The Land Down Under - Part 1

Last month was filled with training and tests for Jeff which made his schedule kind of skee-wompus.  However, because of that he ended up with nearly a whole week off at the end of the month!!  We knew we had to take advantage of those rare 6 days off... so we took a vacation to Sydney, Australia!

(PS get ready for a blog post bombardment!)

 Day 1:

We met up in LA on Monday night (Jeff had to work that morning), then got on our plane about 11:30 pm.  After 13 hours of flying we reached Sydney... sort of.  Due to fog we couldn't land, so our plane circled around for a while then had to divert up to Brisbane.  We landed there, sat on the ground for about an hour and a half, then finally headed back to Sydney.  Another hour in the air and we finally arrived in Sydney.... on Wednesday afternoon!  Yup, we just skipped Tuesday completely.  Kinda' crazy ha ha!

So our already long 13 hour flight turned into a 17 hour flight.  It messed up our plans a little bit, but not too bad.  We "hired a car" and headed out to the Blue Mountains about an hour inland from Sydney.  These mountains were breathtakingly beautiful and we were trying to soak up every inch of the scenery as we drove through!   

 Ahhh!  Driving on the left side of the road... a new experience for Jeff!  He was pretty scared but did great.  The best part was every time we made a right turn the windshield wipers started going :) (the wipers and signal switches were opposite ha ha)

Our first stop was the Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens.  

Since it's currently Fall-turning-Winter in Australia the sun set about 5:00 pm every night, so that was kind of a bummer... but we did get to experience some beautiful Fall colors!  We were already losing our sun light by this point so we wandered through the small gardens quickly then headed back out on the road. 

We made one last stop at a lookout point (and hiked down the mountain a little ways), before making it to Katoomba where we checked into our hotel.  Despite getting a pretty good nights rest on the plane the night before, we c-r-a-s-h-e-d.... HARD.  The second we got into the room we gravitated to the bed.  Laying there I realized how hungry I was, so I asked if we could get something to eat.  Jeff moaned and groaned and said "yeah........ let's go."  I moaned and groaned, but could not get my body off that bed.  Next thing we know... it was morning! :)  And it had only been 6:00 pm... ha ha!

Day 2:

We decided to take a scenic loop the took us out into the country side where we saw beautiful rolling hills and fields, more fall colors, and lots and lots of cows and sheep.  It took us a little while longer than we had thought, but it became totally worth it once we saw our first wild Kangaroos!!!  We also saw a lot of dead kangaroos and wallabies off the side of the road... apparently they are like the deer of Australia.  

 On our way into the country side, we stopped at Evan's lookout... and WOW.  It literally took my breath away!  This picture does not do it justice.

Along our route we came across the Jenolan Caves.  We didn't know anything about it other than how expensive it was to take the tours through all the caves, but we checked it out anyway.  Turns out we got to see a lot of cool things just walking around, and didn't have to spend a dime!

 Carlotta Arch

 The Grand Arch (which we also got to drive through!)

This arch was more like a short tunnel with a few of the cave entrances inside. 

Inside The Devil's Coach House

We did a little bushwalking along this river walk trail and was pleasantly surprised by what we found...

 The beautiful Blue Lake!  

(that is actually how blue the water really was, and it was super clear too)

 We were thinking about turning around and then decided "oh we'll just go a little further."  I'm so glad we did or else we would've missed this pretty little waterfall!

We ate lunch at the caves (amongst some beautiful parrots) and then finished our long scenic route, taking us back to Katoomba.  With our last bits of sunlight we headed out to Echo Point.

 Here we got a great view of the Blue Mountains and "The Three Sisters" rock formations.

We drove back to our previous night's hotel and sat in the parking lot using their free wifi so that we could find and book another hotel for the night ha ha.  (we always kept our look out for free wifi spots :)  We thought about just doing that one again, but then we found a way better hotel close to katoomba that was cheaper too.

For dinner we went to an Australian restaurant where Jeff ordered a Kangaroo Burger (not very good...) and I got a chicken schnitzel burger.  Yes I know schnitzel is not Australian, but I'd never had it before so I thought I'd try it.  And since it's one of Maria's favorite things, I figured it had to be good ;)

And once again, we passed out as soon as our heads made contact with our pillows about 8 o'clock that night.  The time change affected us way more than we actually thought it would!