Blue Mountains

The Blue Mountains were a great retreat away from the ghastly expenses of Sydney just before the New Year. We spent a few nights in this great hippie town called Katoomba. We visited Scenic World, home of the steepest incline railway in the world. Of course we had to take a ride. The railway dropped us down into the rain forest where we hiked to a waterfall and had a picnic amongst all the eucalyptus trees. A good place to spot koalas, most likely, except during the busy summer holiday when kids were out of school. However, we did see families of Cockatoos hanging out on the railings of Scenic World.








The waterfall we hiked to. Not bad for a point and shoot camera. Looks kind of dreamy.

Around Sydney

Our Australia trip had a central theme.....learning about the native animals and birds and trying to spot them in their native habitat. As an introduction, we visited the Featherdale wildlife park outside of Sydney on the way to the Blue Mountains. This was a great place for the girls to get up close with different kinds of wildlife as the park was cageless (except for the aviaries) and you can feed the animals. We met a tasmanian devil, a wombat, koalas, cassowary birds, kookaburras, kangaroos and many more. Later, when we got away from the city and into some National Parks we were able to spot some of these animals.



Sabrina pets this Wallaby trying to take an afternoon nap in the middle of a pathway.



This laughing kookaburra perched on a fence doesn't mind Parrish's gentle touch.


We can't resist petting the roos!

G-day!

We just returned from a glorious 3-week holiday to Southern Australia. I will try and spend the next few days updating the blog with highlights from the trip.

Rob and I have dreamed about visiting Australia for a long time and when we knew the kids would have a 3-week break around Christmas we started to think about Oz (only a 7-hour flight to Sydney).

Our travels began on Dec 23rd in Sydney and ended in Melbourne just last night on Jan 12th. We were able to spend Christmas and New Years in Sydney Harbor. We donned our swim suits (depending on which region you are in, Aussie's call them swimming costumes, bathers or togs) on Christmas day and ate BBQ roast chicken and ham with our good friends, the Swanson's. We ate our dinner on the back porch where we could hear the birds, most notably the kookaburras. They were so generous to have us over for this special day. We met them through the kids school as their daughter Aysha and Parrish are in the same class. The Swanson's are from Sydney so it was nice to join them and have a "family" gathering away from home.