Mountains and Caves

Man, what an awesome weekend! Of course, I was sick the entire time, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see the beautiful Blue Mountains and Jenolan Caves.. and even though I'm even more sick now and will probably have to spend the rest of Sydney in bed, no regrets baby!

Blue Mountains is about a 2-hour train ride from Sydney. It's a small touristy town. Very quaint and the air is clean and clear as anything. Being at a higher elevation, it's quite chilly up there. Definitely bring layers if you go! I'd recommend wearing a sweater even under an outer shell. We stayed at the YHA hostel up there. Not as nice as the Sydney Central one, but it was alright. The room itself reminded me of a wartime medical ward lol.. the walls were beige and kind of bricky, and the bunk beds were this green-blue scrubs colour.

We spent our Blue Mountains day at Scenic World. Took the Skyway, railway, and cable car a couple of times. Amazing amazing view. The railway was awesome.. steepest in the world or something.. like a friggin rollercoaster.. was so much fun! Lots of rainforest and different walks you can go on. If you're a more experienced hiker, bring a walking stick and you're ready to go!

Blue Moutains. Visibility, 125km. Beautiful day!

Skyway that brought us across the gorge

Me at the Katoomba Cascades

View of the Three Sisters from the Skyway

Day two of the weekend brought us to the Jenolan Caves. It's about an hour bus ride from Blue Mountains. The road to the caves is a windy one down the mountains.. on one of those really narrow ones that you see in the movies where the horse carriage gets driven off the cliff lol. Again, beautiful view getting there.

The Jenolan Caves are limestone caves that are comprised of a few different caves. We only went into the Lucas Caves though. Soo nice. The cave tour took about.. maybe an hour and a half? The guide takes you to the different chambers and turns the lights on and off as you go through the different passages. Quite chilly in the caves as well.. stays about 16C year round.

One of the chambers in Lucas Caves (random view)

Somewhere in Lucas Caves

Lucas Caves

Lucas Caves

View from Govett's Leap in Blackheath

Anyway, back in Sydney now. Alyssa and Himika are out today seeing the aquarium and wildlife park. Sucks that I have to miss those.. was looking forward to the aquarium.. but alas, must sacrifice for my health. I'm determined to get the better part of this cold over with before New Zealand, and I've only got 3 days to do that.. and knowing my crappy immune system, I'd best make the most of this rest time.

Actually, I'd say my immune system did rather well considering the stressful semester I had.. it held off pretty well.. the intensity of this trip was the breaking point though. Hopefully after I've recovered, I'll be able to stay healthy for the remainder of the trip. That being said, since I'll likely not be doing much for the next few days, there won't be many interesting photos.. so perhaps instead, I will post photos from other days.

Enjoy! ^_^

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