we've arrived in Manly (a coastal suburb of Sydney) after an amazing few days in the Blue Mountains. We caught the train up to Katoomba on tuesday and rode around on a red london bus, which was a bit bizarre. We walked down to echo point to supposedly look at the three sisters rocks but we could just about see the end of our noses it was so misty, so we amused ourselves trying to take pictures of a parrot as the rest of the tourists left. Then as pen was trying to take an "arty" photo the mist suddenly began to swirl and within 2 minutes had just vanished completely leaving just me and pen as the only two people with the breathtaking view of the Blue Mountains (this is where the pictures are from) The next day we decided to walk through the rainforest and caught the 'novelty' bus to the start of the walk and with the bus drivers words of "be careful of the leeches" we headed out into the undergrowth, we walked about 8km through thick rainforests and past some lovely waterfalls before walking up about 800 odd steps to get out of the valley!! (id forgot about this bit until we got there - knackering!!) then as we walked back to the hostel we passed the Katoomba adventure centre, pen spotted the abseiling and climbing trip and it didnt take long to pursuade me!! We got to the shop at 8am (early!!) and met our other abseilers, 3 girls who went to Cardiff Uni (Small world) and spent the morning doing progressively bigger abseils to get ready for the afternoon, with the highest one being about 100ft. Then Rob our kiwi instructer cooked a really nice BBQ for lunch consisting of lovely stir-fry and SAUSAGES!! Then we headed to a exposed part of the valley to tackle "where eagles dare." It started with a 75ft abseil down into a gorge before we traversed round the rock face about 400ft up before entering a slit in the rock which you could see straight out of the top and bottom down to the valley floor. Then we abseiled out of the bottom of the crevase and 100ft down a sheer rock. From here everyone in the group had a go at abseiling 100ft down to a ledge before rock-climbing back up to the rest of the group. then we traversed round another rock outcrop before climbing out of the valley and back to our truck. It was an amazing experience for us both, especially as you came out of the crevase dangling on a rope 300ft above the floor!!