so that was pretty awesome. We saw the highlights of most caves that way. Like the underground river Styx, sparkling crystals in the Orient Cave and the Pin Cushion. Oh, and our guide was called Lockie which made me giggle because I had to think of Lost's Locke.
February 1 was supposed to be another trip to the mountains. But seeing we already saw the Three Sisters the day beforehand (albeit briefly), we were very tired and we were very hyped up on Disney because of the CDs, we had a Disney movie marathon instead. Jenny brought a ton of movies and Jules owns a lot of them too so we had plenty to pick from. In the end we watched: The Incredibles, Pocahontas, Enchanted and some Mickey DVDs. Was fun :D
Below pictures from the weekend, more can be found HERE and HERE.
^ Famous Three Sisters
^ The Blue Mountains are really... blue
^ Jenny, me (see my new shirt!), Jules
^ Jules and I in front of the Three Sisters
^ This ad made me think of David Tennant and with that Doctor Who
^ I love taking pics from the car
Lucas Cave:
^ Jenny and I
^ Jules
^ Curtain effect
^ The Broken Column
^ Jules, Jenny and I
^ It's a bishop!
^ And the Three Sisters
^ Lights!
^ Scary face
^ There were all these snake warnings around but thank God we dind't see any, just him
^ The blue lake
Ghost tour:
^ Underground river Styx. When you turn this picture sideways you see a creepy face/skull in it O_O
^ Sparkly crystals!
^ The Pin Cushion!
^ Spooky....
^ Jenny and Jules (I didn't wear the helmet)
|| Stressed
Tune : Watching Demons 1x04
Most of my spare time is still being consumed by planning my two month trip through Australia starting in about three weeks. Kinda freaking out over the fact that while the middle part of the trip is planned and booked, and I am pretty sure what I want to do after that, the first part is still an undecided mess... I hope I can make up my mind and book my stuff in the next few days so I can stop stressing out over this and start enjoying the prospect of my upcoming holidays. Once everything is semi-final I'll post an itinerary on here as well so you guys know what I am up to :)
By the way, because I am travelling for real soon I'll no longer be staying at the address in Sydney that was my home for the past 4 months, which means my postal address changes. As I won't have a steady address for March and April I can receive mail on a friend's address instead. I won't post it here but if you'd like it please let me know and I'll let you know in private. Please don't send anything to the Ultimo address anymore from now on (because with Australia Post being pretty crap I doubt it'll arrive before March). Thanks ♥
January 30 I went over to Jules after work as we were heading off the next day together. She took me completely by surprise when a little after I arrived she revealed an awesometastic birthday cake she and her mum had made for me. It was in the shape of a turtle! asdgalsjd;gl;sjagdljgsadjlgasl;dfgsdjg She also gave me my birthday presents and they were 'orsum': an Elmo t-shirt, Elmo belt and a double CD of Disney classics. I also got lovely chocolate from her mum, was all very awesome ♥
^ The fantastic cake
January 31 I went on a trip to the Blue Mountains and Jenolan Caves with Jules and Jenny. Last time I went to the Blue Mountains (in 2005, also with Jules) it was the highlight of my trip to Australia and not until I saw Cape Breton Island in Canada it was the most beautiful landscape I'd ever seen, so I was really looking forward to this.
Before we went to Echo Point (famous for its beautiful lookout over The Tree Sisters) we wandered through the city of Katoomba. We visited some antique and second hand shops and we went to a store that sold Emily the Strange stuff where I picked up a new wallet. Then we headed off for Echo Point. Unfortunately we didn't have a whole lot of time before we had to go to the Jenolan Caves so we just snapped some pictures from that lookout and went to the Visitors Centre to book our cave tours.
It was another 1.5 hour drive to Jenolan and we stopped on our way at Blackheath for lunch. Was at the local fish and chips store and the guy in there was very nice. I ordered a hash brown amongst others but because he was out of them he offered me a free potato scallop instead, so I could give that a try. It was nice :)
The last 10km to Jenolan took forever to drive. It was a long and winding road and because I was sitting in the front on the left side to me it looked like we were driving off the cliff all the time! (this because I am not used to sitting on the left in the front and we drove on the left side of the road so it all looked out of place) Thank God for our music as distraction let me tell you that xD I'd brought along my new Disney CD and we had Jules's Disney love songs CD as well so we were all in a Disney spirit and questioning each other about the songs and which movies we had or hadn't seen. Fun times!
We arrived in Jenolan just in time for the first tour to start which was that of the Lucas Cave. It's the most basic cave that gets all the school trips and stuff so there weren't a whole lot of shiny crystals. It was very impressive nonetheless and mighty interesting as I had no idea before this tour how the formations grow. Some highlights included the very famous Broken Column, formations in the shapes of a bishop and the Three Sisters and a little light show towards the end of the tour.
After the Lucas Cave we raced to Devil's Coach House, a cave with a self-guided tour that came with the stuff we bought. It wasn't very interested and we were pretty beat from all the stairs we'd walked so we pretty much raced through it. After that we went for a short trip around the blue lake which was really amazingly blue because of the limestone in the water. There were supposed to be platypus too but unfortunately we didn't spot any.
Then we had dinner in a way too fancy restaurant (I was in shorts, lol!) where we just all ordered an entree each because that just about fit in our budget. Spent half an hour or so near the car, relaxing, before we went back for our last tour of the day called the Ghost Mysteries and Legends tour.
To be quite honest it wasn't very scary and the stories told were not all that interesting. But, the tour was very cool and brought us through all these different caves that otherwise we would only maybe see one or so of so that was pretty awesome. We saw the highlights of most caves that way. Like the underground river Styx, sparkling crystals in the Orient Cave and the Pin Cushion. Oh, and our guide was called Lockie which made me giggle because I had to think of Lost's Locke.
February 1 was supposed to be another trip to the mountains. But seeing we already saw the Three Sisters the day beforehand (albeit briefly), we were very tired and we were very hyped up on Disney because of the CDs, we had a Disney movie marathon instead. Jenny brought a ton of movies and Jules owns a lot of them too so we had plenty to pick from. In the end we watched: The Incredibles, Pocahontas, Enchanted and some Mickey DVDs. Was fun :D
Below pictures from the weekend, more can be found HERE and HERE.
^ Famous Three Sisters
^ The Blue Mountains are really... blue
^ Jenny, me (see my new shirt!), Jules
^ Jules and I in front of the Three Sisters
^ This ad made me think of David Tennant and with that Doctor Who
^ I love taking pics from the car
Lucas Cave:
^ Jenny and I
^ Jules
^ Curtain effect
^ The Broken Column
^ Jules, Jenny and I
^ It's a bishop!
^ And the Three Sisters
^ Lights!
^ Scary face
^ There were all these snake warnings around but thank God we dind't see any, just him
^ The blue lake
Ghost tour:
^ Underground river Styx. When you turn this picture sideways you see a creepy face/skull in it O_O
^ Sparkly crystals!
^ The Pin Cushion!
^ Spooky....
^ Jenny and Jules (I didn't wear the helmet)