Melbourne - Sydney - Blue Mountains

On Sunday we got up quite late and Russell cooked us a nice hot breakfast with bacon and poached eggs. He also took us on a short drive up to One Tree Hill to see the wonderful panorama over the city (ararat) and the grampians. We even drove through a bit of "bush" and went for a tour of the Arandale grounds (a mental hospital, where Bernadine and Russell worked, that is now closed).
Unfortunately, we had to leave immediatly after lunch. Our time in Ararat was really wonderful. Bernadine and Russell took such great care of us, we almost did not want to leave.
The rest of the day was rather uneventful, we drove down to melbourne and dropped off the car, walked to the train station, checked in the luggage, had a sandwich at Subway and got on the train to Sydney.
Neither of us had a lot of sleep that night, it was very unconmfortable. If I had to do it again, I would pay the extra money for a sleeping cabin. Having said that, I don't regret taking the train. Driving would have cost us much more than one night and we got at least to do a little bit on the two surrounding days.
We arrived in Sydney at 8.30 in the morning and walked to the car rental to pick up our second car, again a lovely toyota corolla, though this time it was silver instead of darl grey (antraciet). We immediatly set off for the blue mountains and had lunch along the way. We checked into the hotel, which turned out to be a bit more like a bed and breakfast, with cosy (read: a bit old fashioned furniture and frills everywhere) bedrooms and a living area.
We drove to one of many gorgeous lookout point over the valleys and hills of the blue mountains. We took a short walk down to one of the waterfalls which was had a few steps in it. On the way back, I sadly found out that I am not nearly as fit as I'd like to be. We had a very short look around Katoomba and went to the three sisters, but daylight was already fading so we had to call it quits. After dinner we were both very tired from the previous night and went to bed early.
Today we took a trip to the Jenolan Caves, which was about 1 hour and 15 minute drive into the valley, which, for the last part, was very winding and narrow. The views were absolutely stunning and I took way too many photos :). The Jenolan Caves are limestone caves worn down by water which has in turn covered some of the surfaces with crystals, creating not only stalactites and stalacmites but also other interesting features.
We booked two tours of the caves: The Orient and the Imperial. The Orient was the most impressive and pretty of the two, but the imperial was very beautiful in its own way. We also took a self-guided tour and had a look around the immediate area which is also very impressive. This took us most of the day and by the time we got back to Blackheath, where our hotel is, It was already dark, so anything else will have to wait for tomorrow.

Mikkie