Last day of our lovely break

We woke to a clear blue sky and bright sunshine.  It started off very cool (8degC) but warmed up to a lovely 17deg.  Daylight saving ended at 2am this morning so we are still adjusting to the change in time and slept in.  We had a lazy breakfast, trying to persuade Nathan that quite possibly buying an antique from the antique shop might be a rather expensive souvenir of our holiday.  Eventually he decided to have a look for something else so he and Peter went off to Blackheath and Nathan came back with a book of Australian native animals, birds and reptiles.  A much better option, I think :)

We had a long walk through the caravan park and down to a little creek running along the bottom.  It is lined with beautiful tree ferns of all sizes.

After that we wandered over to the park across the road.  There were some very pretty trees with autumn foliage there, some of them small

And some of them very large.

It was really nice sitting in the sun in the park too.  And in one section  there was a group of pretty ferns, about 2 ft high and about 3ft across.  They were really nice.

As we were leaving we saw that a bottlebrush tree actually had second flush of blooms.  Smaller than the first flush but a bright splash of colour.

I had expected that we'd see more autumn colour than we have.  In fact the best we've seen has been in the caravan park and the park across the road.  As we were walking back to the caravan we noticed that some of the trees that we photographed yesterday have actually improved their colour in the last 24 hours.

We had our lunch and sat in our chairs outside the caravan, intending to go and visit the gardens later on.  But it was so nice sitting there enjoying the sun that we felt too lazy to go anywhere.  Nathan was reading his new book, Peter was looking at his book of Australian birds and I was doing some stitching.  We ended up just staying there enjoying the sun.

Later in the afternoon the Sulphur Crested Cockatoos returned as they do every afternoon.  They are really noisy as they come in to the trees, squawking and screeching.  Peter went off and took some photos and they were really active, doing acrobatics in the trees.

Today is our last day here.  Check out time is the usual 10am.  Peter has already closed up the awning and packed away the chairs.  Tonight I did some more mini flowers for the Fairfield.  I ended up painting some that were white but I wanted to make them pink, so I've left them to dry overnight before I pack them away in the morning.  Apart  from that there won't be a great deal to pack up.

We've had a lovely, relaxing time.  It's been a great way to celebrate.  Low key and quiet, but that suits us at the moment.  We'll be sorry to have to leave this lovely place.  But it won't be too long until we go away again.  Grey Nomads Camp is 17th May this year and we are looking forward to that very much.
Blessings,
Sandra

Blackheath, Blue Mountains

7th April 1968

It's our 45th wedding anniversary today and we have gone away for a few days to Blackheath in the Blue Mountains.   It's a lovely time of year to visit the mountains; the autumn colours are starting to show really well and the weather is lovely.  The mornings and evenings are cool but the days are pleasant.

The mountains are only about an hour from our place so it was not a long trip on Friday.  We picked Nathan up from work and actually left by the time we planned - that must be a first for us/

Saturday I had a quiet day.  Peter drove back home to collect some things he'd left behind and decided he wanted.  Then he realized that he'd still left something at home so went back again! So I did a bit of reading, listened to a couple of chapters of an e-book and had a sleep.  Saturday night I made some flowers for the Fairfield garden while we watched some shows we'd recorded.

Today we visited some of our favourite places in the mountains.  One of those is the Three Sisters at Katoomba.

We bought our lunch in Katoomba and ate it at Echo Point looking out over the beautiful valley.  The area was crowded with tourists.  So many accents and languages.  We could see people walking along the Giant Stairway and we tried to work out how many times we had made that excruciating climb: a descent of 300metres (1,000 ft) via more than 900 steep and narrow steps plus runways to the valley floor.  Many of the steps are hewn out of the cliff and metal stairs were installed but an effort was also made to take advantage of natural ledges, erosions and projections.  I've been up and down at least twice or three times, and on another occasion went down the stairway, walked across the valley and caught the scenic railway to the top.  Peter has just done gone down the stairway once, but he did the opposite: going down the railway, across the valley then ascending the stairs.

I'm not sure which is hardest on the legs: going down or coming up again.  We haven't done it since Nathan was born because it would be too much for him and I'm not about to try it again to decide either.  Even people who are very fit find it a challenging experience and it's a long time since I was anything even approaching being fit.

We drove back into Katoomba looking for the famous chocolate shop but were unable to locate it.  So we continued back towards Blackheath and Govett's Leap.  As we approached Govett's Leap lightning started to light up the sky which was rapidly becoming darker and darker.  The view was somewhat obscured by mist but I did manage to get some photos.

Misty outlook 

This photo was taken about the same time today that we were pronounced man and wife all those years ago.      It was taken by a lovely lady who is visiting Australia with her husband, from the UK.  Within half a minute of  this photo being taken the heavens opened.

I had been hoping to take lots of photos of autumn colours while we are away but so far the best colour we've seen has been in the caravan park.

 The trunk on this last one is just beautiful.  Hopefully tomorrow we'll see some more lovely colour even though we're a couple of weeks early for it to be at its best.

 We're planning on seeing the botanic gardens tomorrow if the rain holds off.  And Nathan has decided that he wants to explore an antique shop he has spotted. It's so nice to have even a few days away.

Blessings,
Sandie