Todays destination was Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. We are here for our final two nights in the van, after the bed collapsing again this morning, whilst I was still in it, frankly I'll be glad to see the back of the damn thing. It's ready for the scrap, gear box is on its way out, clutch is going, and everything inside is absolutely filthy. Si is in email communication with them and is preparing a list of faults, ready for hand over on Saturday. There are a great many of them, I suspect we may be there some time. It hasn't detracted from the trip, but it certainly hasn't added anything to it either. It transpires it's their oldest vehicle in their fleet and this comes as no surprise to us whatsoever.
We left the caravan park in Orange just after 0900hrs and got on the Highway ( not to hell). We trundled through Bathurst, which we are now glad we didnt stay at, because the campground from a different direction looked basic shall we say. We'd decided to stop off in Lithgow for breakfast and a brew, but before we got there we went through Raglan, I kid you not. Obviously, we had to go and have a nose around, and we were hopefull that we'd locate a coffee shop or something similar we could use for breakfast. Unfortunately, after driving around all the streets of Raglan, which I maight add had some very nice little houses and school, we failed to locate anywhere to stop off for a snack. We reverted back to our origional plan, and continued on towards Lithgow. It was a disappointment, grubby, unwelcoming, and had a feeling of being very unloved. In its defence it seemed to be a big industrial area, so we'll give it the benefit of the doubt. The streets were busy and we found a nice little cafe and its the first one we've come across that has toilets for its visitors. Most places weve been to don't have facilities at all, and we get directed to the public toilets. It's absolutely fine, as they have all so far, been immmaculate. After a large tasty breakfast we bought a lottery ticket, its $200, 000000 tonight, and we're feeling lucky! As we've only got 2 nights left, we aren't bothering to stock up our food supplies, so we'll just eat out untill Saturday. How decadent!
We resumed our trip to Katoomba, and arrived, shortly after 1300hours. After 400km yesterday, we only had 150 today which was splendid. The site we are in, Katoomba Falls Tourist park, is right opposite all the walks and scenic look outs for the Blue Mountains. There a several different options and lengths of walks you can take to look out over the Mountains, From dusk to 2300hours some of them are lit up. Our Pitch, is a concrete one, under the trees and after 1700hours its really cool and shady, it does back onto the main road but its right by the exit for the site. Finally back with WIFI, I was able to make some more arrangements and book our accommodation in Sydney. we're going posh baby! a nice Hotel in Darling Harbour with pool, sauna, jacuzzi, steam room and fitness centre. I don't think I'll be using the fitness centre but, I suspect Si will.
The road was really busy, mostly with tour buses, and the hop on hop off Blue Mountains tour buses. We went to have a look around and take in the views. The scenic World is 5 minutes walk away from the site, and we are headed there tomorrow morning. The views are incredible, The three Sisters looked beautiful in the late afternoon sunshine, and the waterfalls were blissful, so relaxing. In the later hours the mountains blueness is even more pronounced, from the eucalyptus oils. The walks were quite shaded and relatively accessible, the best part of it being that it was all so easily accessible from the campsite.
Neighbours appeared, a family in two campers, they bought the kitchen sink with them and were only staying the one night. They did have two small children with them, and those little buggers need a lot of stuff! The little girl was really cute, and was chasing the ducks around for quite a while.
We had a light snack for tea, and as were eating we were joined by two strutting Gallahs on the look out for scraps. They lucked out with us, we ate all our scran. They are obviously quite comfortable around people, despite being wild. Their walk cracked me up, it was more of a strut, and a drunken, Captain Jack Sparrow one at that. Not having any joy with us, they waddled off to the next campervan, where they took bits of fruit from the little girl and her mum. Hell of a beak on them and the weirdest feet. Really cute though.
We didn't make the dusk floodlit walk as we decided to chill out instead, there is always tomorrow night.
Looking forward to tomorrow and doing Scenic World , the forecast is hot hot hot, so We're glad we have ticket entry first thing!!
Oh, and we didn't win the lottery either. knickers.
Much Love
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