Blue Mountains - Big Holidays

After a month with me here in Australia, Marco has left ;-( It will take a while, until seeing him again... hopefully in July!

Immediately after his departure on December 27 we (now with my brother) continued with the second part of our big holidays: from Melbourne, to the Blue Mountains, to Sydney, along the coast to Newcastle and up to Port Macquarie and back which was a distance of ca. 3,700 km.

The first big stop were the Blue Mountains in the state of New South Wales, a range of sandstone mountains roughly 80 km (2 hours) west of Sydney... and over 500 km from Melbourne. The Blue Mountains are not mountains in the usual sense but a sandstone plateau with rugged cliffs, numerous waterfalls and canyons.

The name derives from the evaporating essential oils of the eucalyptus trees. The fine fog causes a blue shimmer which often lies over the mountains, but hasn't been caught really well on my pictures.

The Three Sisters:The Three Sisters are a famous rock formation close to the town of Katoomba and formed by erosion, created when water oozed into small cracks in the rock, gradually enlarging them over time to form large indentations.

But of course also the Aborigines have their own story for their existence. Only that I heard different versions of it. In common is, that they have been three sisters who have been turned into stone to protect them. One story says by their father against an evil water spirit. Another indigenous legend says that three sisters fell in love with three men from a neighbouring tribe, but marriage was forbidden by tribal law. Battle followed, and the sisters were turned to stone by a witch doctor to protect them, but he was killed in the fights and no one else could turn them back... what do you think?

Anyway, we made use of some of the many walks through the rainforest of the Blue Mountains.

...and we left the Blue Mountains to see the Jenolan Caves.