March 6

Awake to sunshine and 80’s. Enjoy watching Phyllis feed the birds, lorikeets with bright blue, red, green and yellow feathers, cockatoos, big white with yellow crown, toffee headed pigeons, kookaburras and the occasional magpie.  They all gather in the backyard for quite a show.  They have a roaming wild bantam cross breed hen who comes in for her tucker.  She nests next door at the empty house and is quite skittish. She’s very feisty and will beat up the other birds if they get in the way.  She produces an egg once in a while as payment in kind.

We take off for the Blue mountains National Park just west of Sydney.  The roads are toll and not, and in very good condition. We travel through Penrith and out to Katoomba and Leura.  Very beautiful little conserved towns, nice for tourist visits.  We are climbing the whole way, the Blue Mountains are part of the continental divide and mainly beautiful layered sandstone , a spine running north and south.  We stop at the Three Sisters lookout and walk the trails.  We take a brief gondola ride across the valley, it has a glass floor and we can see the thick growth of gum trees (aka eucalyptus).  It is drier on the top and greener on the valley.  There is a train and other gondola available, taking to valley floor and a micro-climate of rain forest. We take the shorter ride.  The ‘mountains’ are high escarpment of sandstone and deep narrow river valleys (2-5000 feet at highest).  The blue air comes from the vapors of the eucalyptus trees giving off fumes in the heat.  The trees are known for being very flammable and big forest fires happen fast and furious.  We walk to overlook the iconic Three Sisters sandstone rock formations from erosion.  We  have lunch and tea picnics prepared and eat in some lovely parks.  We stop off at Evans lookout and we are given a closer view of the sheer sandstone cliffs and narrower valley.  We stop off at the historic Hydro Hotel and the view there is different still, much greener, with a variety of plants and lower rolling hills and no sandstone showing.  On to Killara where we have a grilled dinner of bangers and mash on the lanai and more great Australian wine.  A possum comes down the tree right behind Pat and he freezes like a deer in the headlights.  He is different from the American possum, but snout and rat tail are the same.  Big day, time for sleep!