Thursday 22nd MarchJournal entry brought you by Tami (who is today celebrating her name day) Today, myself, Sophie, Rich and Chris got up really early to drive to the Blue Mountains, about two hours outside Sydney city centre. Rich’s van threatened to not start again but after lots of encouragement she finally agreed to start and we began the journey. Soph and I fell very asleep on the way, only to find out that the mean boys had taken pictures of us while we were dozing. (By the way we are experiencing a world of problems regarding uploading pictures. Chris has a website should you want to look at his photos of us instead: Look at http://web.mac.com/chrisonthesly/iWeb/Chris/OzPics4%20Sydney%20March.html and http://web.mac.com/chrisonthesly/iWeb/Chris/OzPics5%20Sydney%20End%20of%20March.html.) So after being asleep we woke up at the Blue Mountains National Park. This park is so called, because the groves are filled with Eucalyptus trees which are the only trees that can withstand the bush fires that take place there every so often. The eucalyptus lets off a blueish haze in the afternoons, which give the entire valleys the appearance of being covered in blue clouds which is pretty cool. Anyway we took some photos from the first lookout and Rich pointed out on a map the route that we would be taking. He said it was meant to take about 90 minutes there and back; it wasn’t a particularly long trail. We began walking, stopping every so often to take some spectacular photos of some seriously glorious views. There were some gorgeous waterfalls as well which let off a really nice fine mist which was most welcome in the heat of the sun. After about an hour we got to the bottom of a really huge waterfall and stopped for some rice cakes and photos. It was here that we learnt that a part of the track was closed off fo9r track repair, and was only opened at certain times of the day for ten minute periods. We were about fifteen minutes early for the next time so we thought we might as well wait as the lookout point that we were aiming to get to eventually was just on the other side, so as long as we were quick we should make it back in time. Of course, this was not the case. The other three were like, It’ll be fine, we’ll make it back through. I was saying that we wouldn’t and we should get back but no one listened to me! So of course they shut the track off again and we were stuck on the other side. With almost two hours to go before the gate was opened again, we really had little option but to carry on with the trail we were doing and make a big loop instead of going back the way we had come. This trail was estimated to take FIVE HOURS in total – not quite the 90 minutes we had planned to be walking but there wasn’t really anything we could do about it. It actually turned out to be really cool; we saw some amazing sights and had a lot of fun. We trekked a few other trails, and ventured onto the three sisters as well, which was cool. We had ice-cream sitting on a grass bank between two roads in the quaintest little town ever! And lunch became a quest for cheesey chips which we eventually acquired by taking our own grated cheese into a chippy. At about 5 ish we headed off to Coles to buy “Chips and dips” for the boys and timtams for Sophie who was being led into temptation once more off the healthy eating trail. I bought some hot cross buns. We then headed onto a completely deserted cliff overlooking the mountains and watched the sunset. It was such a lovely, amazing day. I was just so happy there watching the sunset with these awesome people. When we got back to Sydney we were all pretty tired but the four of us managed to squash onto mine and Sophie’s bed to watch the Shawshank Redemption on Chris’ laptop (very good film, in my top 5 I think).

We then called it a night and went to sleep. This was, for me, my favourite day in Sydney so far. Really really nice day. I know “nice” is a rubbish adjective, but it really was just SO nice. So much FUN!