Clueless Diva

Olde Bluey

It has been a right decision to take the day off on the 2nd day of 2009 to spend the day with Ernest. We have decided to re-visit the Blue Mountains again after our disastrous attempt back in April 2007.

Yesterday the day is so cooling in the temperatures of low 20s. We went in the Skyline and boy do we like its purring power on the highway. No one dares to be faster. Hehe. As we approached the countryside, I was greeted by sights of rolling hills, grass fields and spots of houses. It reminded me of South Island, New Zealand all over again. It was beautiful.

We decided to stop in Leura for our lunch and a spot of shopping before hitting the mountains. It is a tradition of sorts I guess. We did the same with my sister came but we wanted to try some other food other than the Post Office Restaurant. We have done that already. All the other cafe looked either too busy or too expensive so we settled for The Red Door Cafe, so named because of its red door. Everything else in the restaurant is not red at all. Cool.

The Red Door Cafe

Ernest with his omelette

Me with my duck breast salad. It was gorgeous.

Strawberry milkshake for him

And some fancy red lychee tea for me

Leura was a cosy little township with many unique shops and friendly people. I went to my favourite candle shop Moontree and restocked my candles for the year.

Candles!!

Me with my candles enough to last me a year

Everything Moontree sells is exquisite, but we can't afford all of them.

We just love to lost ourselves in their 3 levels of wonderments.

We visited a toy shop where they hand made all the toys on sale, an antique furniture shop, a kitchen specialty shop and even peek at a real estate agent to see how much Blue Mountain property were selling for. They are way too affordable and too tempting for us. Half a mil for a landed 2 storey property with a hectare of land. Wow. That's cheap.

By 3pm, we reckon it's time for us to visit the mountains. The setting sun provides the most optimal photo taking light and it will definitely be more beautiful than the last time we were here cos I keep checking the sky anxiously for rain and clouds.

We took the cliff drive and move our purring car so fast on the roads that if we can close our eyes, we can imagine we are drifting along the curvy mountain roads. Of course we didn't! We just drove a little faster cos there were no cars on the road. hehe.

We parked right at the entrance of Echo Point. There was a bit of anxiety in the beginning cos we saw rangers booking people for not displaying paid parking stickers. We so wanted to pay at the machine BUT we ran out of coins and the stupid machine dun take cards. I had to run into the shops to take out some money from the atm, bought a frozen sugar water stick disguised poorly as icecream to secure some coins while Ernest stood guard over our car to drive off at the slightest approach of the rangers.

We could breathe a little better after we put the sticker label on our dashboard. We walked further and saw the rangers booking a car who parked in a handicap lot. A young woman was there and we presume she is the driver and we looked at each other and laughed. She is NOT going to get out of that fine. As we joked about how she could possibly be let off from that fine, we have reached the lookout which overlook the majestic Table Lands. Check it out.

The 3 sisters!

The 3 sisters and us!

OK we get it....it's the 3 sisters.

The table lands

Tablelands another view. It didn't quite show in the pictures but the ranges are actually blue in colour because of the eucalyptus that's growing all over it. When the sun shines, they gave off that shimmering blue hue that gave the mountains the name.

Ernest was quite excited to see koalas hanging off every tree while we were there cos he reckons eucalyptus = koala food = koalas. Nope. We didn't see any wild koalas. Probably still sleeping somewhere. I would know, I m almost their human cousin, sleeping more than 8 hours a day.

We decided to attempt to do the 3 sisters walk.