Manly and the Blue Mountains

Hey guys,

So we left off with me getting a phone number and all that on Wednesday. Later that day, my dad and I met up with a contact of my dad's who lives in the Sydney area (Manly to be exact). Manly, along with Bondi, is one of Sydney's premier beaches for surfing and everything else, so it was awesome to be able to get to check it out only two days into my time in Australia. Getting to Manly we had to take a ferry across the Sydney Harbor and I got some great pictures again of the Opera House and Harbor Bridge as the boat carried us away from the city. Then, in Manly, we took a little drive up to the cliff on the coast at the Sydney Harbor National Park and the sights and everything were absolutely breathtaking. After absorbing all of that, we headed back to the Harbor and had a couple of beers on the wharf. Let me tell you, it felt so good to be able to actually legally enjoy a beer. And that was all for Wednesday.

Thursday was a different story. After failing (for the second time) to get my phone contract updated, we drove out to the town of Katoomba in the heart of the Blue Mountain National Park. After checking into a fairly rustic cabin up in the Park, we set off for our first of two bushwalks (Australian for hikes). Unfortunately, there was an unbelievable mist and fog that day so we literally could only see maybe twenty feet in front of us but I managed to still find a way to get some quality pictures. After drying off and resting our legs from the two and a half hour trek, we headed into town to get our first real taste of Australian cuisine. At the Savoy restaurant, I had my first kangaroo. And while it was no NY Strip Steak, it was pretty damn delicious. Then after retiring for the night, we woke up early this morning and took another bushwalk, this time through the "Grand Canyon" on the Blue Mountains. On our way out of the door, we were greeted by an Australian king parrot that was literally just chlling on our doorstep. Anyway, while this canyon doesn't compare at all to the Canyon in Arizona, it was an amazing hike nonetheless. In the first half hour, we walked through forest, then rainforest, then canyon floor, and then we finally up to a gorgeous waterfall. Because I can't put my pictures up yet, check out this month's National Geographic issue and their piece on the Blue Mountains. If you aren't lucky enough to be subscribed, well, just wait for my pictures to go up I guess.

Anyway, that's about it! Tomorrow we're off to Newcastle to watch Melbourne Heart FC take on the Newcastle Jets, and then we're just gonna let the road take us on more of an exploration of Australia.

Until next time, cheers!