It was a beautiful day when we arrived at Blackheath in the Blue Mountains, it was misty and damp with low lying clouds. It was a great atmosphere we felt we were up in the clouds. The caravan park was very nice, not very big compared to some parks we had been too, but big sites with grass and slab so you can keep a little bit dry in the wet times.
The kids loved it because it was raining so they could put on their gumboots and splash in the water. We gave them some popsticks and they made boats and raced them in the puddle streams on the kerb. They have had no trouble finding ways to amuse themselves outdoors.
We found some beautiful drives through the mountains and valleys. It was like hidden secret rainforests in the middle of nowhere. So very peaceful. They were having unusual amounts of rain when we were there and apparently is was much needed. We found some clifftop lookouts that took your breath away, some flooded bridges we drove over and some nice yellow muddy dirt tracks. Another car wash needed.
My favourite place in the mountain is Leura, a small town but some neat little shops. There was a couple of toy shops, cafe's, bookshops and a christmas shop. Its just nice to walk up and down the street and watch the people going about their businesses.
We found a place called Selwood Games,Science and Puzzle shop. This was an old house with all the rooms filled with games, puzzles, illusions and science paraphernalia. When you walked through the door and old piano starts playing on its own. Creepy but different. Its a great place to take the kids because they have everything out for you to try and one room has a very large table with lots of chairs so the kids can sit and play for hours.
We went on the Zig Zag Railway which goes down the side of the blue mountains to Lithgow, we had a guided tour with a few stop offs at various points where the conductor would have to get off the train and change the lines so we could head down. The kids loved it and we went through a pitch black tunnel which was different. The train driver asked Shelby and Slade to come sit up the front with him and they were so excited, you couldnt wipe the grins off their faces. The poor train driver though probably wasnt expecting them to give him 50 questions as they had many questions on how everything worked. They were both a little concerned that there was only one windscreen wiper until the driver explained that he only needed to look through one particular section of the screen. It was only raining a little but they obviously wondered how that one little wiper was going to perform the duty.
We also visited Trains, Planes and Automobiles, possibly the oldest toy shop in Australia where they stocked antique toys. The owner was very nice and he started some of the moving toys for the kids to see. The had old lego pieces and they were expensive and some of the old tin type toys that I used to see when I was a kid. Heaps of trains and planes so the boys were rightly intrigued.
We went to the local pub in Blackheath for dinner which was nice and Slade managed to find himself a friend to talk too. They had got on so well his parents thought their son knew Slade from school. He is just a bit friendly the lad.
We went to Katoomba and took a picture of the three sisters, visibility was not very good but the clouds were moving so fast that for a minute as they passed I managed to sneak a really clear picture of them. There were alot of tourists mostly Asian but the low lying clouds didnt seem to bother anyone.
We went to scenic world in Katoomba and bought a day pass for all the rides so the kids loved going up and down on them. The day we went was beautiful no rain but still the ground was damp and still gave that rainforresty look and feel about it.
On the skyway the kids managed to impress the guide here too and she let the kids control the skyway which was funny because Shelby opened the door on the wrong side and all the people started to walk off, she then had to tell them to get back in and use the other door. It was funny for us. They had the old conveyor style seated train that went backwards through a tunnel and up the side of the mountain, not very far but far enough to enjoy.You sat in it and then you had a bar that came across the middle of you. I had to hold on the Isla because she could easily slip through. The kids loved this too and I think we went up and down 4 or 5 times!!
We spent the whole day here just walking through the walks and reading all the pathway plaques that were along the way. Funny thing when we left just outside there were some aboriginal naked statues made of steel and Shelby on her way out goes up and has a feel of the boobies whilst the Japanese were taking their pictures. It was like nothing to her she just went up had a feel and then had a giggle!!
On another day when we went out sightseeing and it started to really pelt down with rain, so much you couldnt see in front of you. We detoured off the main highway because those truckies still go flat out even in the pouring rain so we ducked a couple of side streets and it was amazing to see how quickly the streets flooded. There was water gushing out of storm drains on the road and lots of puddles for us to drive through. We decided it would probably be best to just head back to the van as the rain was not going to stop. It was a good decision because as we were heading back through the roadworks the rain had had really flooded the highway and some of the roadworks barracades had started to float across the highway onto the oncoming traffic, we had just got through but the puddles were reaching as high as the middle of the drivers doors!! We put the two-way on just to listen to the truckies talk to each other about the road conditions and some of them were laughing at the drivers getting caught up in the chaos. We were ok we were in the black cruiser. When we got home and watched the news it seemed we just got out of the way before a train had derailed right where we turned around and came home, caused a lot of traffic congestion and we were glad to be home safe and sound.
See Pictures here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2053068&id=1178196973&l=014fb8abdf.
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