Day 25: Boxing/St.Stephens Day, Blue Mountains

Sarah up at stupid o' clock, it is chucking it down and I think well at least its get the rain over with while I try and settle her back, sounds a right racket as it's a tin roof. By 10am it's still pouring so perfect excuse for a lazy morning. Guilt creeps in as the sun makes an appearance soon after and we manage to get out by 1130. We should have been up and out regardless of the weather as our plan is to visit some caves.

It's about 60km drive to the Jenolan Caves from Blackheath. I decide that I don't what to play petrol roulette again and we fill up enroute. Its a pleasant drive to the caves and we end up on the opposite side of the cliffs where we are staying. Barely in the car as Tom starts his wail of "I'm hungry" but I have little sympathy as I had been nagging him to eat more for breakfast. It gets really windy towards the end and the cries of "feel sick" come from the back, but Rob is having too much fun. The NSW police are out in force and we see some cars pulled over for speeding. The sat Nav chirps all the time when a speed camera is coming up....though the two back seat drivers give Rob constant reminders of what the speed limit is. The last section of the road is one-way between 11.45 and 13.15 so we have it to ourselves. The entrance for the car is via a cave and it looks very impressive from the start.



We hadn't done much research on the caves as the wifi is broken at the rental house, there is a bewildering choice of tours available and we eventually settle on a 1.5 hour tour of the Lucen(?). It's said to be strenuous with 951 steps so hope I won't end up carrying Sarah.

Time for lunch, which is a bit ropey but Tom wolfs his fish (even the batter) so at least the person most likely of whinging about food is fed;)

The tour itself is very good though straightaway I fell over 'helping' Sarah down the steps, luckily the ground is soft, though my cream trousers look a mess as I fell on my back. Felt like a right idiot (it was funny though! /Rob)

Cathedral cave. This was really impressive, concerts are held down here on a regular basis, the tour guide played a recording and the various lights came out showing different features. Shame that people kept snapping with their flashes while this part was going on. I am amazed what people will try and take pictures of.

















































This is where the guide told Sarah the tooth fairy lived.





Broken column


On the drive back to Blackheath, Tom talks about his future as a house builder, they are all going to have wind mills and solar panels. A farmer is going to give him the land to build his houses and his house will be the nicest. He hasn't quite worked out how he's going to finance his operation. At some point we started talking about bosses. We asked Sarah what would be the one thing she would tell everyone to do if she was the boss of the world. Her answer, "clean it." (maybe that hippy commune had more influence than we thought).

We stop or should I say drive speedily through Hartley historic village...hmmm not exactly a lot there, just a few old sandstone buildings, it gets a write up in Lonely Planet but I couldn't see anything overly special about it.

The sun is shining again as we head back. We sit through the Christmas Doctor Who but reception is a bit rubbish, you can see the bad weather coming in over the valley, pink forked lightning and the heavens open. We can hardly hear the TV though Dr Who is making even less sense than usual, if that's possible.



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