Trip to Blue Mountain

Today is Joe's birthday. Happy to be the same age as him now. Did not managed to buy a cake four days ago for my birthday as we were at Blue Mountain. We just came back yesterday and the laundry was done but the house still quite messy with the kids around. They will be going to school tomorrow. That's a hurray for me as I find them most annoying and loud.

The trip to blue mountain was really quite pleasant. We set off on Friday with many bags of clothings and stuff. We stopped at the Glenbrook Information centre to collect information of the many things that we could do in blue mountain. After that, we drove to Wentworth falls lookout. The walk was about one and a half hour to and fro and the rest of the family was ahead of me as I made my way uphill when getting back to our car. The scenery was magnificent especially the stretch whereby we were at the cliff egde overlooking at the waterfall.. The walking trail could go on and on but we could not do so with Channery with us. In the end, Joe had to carry her and walked the distance back. After the track, we headed to Kotoomba to have ourlunch. After walking around for a while, Charlynn said she would love Thai food so we wandered into a Thai REstaurant. The food was quite nice and cost us about $50. Kids actually was more interested in the play things in the restuarant rather than what they were eating.

We continued our ride and reached our hotel shortly after. The kids were really excited to know that there was a pool table in the hotel for their use. They immediately went out to play after helping to carry in the bags. they had so much fun that they refused to get out of hotel for dinner. In the end, we managed to ask them to come back to the room for their jacuuzi's bath. The bath tub was huge and could accomodate them all. They had their bath and it was "Simpsons cartoon" Time. In the end, Joe, Channery and I drove out to buy our dinner and left the kids in the hotel. They were perfectly happy to be left alone. We took about 35 minutes back and forth and we even bought 2 DVDs and rented a cartton video " Megagasca 2 - Return to Africa". The kids had their dinner and we watched the DVD. The kids were so excited that they continued with the show" Mr Bean's Holiday". We all finally went to bed at about 12plus. The hotel was built in 1876 so it was a really old house so the heating system was not very powerful. Or maybe it was so huge that it required more heating. The room cost us $250 per night and it was bigger than our 2 bedroom house in Campsie. Wondered why they did not convert into 2 rooms instead. We even can walked out to the veranda to have a view of the surrouding environment. When we booked it on the internet, we have no idea what it was like but seeing it was like a Wow! The suite was really beautiful and we even have a kitchen to do our cooking in. So my birthday was spent walking down the beautiful Wentworth falls and having a relaxing time at the Manor house hotel.

The next day we did not wake up early as we were all rather tired after the Movie Marathon. Kids quickly finished their breakfast and headed to the pools room again. They simply so excited able to pit their skills with one another. however, we wanted to be at the Jenolan Cave for the 10.30am Walk so we packed them in car and off we went. The drive to the Cave was very interesting. We drove along the cliff and the sharp turnings made the road trip pretty interesting. I Love driving adventures whereby I get a high when I drove safely through. Joe always says that I love driving so he always let me drive around. Actually I have no complaints as I realized I really love driving as I seem to be in control. Finishing a bend beautifully can be so fulfilling.

The cave adventure was really memorable. We did a self guided tour at first and join the others for the tour of Lucas Cave. Many things to see in the cave and we really enjoyed ourselves. Will show you all some pictures we took. The cave was used as a musical hall for performances. By the time we completed the tour, we were so hungry that we could eat a cow. We went to the nearby cafe and had a quick lunch. After that we drove towards Oberon. When we reached the information Counter we were told that this time of the year was a good time to pick free wild mushroom in the STate forest along the highway. We were excited to be seeing wild mushrooms. When we reached there, we realized that it was not as easy as we thought. There were toadstool and such and the children were complaining of cold. We also had to watch our steps as there were plants with spikes along the forest floor. We decided not to pick any mushrooms as we were having a hard time decided wwhether they were poisonous or not. Children were most elated to be back in the car and we drove back to hotel. Along the way, we stopped at the Farmhouse cafe and bought some lollies and coffee. Afterwards,we stopped at the IGA supermarket and bought some pizza and garlic bread. Children wanted to go back to hotel and had their dinner there so we will heat up the pizza. Saturday was a night whereby the various stations will have interesting movies so we watched programmes on the Tv happily.

On Sunday, we decided to visit " IronFest" which was a big event in blue mountain whereby the people dressed up in medieval time and even staged the war time scenes. It was freezing cold so I ended up buying a set of beanie and gloves for Charlynn. Chantz refused to wear the beanie I bought for him. We bought food there and happily ate the stuff. The boys had the opportunity to do archery. They shot arrows and had fun trying to be Robin hood. The trip to Ironfest was only an okay as we ended up spending quite a lot at the venue. Moreover, the cold winds also made us think twice about visiting it again. The weather was turning very cold and so we wanted to head back to hotel after getting our food. In the end, we had soup and garlic bread for dinner instead of getting food from blackheath as the road was jammed - packed with people heading back to Sydney. We made a u-turn and went back hotel. Everyone was happy to be kept indoors away from the wind and eating the hot soup and bread.

In the night, Channery vomitted again. She vomitted twice the night before and we were kept busy cleaning up the beds. We thought she had stomach flu but seems like she just cough and emptied her stomach. We gave her honey water and that seemed to do the trick. We had a peaceful night and we booked out the next day after clearing up the mess in the hotel room. We did not come back home immediately as we visited a few places along the way. First we went to the Blackheath Lookout and saw the bride's veil waterfall. After that we drove all the way down to megalong valley. The road was turing and winding and I had a good time driving through the forest. The ferns reminded of my old house in Lorong Gambas whereby there were lots of trees and ferns along the road too. After the drive, we stopped at the video shop to collect back our $25 deposit as Joe hd forgotten to do so the day before after returning the rented video. After that, we went to the cuscading falls. We left the kids at the playground while Joe and I made our way down. The trip took us about 30 mins and it was definitely worth it. The scenery was so beautiful and even though I was tired and sweating, I still find it worth the effort. After that we decided to drop by the Toy and train museum but the admission fee was rather high so we decided to skip it. We drove to the next destination - the Gordan waterfall lookout. I nearly stepped on a medium sized snake along the track. Charlynn spotted the slimy creature after I hopped down the steps. Imagine what a fright I had that I nearly got bitten by a snake. The snake head is triangular shaped so it probably was poisonous. Lucky escape for us. The waterfall was pathetic and especially not so nice after seeing the snake.

AFter that, we drove to the Science and Puzzle shop. We had great fun there and bought $74 worth of items after trying out most of the things in the shop. After that, we decided to have lunch at the nearby shops. The children refused to ahve sandwiches so we decided to go to a Chinese restaurant. We ended up having a $64 meal. If I prepared the food myself, it would not cost more than $20. So much for eating out so I decided to cook a simple fried rice for dinner that night.

We fetched JJ and boy he was so happy to see us. We reached home, do our housework and watched the " The biggest loser Finale". Good life and we really looking forward to more trips out as a family.